After appearing in some teasers and leaks, the Xiaomi Mi Max made its official debut, and it's one of the largest smartphones we’ve seen.
The Xiaomi Mi Max features a 6.44-inch 1920x1080 display with 2.5D glass. Despite its large size, Xiaomi says that its new Android phablet is pocketable, thanks in part to its 7.5mm-thick body. Despite that thinness, though, this gigantic phone is probably going to peek out of your jeans pockets a bit.
The metal-and-glass Mi Max is also packing a 16-megapixel rear camera with dual LED flash and phase detection autofocus. Around on the front there’s a 5-megapixel selfie camera with a wide-angle lens and other goodies to enhance your selfies, like a beauty mode and self-time countdown.
When it comes to performance, the Mi Max comes in three different configurations. The base model offers 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a hexa-core Snapdragon 650 processor, all for 1499 yuan ($230 USD). The step-up model offers the same 3GB of RAM but boosts you to 64GB of storage and a quad-core Snapdragon 652 processor for 1699 yuan ($260 USD), while the top-end Mi Max offers 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a Snapdragon 652 for 1999 yuan ($307 USD).
No matter which Mi Max you choose, you’ll also get microSD card support, a rear fingerprint reader, and a huge 4850mAh battery to match the large screen size.
Powering the Mi Max is Android running beneath MIUI 8, the newest version of Xiaomi’s custom user interface. Some of the highlights of MIUI 8 include a power saving mode that will reduce background app activity, a feature that will limit the apps that launch when your device starts up to reduce power consumption, multi-window management, and a feature that alert you to spam and fraud messages.
A beta version of MIUI 8 will be available on June 1 with a developer ROM launching on June 17. MIUI 8 will be offered to the Mi 2, 2S, 3, 4, 4C, 5, Max, and all Redmi and Mi Note phones.
As for the Mi Max, it’ll be available in China starting May 17. Unfortunately, like most of Xiaomi’s hardware, it doesn’t look like the Mi Max will be making its way to the US or many other countries around the world.
So now that it’s official, what do you think of Xiaomi’s gigantic Mi Max? Would you carry one in your jeans pocket, bag, or whatever else if it were available in your country?