The Mi Mix 3 is a flagship phone that’s a major contender in the quest for a 100% screen-to-body ratio. It crams a 6.39 display into 93.4% of the front-facing body, making it one of the slickest designs in this category and an absolute joy to use.
It’s also the first smartphone we’ve seen that uses a sliding screen design to expose the selfie camera, which isn’t something you’ll see on every other phone. But it works, and it’s a nifty trick to pull off.
Display
The display on the Mi Mix 3 is one of the best on an Android phone, with up to 600 nits brightness, pleasing contrast, and support for HDR. It also looks great in bright light, with no noticeable brightness drop-off or color distortion when viewed off-axis.
The screen on the Mi Mix 3 is held in position by magnets, which prevents accidental slides. It’s not as smooth as the sliding mechanism on the OnePlus 6T, but it’s still better than most other phones with a similar design.
Its slide mechanism is a clever way of opening up the phone to reveal its dual front camera and sensors. It also acts as a shortcut button, opening an app or bringing up a unique shortcut display with the calculator, flashlight, and voice recorder.
Camera
The dual 12MP cameras on the Mi Mix 3 are an impressive set-up. Thanks to some post-processing magic and AI assistance, they can take photos that are among the best ever scored by DxO Mark mobile.
The primary lens has a Sony IMX363 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and 1.4um pixels, plus a Samsung S5K3M3+ telephoto camera with an f/2.4 aperture and 1.0um pixels. It also has autofocus, optical image stabilization (OIS), HDR, and various AI modes.
The front-facing camera on the Mi Mix 3 takes portrait-style bokeh shots, and it has a suitable AI-driven beauty mode. However, it can fail to recognize many objects, and side-on photos often don’t get the bokeh simulation right.
Battery
The Mi Mix 3 is an excellent phone with plenty of power and versatile cameras. But it’s let down by the smaller battery capacity compared to other phones in this class.
With a 3,200mAh cell, the Mi Mix 3 is a little underpowered – especially compared to some flagships with 5,000mAh or more. Thankfully, it does use its smaller-than-average capacity wisely.
The Tom’s Guide test, which involves continuous web browsing until the fully-charged battery runs out, lasted 12 hours and 12 minutes, above average. This also beats the Honor View 20’s 11:34.
Performance
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 is a speedy phone that delivers the sort of performance you’d expect from a flagship device. It’s smooth and responsive, whether casually swiping through the user interface or playing high-end games.
It also has a healthy amount of RAM, which keeps lots of apps running without slowing down, and its processor (the Snapdragon 845) should be enough to keep any modern app at its best. However, it’s worth remembering that the chipset has been superseded by the Snapdragon 855 – if owning a newer flagship is essential, then better options are available.
The Mi Mix 3’s cameras are excellent, too. You get a pair of 12MP sensors with autofocus and optical image stabilization. The images are sharp and have excellent color information. Low light shooting is also impressive, thanks to the ability to record up to 4K video at 60fps.
Design
The Mi Mix 3 is the latest in a series of bezel-less devices that debuted with the original smartphone. It’s one of the few phones to deliver a full-screen design without any notch or hole punch, and its sliding mechanism is an eye-catching new feature that’s a lot of fun.
The sliding mechanism is a clever way to hide the front-facing camera from view and create an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 93.4%, but it does mean the Mi Mix 3 is a bit on the heavy side. Despite its size and weight, it’s still a phone you’ll want to take with you.
Selfies are a treat, thanks to a dual-camera setup with depth data that can help you make smarter snaps of your friends’ faces. And there are many intelligent features to keep selfie lovers entertained, from virtual studio lighting to an unprecedented number of beauty controls.
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