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A critic might accuse Xiaomi of copying Apple a little too closely in its launch event for the Xiaomi 17 phones, while a fan might say the company is trying to beat Apple at its own game. Either way, it’s pretty clear that the Chinese giant had Cupertino in mind when announcing its new flagship line, even if the phones themselves are more unique, helped by a second screen found on the back of its two new Pro models.
Let’s start with the names. Xiaomi’s last flagships were the 15 series, completed by yesterday’s 15T phones, these are the 17. We’re used to Chinese companies skipping generations with the unlucky number four in the name (OnePlus is jumping from 13 to 15 in its flagships this year, for example), but this is a little different: Xiaomi has been open that it’s going straight to 17 solely in the name of keeping up with Apple’s numbering.
Factor in the introduction of a second size of Pro phone, and you have a suspiciously familiar sounding lineup: the Xiaomi 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max. Just in case you missed the point, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun repeatedly brought Apple’s new iPhones up as direct points of comparison as he personally ran through the phones’ specs at the Beijing launch event, highlighting again and again how its 17 series supposedly wins on battery, performance, photography, and more.
Leica is still Xiaomi’s official camera partner across its flagship phones. Image: Xiaomi
In Xiaomi’s defense, its actual hardware doesn’t take too many pointers from Apple, and the phones have the specs to justify those confident comparisons. The Pro and Pro Max stand out most obviously for the additional display on the back, filling the space where you find the camera “plateau” on the equivalent Pro iPhones. This looks to be used a lot like the cover display on recent flip phones, wrapping around the camera lenses in a similar fashion, with the ability to deliver a viewfinder for selfies, controls for music playback, interactive widgets, and more.
Xiaomi is far from the first company to slap an extra screen on the back of an Android phone, and we’ve seen this form factor attempted numerous times over the past five years or so. Still, those interface improvements delivered by the flip phones may help make this more practical than most. And if all else fails, there’s always the official Game Boy-inspired case that includes functional buttons, turning the back of the phone into a portable console in its own right.
You can use the rear display to frame selfies using the more powerful rear cameras. Image: Xiaomi It will also enable widgets to track travel and the like. Image: Xiaomi But clearly no use case can match this official case to convert it into an unofficial Game Boy. Image: Xiaomi
Otherwise, the two Pro phones are mostly similar apart from their sizes. The regular Pro has a 6.3-inch display, and weighs just 192g. The Pro Max has a larger 6.9-inch display, and is heavier at 231g — though Xiaomi was at pains to point out that it’s both thinner and lighter than Apple’s 17 Pro Max. Its display is supposedly tougher too, which the company demonstrated in a promo video showing a figure skater glide right across the phone’s face — probably one to file under “don’t try this at home.”
Both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, announced yesterday by Qualcomm. They feature enormous batteries too — 6,300mAh in the Pro and 7,500mAh in the Pro Max — with support for 100W wired charging over the universal PPS standard, and 50W wireless.
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