Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 Defeats The Notch And Revels In Excess

If you are after a smartphone that is just good enough, then you are not looking for the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. That is because the Mi Mix 3 is all about going above and beyond. There are three areas in particular where Xiaomi achieves top billing, becoming the first of its kind from an upstart manufacturer to the North American market.

The first is 5G wireless networking. On October 25, Xiaomi will launch the world’s first 5G smartphone. The US is still struggling with a full 4G rollout, so at this point, 5G capability is little more than a marketing claim. Once it becomes a broader reality in North American, it will be a very big deal — and at least one smartphone will be able to take advantage of it.

Venture Beat reported on the rollout of the new feature-filled phone, singing its praises far and wide.

“Xiaomi announced the Mi Mix 3’s impending release with three promotional posters. A grayscale 5G-focused poster initially debuted in Chinese, showing a jet engine above the phrase “tomorrow always comes too fast” and the “world’s first” claim; a subsequent English version broadened the language. On Weibo, a purple and black poster posited the Mix 3 at the intersection of art and technology, accompanied by an October 25 release date.”

Xiaomi seems to be declaring to the rest of the smartphone world that the “notch” — or the indented portion of the smartphone face dedicated to controls, camera, or audio delivery — is dead.

While everyone has been in a rush to copy the iPhone X notch to avoid looking like yesterday’s news, Xiaomi will be introducing what some are calling a reverse slider to reveal the selfie camera. This allows for a truly edge-to-edge display that is not interrupted by a cutout at the top of the design.

Finally, there is RAM. The Mi Mix 3 will carry a whopping 10 GB of RAM — which is more than what comes standard in many laptop and desktop computers. Besides a curiosity or talking point, one wonders what all that RAM is for.

Looking into the matter, SlashGear tried to find out. It turns out that it is not so easy to utilize 10 GB of RAM on a smartphone. We would need large apps that don’t yet exist to employ that much RAM effectively at once.

At the end of the day, the excess RAM may well be the clue as to what this phone is all about. Most of the world cannot use 5G. Rather than trying to kill the notch, most manufacturers are happy to create physical notches for no good reason, and contemporary consumers seem to be fine with the design intrusion. RAM may just be the new megapixel — in other words, a technological talking point — when it comes to smartphone bragging rights.

The Mi Mix 3 is all about excess. It is also about being ready for a future not yet here.