Mi Mix 4 UNBOXING and Initial REVIEW - Xiaomi's FIRST Under-Display Camera Smartphone.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 is finally here after waiting almost 3 years since the previous Mi Mix device and being that it has first released here in China, I have managed to snap one up quite quickly. That being said, the prices in the top right corner reflect the current Chinese price which I have converted into global currencies since a global launch has yet to be announced and may very well not happen at all. Even though a global launch is uncertain at this point in time, the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 is a huge revolution in the smartphone industry. Not only is it the world's first phone to house an overclocked Snapdragon 888 plus chipset, but it's Xiaomi's first mass-produced smartphone to incorporate an in-display selfie camera and possibly the first device in the world to do it impressively well thanks to a micro diamond pixel pattern display covering the selfie camera paired with transparent wiring and 400 pixels per inch matching the rest of the display. Of course we get a bunch of nifty goodies in the box including a USB Type-C cable, unfortunately only 2.0 speeds and we do have a 4500mAh battery, 120W wired charging which does come paired in the box and 50W wireless charging. The Mi Mix 4 may very well be cheaper than the Mi 11 Ultra but does a couple tricks up its sleeve as well as the in-display camera tech justify its drawbacks. Let's find out in this unboxing and initial review of the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 comes in 3 different color variants, that being shadow grey which is the one that I have, black or white and all 3 of them are coated in a wonderful ceramic which wraps all the way to the display. It looks absolutely phenomenal but it does take away some of its flair when you do indeed slap on that silicone case which comes paired in the box, a premium device with a relatively cheap case. Nevertheless it looks pretty stunning, I wish it was matte however. We do have a Snapdragon 888 plus CPU under the hood which is the first seen in any smartphone in the world to date, LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.1 storage, IP53 dust and splash protection which is a step down from the class leading Mi 11 Ultra's IP68 dust and water protection. All 3 color variants do come with a ceramic back which wraps to the display and the display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus. It is 8mm thick and just 225g in weight. The Mi Mix 4 is certainly no slouch when it comes to optics. We get a 12mm ultrawide snapper which is indeed 13MP, a 24mm main sensor which is indeed a 108MP ISOCELL HMX sensor. Alongside those 2 cameras is a 120mm periscope telephoto lens, it is stacked at 8MP with an aperture of f4.1 and optical image stabilisation as well. And when comparing side by side to the Mi 11 Ultra on the right hand side, the Mi Mix 4 lacks brightness in the ultrawide shots when using the raw 108MP mode once again is a lot dimmer compared to the Mi 11 Ultra. When it comes to binning down, it only goes to 27MP instead of 12.5 as we see on the Mi 11 Ultra and the biggest difference over here, the most noticeable is the 5x optical zoom being a hell of a lot better on the Mi 11 Ultra. When it comes to portrait shots however, I do favour the Mi Mix 4. The cameras might not be as impressive as the Mi 11 Ultra's but I have yet to deep dive into this camera system so do stay tuned for my full review. On the right hand side of the device we have a power button as well as a volume rocker. At the top we have an IR blaster and a top speaker hole and at the bottom we have a dual sim 5G standby tray over here. No expandable storage options available but we do have a water resistant seal which is good to see. USB 2.0 at the bottom as well as the first homocod and audio speaker at the bottom. The second one is in the earpiece and that little hole that we saw at the top earlier. There is an in-display selfie camera over here and for some strange reason there is a cut out in the screen protector for it which is very strange, we'll peel that off in a second. And going into the actual device, we are welcomed to MiUI 12.5 which is nice and clean but still littered with issues. Hopefully we see MiUI 13 extremely soon because I just cannot wait to see what they do in terms of optimisations. The good thing though is that we do have fully fledged Google services on here even on the Chinese variant. We'll get to the full display specifications in a moment but first let's peel off the screen protector so that we can truly see the in-display selfie camera or hopefully not see it at all. It looks a hell of a lot better with it off and you can barely see where it is thanks to the micro diamond pixel pattern 400 ppi screen over the camera to ensure great clarity and reduce a haze effect. When I speak about haze effect, a good example is over here with last year's ZTE Axon 20. Definitely impressive that it was the world's very first mass-produced smartphone to house an in-display camera but it implemented pretty poorly since you can see all the pixelated pixels on the screen. And as you can see without a hole punch in the top left or centre corner of the screen, it looks a hell of a lot cleaner than that of the Mi 11 Ultra. Both the Mi Mix 4 and Mi 11 Ultra come paired with a 27mm 20MP selfie snapper however of course the Mi Mix 4's one is hidden pretty well. When it comes to photo quality using the selfie cam, the Mi Mix 4's 20MP camera is pretty much on par with the Mi 11 Ultra less a hell of a lot of detail and it's a little more washed out. When you switch over to portrait mode it doesn't look half as good as that on the Mi 11 Ultra but you've got to remember that this is still very new tech and it is a hell of a lot better than we saw with the ZTE Axon 20 last year. The Mi Mix 4's selfie camera using video is capped at 1080p 30fps where the Mi 11 Ultra can go all the way up to 60fps at the same resolution and you can see a difference in detail. This is not because of the fps but this is because there's an actual screen covering the selfie cam on the Mi Mix 4 and I did notice that there is a micro diamond pixel pattern effect thanks to that pattern covering the selfie camera but it only seems to be visible when very bright light enters the lens. The pictures might not be the best but the display certainly is great. We have a 6.67 inch amoled 20 by 9 aspect ratio curved display, it is full hd plus, we have 1 billion colors over here, 1300 nits of max brightness, 120 hertz refresh rate and 480 hertz touch sampling rate and while those specs sound impressive when standing on its own the Mi 11 Ultra has even more impressive screen specs. We're talking a larger screen, higher resolution with up to wqhd plus and a higher brightness of 1700 nits but the selfie camera on the Mi 11 Ultra is very much visible. Another thing worth mentioning is that there is no adaptive refresh rates on this panel as we've seen with many recent Xiaomi devices though the 120 hertz is nice and smooth to use on the fly. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 4 is an incredible phone so far, I cannot wait to deep dive into it in my full review. It is definitely a stunning device thanks to the ceramic coating wrapping all the way to the front of the screen but it does have some drawbacks when compared to the Mi 11 Ultra. We'll have to wait and see in my full review to see which one comes out on top. Make sure to like, subscribe and smash that notification bell so that you are notified as soon as my full review drops which should be in the next few days. This is Tech Nick and I'll catch you in the next one.