The Xiaomi Mi 8 is now official and it enters the market confirming most of the rumors. As we mentioned earlier on mpc.com.pk that this smartphone, is released in time with the 8th anniversary of the Chinese company. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, dual cameras and dual GPS. It is also the first official Xiaomi phone with a notch on the display that can be hidden with a toggle. The cutout is used for an in-house infrared solution for 3D Face Unlock that works in a dark environment.

There is also a more exclusive version of the Mi 8, called Explorer Edition. It has an underscreen fingerprint scanner and a see-through back panel that gives a peek to the internals of the device.

Introduced by the CEO of the company, Lei Jun, the Xiaomi Mi 8 comes with a dual camera setup of 12 MP + 12 MP.  It brings AI features enhancement for over 200 scenes and does 4-in-1 pixel binning for better low-light shots. The primary sensor is IMX363 by Sony, while the secondary is S5K3M3 by Samsung.

The Xiaomi CEO proudly stated the phone reached a 99 points overall rating by DxOMark, more than the 97 score of Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s and the iPhone X. The photo category was rated at 105, mostly thanks to a new technology that allows shooting in extremely low-lit environments. It also has AI-enhanced portrait photography that we saw first in the iPhone X back in September 2017.

The front camera is 20 MP with f/2.0 aperture and also jumps the AI hype train with AI portrait selfies and AI Beautify. The face detection sensor separate and is not being used for selfies.

While the Snapdragon 845 chipset was not a surprise, the Mi 8’s staggering 301,472 score on Antutu sure was one. If the result is real, it will be the highest ever reached on the Chinese benchmark platform.

The screen has been increased to 6.21 inches. It uses a Samsung AMOLED panel with an 18.7:9 ratio and with a  resolution of Full HD+ or 2248 x 1080 pixels. The 3.5 mm audio jack was removed back in 2017 with the announcement of the predecessor Xiaomi Mi 6, but at least it provides the option of the USB-C for all connections.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 was announced as the first smartphone with Dual GPS. The phone binds the traditional L1 frequency, used in other phones with the L5 frequency, used mostly by the aeronautical industry. This should make location-based services like navigation more precise than ever.