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When the Mi Mix came out last year, it featured a stunning slim-bezel design that we called "the future of smartphones." Xiaomi's "concept" phone threw out a lot of the smartphone conventions—like the location of the earpiece and the front facing camera—and came up with a few other unique features like a ceramic back and a screen with curved corners. In 2017, we found out Xiaomi wasn't the only company with the idea for a slim-bezel phone. Samsung and LG both quickly came out with phones that maximized screen space, and soon it looks like Apple will follow this trend, too. The Mi Mix was the vanguard for this movement, though, and it still has the most extreme design.

For the Mi Mix 2, Xiaomi has changed a few things, most of which seem to be improvements on the original's radical-but-sometimes-flawed design.

First of all, it's smaller. At 6.4-inches, the original Mi Mix was just too big. While the slim bezels let the company fit a bigger screen in a smaller body, Xiaomi still went overboard and made one of the biggest smartphones ever. It was hard to use one-handed and hard to fit into a pocket. Xiaomi says the Mi Mix 2 is 11.9 percent smaller than the Mi Mix, with "only" a 5.99-inch screen. This should put it back into the realm of a normal smartphone size. Xiaomi has changed the aspect ratio from 17:9 to 18:9, just like the flagship devices from LG and Samsung. The 2160x1080 display is still an LCD, and it still has those round screen corners.

Besides the smaller size, holding it should be a lot more comfortable now thanks to the rounder sides. The original Mi Mix was a brick with almost totally straight sides. That choice added to the "big" feeling the phone gave off. Now the sides are totally rounded.

Another problem with the Mi Mix was the limited cellular compatibility. This was a phone made for China, so it worked in China and not in many other places. Xiaomi calls the Mi Mix 2 a "truly global smartphone" with 43 network bands that can be used "almost anywhere in the world," including the US.

The original Mi Mix used a crazy "piezoelectric speaker" instead of a normal earpiece speaker. This basically meant there was no earpiece—the whole frame of the phone vibrated, you stuck it to your head, and you could hear the other person. It seemed to work fine, but in the Mi Mix 2, this unique setup is being replaced by a razor-thin earpiece in the top bezel. This is a much more traditional and simpler solution, and it doesn't seem to add any size to the bezel. The front-facing camera is still at the bottom of the phone instead of the top, so when it's time to take a selfie, you'll have to flip the phone around.

The Mi Mix 2 remains a high-end device, and it upgrades to the latest Snapdragon 835 processor. There are versions with 6 or 8GB of RAM and 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of storage. There's a 3400 mAh battery, a USB-C port, and (sadly) no headphone jack. The OS is Android 7.x Nougat with MIUI 9, Xiaomi's Android skin.

The fragile ceramic back returns on the Mi Mix 2. The standard version pairs it with an aluminum frame, while a "Special Edition" version swaps the aluminum frame for a "ceramic unibody." Xiaomi says this is "a first for any smartphone" and involves "an arduous 7-day process to manufacture." Weirdly, the press release fails to mention why a ceramic unibody is a good thing, but hey, this has one and other phones don't.

The standard version of the Mi Mix 2 starts at RMB 3,299 ($506), while the "Special Edition" ceramic unibody version costs RMB 4,699 ($720). If you haven't guessed from the prices yet, the Mi Mix 2 is launching in China on September 15. For now, Xiaomi only says the phone will "make its way to selected global markets at a later date."