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Notes up guys KaiLasH here so this is a fun one a couple days ago xiaomi gave me a first look at a prototype smartphone that they've been working on so similar to some things we saw at CES this isn't a real phone with a price tag that has a shipping date or anything like that this is just a functional prototype to show a cool idea they had and that idea is what would happen if you took those.
Curved edge displays and just curve them right over the back all the way around to the back of the phone so you're just looking at full 110% screen and that is.
How we arrived at this the Xiaomi me mix alpha prototype also before we get into it shameless plug the merch is now permanently back so a lot of the stuff you can now just get whenever you want which is awesome shoptaw mkbhd calm first link below the like button that's pretty sick alright let's get into the phone so this is that xiaomi me mix alpha and it doesn't look like any other phone i've ever seen before and i've seen a lot of phones so you might remember there me mix line for a while has been that line of phones where they really push the design to the limits the first me mix was one of my favorite phones for that reason so that's why this one got the me mix name and it's definitely no exception the materials the specs and of course the display are pre next level so there's the frame of the phone which is this titanium alloy which is harder than stainless steel and the camera covers are all made from sapphire and the camera strip on the back here is ceramic i don't have a most pic handy or anything but i tend to believe that because this phone is heavy like it's clearly dense and has a lot of extra material extra glass for the screen etc and the specs not that they matter but they are pretty high-end which shows that they didn't have to sacrifice too much to make this form factor happened.
So snapdragon a 55 plus 512 gigs of ufs 3.0 storage 12 gigs of ram and a 4050 milliamp hour battery that's pretty good.
If anything you'd maybe want to see the battery even bigger but a lot of that space as you can tell is going to be taken up by the screen wrapping around inside the phone and it does have 40 watt fast charging which i will definitely get back to you in a second so clearly the focal point of the phone here is this screen i mean just imagine.seeing someone in person using this.display where you can see it from the front from the sides and from the back this is a 20 88 by 2250 OLED display with a very thin top and bottom bezel.that wrap around to meet the camera strip at the back which is what I'll call it this houses a couple of things including the hundred and eight megapixel primary camera the 20 megapixel ultra wide with macro.
Capabilities and that 12 megapixel telephoto camera and dual LED flash this one also even has an in display fingerprint reader impressively and it's 5g enabled and there's a whole bunch of optimisations in ahammed me UI alpha software like the battery and status bar icons and notification counter are on the side of the phone here instead of at the top so it kind of.cleans up the top to just be a notification pull down and not have to display all that stuff all the time which is kind of neat and it's also just like crazy no matter what angle you look.at it it just doesn't look right like it doesn't look like a real phone it looks futuristic before you even think about.any of the sort of practicality trade-offs also I told you I would mention the charging again I think probably the coolest part of having a wraparound screen like this is the charging animation so go ahead and plug this phone in with the screen off and the whole thing lights up and animates the battery starting to fill up the whole thing like liquid like liquid power flowing into the phone I love this and it doesn't stay on the whole time you're charging that'd be kind of annoying at night but it is pretty damn cool you got to admit and notifications will also do the same thing they'll sort of glow all the way around the screen which is super cool so seeing a stone on video is pretty sweet and that's one thing but actually holding it in person and considering using it is a total different thing and it brings up a lot of questions so now.
That I've actually held it and sort of used it I'm here to answer those questions so first off number one just what does it feel like to hold and use and so to that I'll say like I mentioned earlier it's heavy but what's funny is it isn't as slippery as some of those other glass phones like it seems like my finger is grippy with the display glass better than it is with some other materials and just overall it feels like well you're holding all screen so the immersion factor is very real and then you might be wondering hey wait a second where are the speaker and the selfie camera up at the front great question two different answers so there's a regular speaker at the bottom of the device still but for your phone calls that earpiece is replaced by an electromagnetic speaker basically that's vibrating through the glass to create sound we've seen this in previous mimics phones and there is no selfie camera at the top instead when you hit the selfie button you then flip around the screen to take a selfie with the main hundred and eight megapixel camera now weirdly that the selfie mode doesn't let you switch to ultra wide or do nearly as many things as the main camera modes which is a bummer but in theory this whole flip action takes your selfies to the next level because they're coming from the high-end main camera so all right then how good are those virtual side buttons on the screen okay I'll preface this by saying it's a prototype but they're pretty bad I mean the idea is fine in theory so there's a power button and a volume button on the right-hand side of the screen on the side and when you hit that volume button and you get it just right while it's rejecting the palm touch all over the rest of the screen but it's realizing that you hit the volume button it pops up this slider and then you can adjust the volume on the front no problem by sliding but it really only works for me sometimes like maybe there's a trick to holding it just right where you learn over time how to get familiar with the palm rejection whatever it is but I didn't arrive at this so this was a bummer but then there's the power button on the side that literally just puts it to sleep that one worked more often for me which is nice and there's also still a physical circular power button at the top of the phone for sleep wake that one always works but it's also more of a reach since it's way up at the top of the phone okay so how good is the palm rejection or recognition on a crazy screen like this it's hit or miss as you might expect so Xiaomi dropped off a little info sheet with this phone and on it they say they're using a combination of accelerometers gyroscopes pressure sensors and software algorithms to be able to tell when you're holding it versus when you're actually using it and to properly do palm rejection to me this seems like the biggest challenge for a phone with a wraparound screen there were definitely times that impressively works just fine but I also in terms of other times using the phone had of accidental presses not including that software volume button so it's hit or miss it's impressive when it works but it's really annoying when it doesn't and then what's the back display even good for what's the point well they've so far come up with a couple cool things that number one is the charging animation that I told you guys about already I think that's pretty sweet maybe the number one cool factor and then there's the fact that it takes the stuff from up in the top bar where it typically is and puts it on the sides to keep the front looking even more clean at the top that's alright the camera viewfinder is also a legitimate benefit.
So we've seen it before about using the main camera as your selfie camera typically gives you better selfies so you still get that benefit and then there's the special software mode where it detects when you flip over the phone and it activates this panel with some widgets that are a sort of a quick access type of thing so there's a timer in there the weather stuff like that that's pretty cool too and then just looking cool like that's that's mainly it it just it's pretty sweet to look at oh also another question is there a case for it yes there is I forgot to take video of it but I can show you this photo it literally only has a camera strip to anchor on and then it's sort of sort of protects the outside but not really I don't even know why you would put this phone in a case to be honest just except that you have a super delicate phone and then I want to point out that this display isn't flawless not to be a downer but just like when you were working with a prototype you naturally find a lot of things that could be improved.
This was the biggest illusion breaker of the whole thing was the the edges of the display so right at the apex of those sides where it's rounding over the side there's a gap in the cover glass so it's not all one curved piece of glass there's actually three pieces that sort of connect together but when you run your finger over that apex you can feel it so it's not perfectly smooth and then from certain angles it even catches the light and rainbows a bit and you can really see it so that definitely takes away from the wraparound display illusion there's also a fair bit of yellowing at the very edges that you can sometimes notice if you're looking for it the camera doesn't pick it up as well as your eyes and also this sucker wobbles like crazy on a desk but that's I guess unavoidable there's no other place for it to lie flat the camera bump is literally just a stripe down the middle overall though I got to say I very impressed by this functional prototype a lot of the numbers on paper I don't know if I can really give them full credit like they say it's a 180 point six percent screen to body ratio but they're still bezels at the top and the bottom two point one five millimetres to be exact so I don't know if just because you wrap it around the sides you can say it's over a hundred percent screen to body ratio and also it's funny is on paper this spec sheet again they mention they say it's a 7.9 inch diagonal screen but it's not that big they're measuring it from around the back corner to corner of the display but really it's more like the size of a pixel four or an iPhone 11 Pro max but yeah that's about it in this world where we have crazy concept cars I'm glad that we also get to have these wild form over function concepts smartphones and maybe that idea turns into something someday so let me know if you think of a wraparound display concept in the comments section below would you grab something like this would you want a phone that's that crazy.
Is this completely over the moon form over function no reason to exist let me know what you think thanks for watching catch you guys in the next one peace.
A Closer Look! Xiaomi unveiled the Mi Mix Alpha
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| Mi Mix Alpha |
A Closer Look! Xiaomi unveiled the Mi Mix Alpha, its latest concept phone in the Mi Mix series.
Notes up guys KaiLasH here so this is a fun one a couple days ago xiaomi gave me a first look at a prototype smartphone that they've been working on so similar to some things we saw at CES this isn't a real phone with a price tag that has a shipping date or anything like that this is just a functional prototype to show a cool idea they had and that idea is what would happen if you took those.
Mi Mix Alpha Overview :-
Curved Display
Curved edge displays and just curve them right over the back all the way around to the back of the phone so you're just looking at full 110% screen and that is.
How we arrived at this the Xiaomi me mix alpha prototype also before we get into it shameless plug the merch is now permanently back so a lot of the stuff you can now just get whenever you want which is awesome shoptaw mkbhd calm first link below the like button that's pretty sick alright let's get into the phone so this is that xiaomi me mix alpha and it doesn't look like any other phone i've ever seen before and i've seen a lot of phones so you might remember there me mix line for a while has been that line of phones where they really push the design to the limits the first me mix was one of my favorite phones for that reason so that's why this one got the me mix name and it's definitely no exception the materials the specs and of course the display are pre next level so there's the frame of the phone which is this titanium alloy which is harder than stainless steel and the camera covers are all made from sapphire and the camera strip on the back here is ceramic i don't have a most pic handy or anything but i tend to believe that because this phone is heavy like it's clearly dense and has a lot of extra material extra glass for the screen etc and the specs not that they matter but they are pretty high-end which shows that they didn't have to sacrifice too much to make this form factor happened.
Processor And All Features.
So snapdragon a 55 plus 512 gigs of ufs 3.0 storage 12 gigs of ram and a 4050 milliamp hour battery that's pretty good.
If anything you'd maybe want to see the battery even bigger but a lot of that space as you can tell is going to be taken up by the screen wrapping around inside the phone and it does have 40 watt fast charging which i will definitely get back to you in a second so clearly the focal point of the phone here is this screen i mean just imagine.seeing someone in person using this.display where you can see it from the front from the sides and from the back this is a 20 88 by 2250 OLED display with a very thin top and bottom bezel.that wrap around to meet the camera strip at the back which is what I'll call it this houses a couple of things including the hundred and eight megapixel primary camera the 20 megapixel ultra wide with macro.
Mi Mix Alpha Capabilities and all specific.
Capabilities and that 12 megapixel telephoto camera and dual LED flash this one also even has an in display fingerprint reader impressively and it's 5g enabled and there's a whole bunch of optimisations in ahammed me UI alpha software like the battery and status bar icons and notification counter are on the side of the phone here instead of at the top so it kind of.cleans up the top to just be a notification pull down and not have to display all that stuff all the time which is kind of neat and it's also just like crazy no matter what angle you look.at it it just doesn't look right like it doesn't look like a real phone it looks futuristic before you even think about.any of the sort of practicality trade-offs also I told you I would mention the charging again I think probably the coolest part of having a wraparound screen like this is the charging animation so go ahead and plug this phone in with the screen off and the whole thing lights up and animates the battery starting to fill up the whole thing like liquid like liquid power flowing into the phone I love this and it doesn't stay on the whole time you're charging that'd be kind of annoying at night but it is pretty damn cool you got to admit and notifications will also do the same thing they'll sort of glow all the way around the screen which is super cool so seeing a stone on video is pretty sweet and that's one thing but actually holding it in person and considering using it is a total different thing and it brings up a lot of questions so now.
That I've actually held it and sort of used it I'm here to answer those questions so first off number one just what does it feel like to hold and use and so to that I'll say like I mentioned earlier it's heavy but what's funny is it isn't as slippery as some of those other glass phones like it seems like my finger is grippy with the display glass better than it is with some other materials and just overall it feels like well you're holding all screen so the immersion factor is very real and then you might be wondering hey wait a second where are the speaker and the selfie camera up at the front great question two different answers so there's a regular speaker at the bottom of the device still but for your phone calls that earpiece is replaced by an electromagnetic speaker basically that's vibrating through the glass to create sound we've seen this in previous mimics phones and there is no selfie camera at the top instead when you hit the selfie button you then flip around the screen to take a selfie with the main hundred and eight megapixel camera now weirdly that the selfie mode doesn't let you switch to ultra wide or do nearly as many things as the main camera modes which is a bummer but in theory this whole flip action takes your selfies to the next level because they're coming from the high-end main camera so all right then how good are those virtual side buttons on the screen okay I'll preface this by saying it's a prototype but they're pretty bad I mean the idea is fine in theory so there's a power button and a volume button on the right-hand side of the screen on the side and when you hit that volume button and you get it just right while it's rejecting the palm touch all over the rest of the screen but it's realizing that you hit the volume button it pops up this slider and then you can adjust the volume on the front no problem by sliding but it really only works for me sometimes like maybe there's a trick to holding it just right where you learn over time how to get familiar with the palm rejection whatever it is but I didn't arrive at this so this was a bummer but then there's the power button on the side that literally just puts it to sleep that one worked more often for me which is nice and there's also still a physical circular power button at the top of the phone for sleep wake that one always works but it's also more of a reach since it's way up at the top of the phone okay so how good is the palm rejection or recognition on a crazy screen like this it's hit or miss as you might expect so Xiaomi dropped off a little info sheet with this phone and on it they say they're using a combination of accelerometers gyroscopes pressure sensors and software algorithms to be able to tell when you're holding it versus when you're actually using it and to properly do palm rejection to me this seems like the biggest challenge for a phone with a wraparound screen there were definitely times that impressively works just fine but I also in terms of other times using the phone had of accidental presses not including that software volume button so it's hit or miss it's impressive when it works but it's really annoying when it doesn't and then what's the back display even good for what's the point well they've so far come up with a couple cool things that number one is the charging animation that I told you guys about already I think that's pretty sweet maybe the number one cool factor and then there's the fact that it takes the stuff from up in the top bar where it typically is and puts it on the sides to keep the front looking even more clean at the top that's alright the camera viewfinder is also a legitimate benefit.
Let's talk about camera capabilities
So we've seen it before about using the main camera as your selfie camera typically gives you better selfies so you still get that benefit and then there's the special software mode where it detects when you flip over the phone and it activates this panel with some widgets that are a sort of a quick access type of thing so there's a timer in there the weather stuff like that that's pretty cool too and then just looking cool like that's that's mainly it it just it's pretty sweet to look at oh also another question is there a case for it yes there is I forgot to take video of it but I can show you this photo it literally only has a camera strip to anchor on and then it's sort of sort of protects the outside but not really I don't even know why you would put this phone in a case to be honest just except that you have a super delicate phone and then I want to point out that this display isn't flawless not to be a downer but just like when you were working with a prototype you naturally find a lot of things that could be improved.
This was the biggest illusion breaker of the whole thing was the the edges of the display so right at the apex of those sides where it's rounding over the side there's a gap in the cover glass so it's not all one curved piece of glass there's actually three pieces that sort of connect together but when you run your finger over that apex you can feel it so it's not perfectly smooth and then from certain angles it even catches the light and rainbows a bit and you can really see it so that definitely takes away from the wraparound display illusion there's also a fair bit of yellowing at the very edges that you can sometimes notice if you're looking for it the camera doesn't pick it up as well as your eyes and also this sucker wobbles like crazy on a desk but that's I guess unavoidable there's no other place for it to lie flat the camera bump is literally just a stripe down the middle overall though I got to say I very impressed by this functional prototype a lot of the numbers on paper I don't know if I can really give them full credit like they say it's a 180 point six percent screen to body ratio but they're still bezels at the top and the bottom two point one five millimetres to be exact so I don't know if just because you wrap it around the sides you can say it's over a hundred percent screen to body ratio and also it's funny is on paper this spec sheet again they mention they say it's a 7.9 inch diagonal screen but it's not that big they're measuring it from around the back corner to corner of the display but really it's more like the size of a pixel four or an iPhone 11 Pro max but yeah that's about it in this world where we have crazy concept cars I'm glad that we also get to have these wild form over function concepts smartphones and maybe that idea turns into something someday so let me know if you think of a wraparound display concept in the comments section below would you grab something like this would you want a phone that's that crazy.
Is this completely over the moon form over function no reason to exist let me know what you think thanks for watching catch you guys in the next one peace.
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