Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi unveiled a new concept phone with an 88° quad-curved waterfall screen on February 5, with the surrounding bezel almost entirely replaced by the screen and no openings or buttons on the body.
Through self-developed glass processing equipment, the glass is molded at 800°C under high temperature and pressure, Xiaomi said, adding that the phone uses a screen stacking design, and the 88° curved surface is only possible with the 3D lamination process.
The phone's bezel is almost entirely replaced by the screen, through 46 self-developed patented technologies that make physical buttons and all openings disappear, Xiaomi said.
The phone enables external sound generation through ultra-thin piezoelectric ceramics, replacing the earpiece with flexible thin-film screen sound generation technology.
The phone also features high-powered wireless charging, pressure-sensitive buttons, and a third-generation under-screen lens, among other technologies.
This is Xiaomi's latest research on full-screen technology following the release of Mi MIX in October 2016 and Mi MIX Alpha in September 2019.
The display is one of Xiaomi's core strategies for cell phones, from the full-screen of Xiaomi MIX to the top 2K screen of Xiaomi 11. In the no-man's land of screen exploration, Xiaomi is bringing the future phone form to reality step by step, according to Lei Jun, the company's founder and chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group.
But it remains unknown whether this new concept device will be mass-produced.
After the release of the MIX Alpha, Lei had said that in an attempt at small-scale mass production, it was initially expected to be available at the end of December 2019 for RMB 19,999 ($3,089).
However, mass production of the MIX Alpha was delayed several times, and Xiaomi announced in August 2020 that it was abandoning mass production of the device.
Xiaomi's Lei Jun says MIX Alpha is too difficult to mass-produce and has been abandoned
(Source: Xiaomi)
