Just yesterday, Qualcomm announced its new flagship chipsets, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, here in Maui. A few hours later, Xiaomi took the stage in Beijing to announce the first phones with these new chips, the Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max. Now, I was able to get some hands-on time with the new Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, the first to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
I didn’t get to spend a ton of time with it, nor did I run any benchmarks. But there’s a lot to like about the new Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, which will see a global release later this year. Xiaomi isn’t waiting for Mobile World Congress, as they have in recent years.
What’s worth noting here is that I only got a chance to use the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, which uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6; the smaller Xiaomi 18 Pro uses the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. There are some differences between those two chips, but they aren’t massive.
It looks like an iPhone, big surprise
It does look a lot like my iPhone 18 Pro, but to be honest, I don’t care. What I do care about is that the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max has a flat camera bump. This is something even Apple hasn’t done. Essentially, the “plateau”, or whatever you want to call it, on the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max is flush with the camera module. So when you sit it down on a table, you won’t see it wobble like you will with a lot of other phones – namely Samsung.
That is actually a big deal to me and a major complaint I have with Samsung phones.
Xiaomi also spent a lot on the back display of the 18 Pro and Pro Max, which the company said became a major selling point for the 17 Pro in China last year. In fact, the Xiaomi 17 Pro sold 105% more units than its predecessor. And it shows. I do still think this is one of those gimmicks that you won’t use much after an hour or two, but it does a whole lot more than Google’s HiLight feature on the Pixel 11 Pro series.
The Xiaomi 18 Pro series is slated for a global launch later this year. Hopefully that is sooner rather than later. Of course, don’t count on it coming to the US. Snapdragon Summit is probably about as close to the US as the Xiaomi 18 Pro will get.
The post I Got My Hands on the First Phone With Qualcomm’s New Extreme Chip, and It Solved One of My Biggest Phone Complaints appeared first on Android Headlines.
