Before I start this, I would like to put a DISCLAIMER that the whole TechNave team does not share the same view as I do. Well, okay there are some but not everyone. Still, I have been in this industry for eight years and counting. I have reviewed countless smartphones and I didn't realise that I got bored with them after the pandemic and lockdown period. Today, I realised smartphones are so boring now.

The Xiaomi Mi Mix series is another flagship series from Xiaomi and everyone must be familiar with its bold concept design and powerful features. After putting the Mi Mix 3 up for sale in 2018, the series didn't actually get a successor as the Mi Mix Alpha which was announced in 2019 never hit the market. Now, it is speculated that the Mi Mix 4 will soon be announced as Xiaomi opened a new Weibo account for the series today.

After teasing what is arguably the largest megapixel mobile camera sensor yet, Samsung have officially unveiled their 108MP ISOCELL Bright HMX 0.8μm mobile image sensor. The image sensor is a super large 1/1.33-inch in size (great for low light) but also sports Tetracell technology for brighter 27MP images and Smart-ISO which intelligently selects ISO to improve pixel saturation (more vivid images). Coming later in August 2019, it is expected to be available first in a Xiaomi smartphone, perhaps the upcoming Mi Mix 4?

Xiaomi is on a roll this year, after releasing several favourable smartphones such as the Mi MIX 3, Mi 9, Mi 9 SE and the recent Mi 9T in Malaysia, we got news from Xiaomi CEO, Lei Jun on the current status of the Mi and Redmi series, as well as the Mi Max and Mi Note series this year...which won't be happening.

Four upcoming flagship devices appeared on Alipay’s smartphone rental page in China earlier today. Among the devices listed were the OPPO Reno, Huawei P30, Huawei Mate X and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4.

Things are getting pretty interesting in the war against the notches and this time the latest innovation comes from ASUS. From leaked renders by Twitter leaker @evleaks show that the upcoming ASUS Zenfone may sport a dual slider. It was not specified which model of the ASUS Zenfone this could be but it might just be the ASUS Zenfone 6 as the team who created these renders are the same people who designed the ASUS Zenfone 5.

 Xiaomi has just revealed their 100W fast charging for smartphones called Super Charge Turbo. In a Weibo post, President and co-founder of Xiaomi stated that the technology can charge a smartphone from 0-100% in just 17 minutes.

Over at MWC 2019, Xiaomi finally showed off their 5G version of the much loved Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. The Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G features the Snapdragon 855 bundled with the Snapdragon X50 modem alongside 3500mAh battery capacity. Other than that, the phone is pretty much similar to the original Mi Mix 3. 

Redmi’s president, Lu Weibing, started a poll on his Weibo account to determine which display design is the most popular among users. Currently taking the lead on the poll is camera pop up screen. Interestingly, Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s CEO voted for the waterdrop notch display, sparking rumours that the Mi 9 may come with a waterdrop notch.

2018 was quite an interesting year for smartphones, as brands were (and are) figuring out different ways to get around the notch on top of the display, just to maximize the screen-to-body ratio as much as they can. Some didn't bother switching, some made a smaller notch and there were some pop-up front cameras too. But among all these efforts, Xiaomi came out with something that's kind of an ingenious move - a simple slider mechanism on the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and it's currently one of my favourite phones of 2019 so far. Read below to find out why!