Like last year, Xiaomi was expected to be at the Mobile World Congress 2017 perhaps with this year’s flagship and successor to the Mi 5. However, this did not happen, possibly because the company wasn’t just ready yet.
Xiaomi Mi 6 is the name of the phone that is expected to step in the footsteps of the Mi 5. Given that the latter was powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC, it is acceptable to think that the Mi 6 will be headed in the same direction as Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. These two are expected to debut with this year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC on board and given that the chipset will not be ready until after this month, it is possibly why the Xiaomi Mi 6 was not announced at the MWC 2017.
Despite the unavailability of the Snapdragon 835 until after the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are released, Sony went ahead and unveiled the Xperia XZ Premium, but the phone will not be available for purchase until June 1, which could be around the same time that the Xiaomi Mi 6 will come to life. So, some rumors are pointing towards an April 16th launch date, but the official availability of the phone is still unclear.
With probably a month before launch, images of the Xiaomi Mi 6 have surfaced from China thanks to Weibo. However, these images are in form of sketches and they reveal quite a few major design details of the Mi 6. There’s a front-mounted fingerprint scanner on the phone and the same button should also work as the home button.
Unlike Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, Xiaomi Mi 6 will stick with significantly large top and bottom bezels, but the side bezels will be very thin. The bottom bezel also houses a USB-C port as expected alongside the speaker grills. It is on the rear panel that gets our attention most, confirming that the Mi 6 will ship with a dual-lens camera along with a dual-tone LED flash.
Keep in mind that these leaked Xiaomi Mi 6 sketches are not anything official from the Chinese OEM. They remain to be rumors and like any other rumor, treat them with some level of skepticism. Still, we’ll keep tracking the development and update you with the latest happenings around the Mi 5 successor. Stay tuned!