Overview

Specifications

What's in the box

For the past year, Xiaomi has managed to withstand its position as one of the leading smartphone manufacturers in China and has made a huge step forward with many innovations and design breakthrough, mainly via the Mi MIX, which will pave its way to the highest grounds on the global market, where top flagship smartphones compete. The Mi 6 is yet another step in that direction and in this review, we will check whether it manages to meet expectations. For sure, Xiaomi has already succeeded in one major aspect in the smartphone market and this is the price/quality ratio. This manufacturer manages to offer some of the best ratios in the market for every device from its portfolio and this fact cannot and should not be overlooked.Xiaomi Mi 6 features a compact body of metal and glass graced by a 5.15-inch IPS display with an FHD resolution. The display panel has a peak brightness 600 cd/m, static contrast ratio 1500:1, and covers 94.4% of the NTSC color space. Hardware-wise, it is based a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 MSM8998 chipset that features an octa-core Kryo 280 CPU combining four 2.45GHz cores and four 1.9GHz cores in a big.LITTLE architecture. The graphics department is managed by a 710MHz Adreno 540 GPU. The model features 6GB of double-channel, LPDDR4X RAM clocked at 1866MHz. The internal storage is of the UFS 2.1 type and measures either 64GB or 128GB. It cannot be expanded. The chipset has an integrated X16 LTE (Gigabit) modem that supports downlink speeds of up to 1Gbps (Cat. 16) with 5CA (Carrier Aggregation) and uplink speeds of up to 150 Mbps (Cat. 13) with 2CA for faster speeds and more stable connections. The supported network bands include 2G GSM (850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz), 2.5G CDMA 800 MHz, 3G W-CDMA (850, 900, 1900, and 2100 MHz), 3G TD-SCDMA (1880-1920 and 2010-2025 MHz), 4G LTE-FDD (850, 900, 1800, 2100, 2600 MHz), and 4G LTE-TDD (1900, 2300, 2500, and 2600 MHz). The wireless connectivity options are quite advanced, too, and include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with 2x2 MU-MIMO, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Display, and Bluetooth 5. NFC with Android Beam and Mi Pay are supported as well. Mi 6 works with GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou for satellite positioning. It is equipped with a USB Type-C 2.0 port supporting OTG and coupled with a headphone adapter to compensate the missing 3.5 mm jack. The camera department includes high-end image sensors. For the first rear camera Xiaomi has opted for a 12-megapixel Sony IMX386 wide-angle shooter with a 6-element lens, f/1.8 aperture, 1.25 μm pixel size and focal length (35 mm equivalent) of 22 mm, 4-axis OIS, 2x optical lossless zoom, and 10x digital zoom. The second rear shooter uses a 12-megapixel Samsung S5K3M3 sensor with a 1.0 μm pixel size, a 5-element telephoto lens with a f/2.6 aperture, and focal length (35 mm equivalent) of 52 mm. The front camera is equipped with an 8-megapixel Sony IMX268 sensor. A 3350 mAh battery supporting Quick Charge 3.0 keeps the lights on. For complete details, here are the full Xiaomi Mi 6 specifications. Xiaomi Mi 6 arrives in a white box with the MI logo on top and designation of the model's variant. In our case - the 6GB/64GB one. On the side of the lid, the full model name is written. On the bottom of the box, there's information about the basic parameters and certifications of the device.Even the flagship Xiaomi smartphones do not offer a lot of extras or do not offer ones at all. The device has all the standard packaging protectors and is placed in the top level compartment. Under it, you will see a black, transparent silicone case for protecting the back and an envelope with the standard documentation and SIM tray pin. Below them, a 5V/3A; 9V/2A; 12V/1.5A quick charger, USB Type-C cable, and headphone adapter (Type-C to 3.5 mm jack) are placed. The charger is compliant with the US standard electric socket, so you will need an adapter if you reside elsewhere.