Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 review

A bezel-less screen for half the price of an iPhone X

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Battery life

  • You'll easily get a full day's use from a single charge
  • Quick-charge 3.0 support and power-saving modes
  • No wireless charging

The Mi Mix 2 comes with a 3,400mAh non-removable battery packed inside its 7.7mm-thick body. There's a 1000mAh drop down on battery size when compared to the Mi Mix, but the Mi Mix 2 still manages to impress with its stamina. It easily lasted us a day on a single charge with around 10 to 15% battery left on moderate usage.

With Xiaomi's aggressive app management enabled, the staying power of the Mi Mix 2 is astronomical, but that's largely because it throttles background processes to the point of them being almost useless – hardly ideal when you want notifications to come through instantly.

Having said that, turning off this feature doesn't cause battery levels to nosedive as you might expect and the Mi Mix 2 is still perfectly capable of getting you through a full day without any issues.

Here are some rough estimates when it comes to battery consumption:

  • 20 minutes of browsing consumed 3% of battery.
  • 20 minutes of video streaming consumed 5% of battery.
  • 30 minutes of gaming consumed 7% of battery.

Another plus point here is the support for Quick Charge 3.0. If you are about to head out for a party and have limited time to charge your phone, a quick top-up before you leave will literally give you hours of usage.

We often plugged the phone in for what felt like a short space of time only to discover that it had charged fully and was good to go, which isn't something you can say about all smartphones with batteries over 3,000mAh.

Xiaomi bundles a Quick Charger inside the retail box, but it's not a three-point UK plug so you'll need a travel adaptor. If you have another Quick Charge-compatible charger in the house then you can try using that, but not all will work.

We used a charger from our old Google Nexus 6 and that worked fine. It should be noted also that unlike many other flagship phones in 2017, the Mi Mix 2 lacks wireless charging support.

Camera

  • Rear camera takes good shots in well-lit conditions
  • Front camera placement is aggravating

The Mi Mix 2 comes with a 12MP Sony IMX368 rear sensor which features HDR, face detection and 4-axis OIS (optical image stabilization). On the front, it has a 5MP camera that has been awkwardly placed at the right corner of the chin to achieve the seamless bezel-free design.

The camera software is similar to what we have seen on other MIUI-based phones and takes a lot of inspiration from Apple's software.

The interface is clean and clutter-free and it has all the necessary modes to let you play with the shutter. Xiaomi didn’t try to do anything extra with the rear camera on the Mi Mix 2, like it did with the dual-camera Mi 6. There isn't really a lot special about the camera apart from stabilization and 4K video, which is a shame.

When under a decent level of natural light, the Mi Mix 2 does a stellar job, even if you have very little knowledge of photography. It captures punchy colors with great dynamic range and is quick to focus and shoot.

In low-light conditions the 4-axis OIS aids the camera performance to a degree and the phone's dedicated low-light enhancement kicks in when needed, but image quality is sadly quite poor.

Even when you're holding the phone very still it's common to get blurry photos and there's a lot of noise in dim shots. Compared to the camera on the Pixel 2 or even last year's iPhone 7, this isn't all that impressive.

The front-facing selfie camera is oddly placed and taking a video call via a third-party app is a total mess, with many apps not compensating for you having to hold the phone upside down. The angle is very narrow, too – which is odd when you consider that the trend is for phones to have wide-angle front cameras.

All in all, the Mi Mix 2 doesn't have the photography talents to compete with the best mobile snappers in the business, but in the right conditions it can take lovely snaps.

Camera samples

Latest in Xiaomi Phones
Xiaomi 14 Ultra
If this Xiaomi 15 Ultra camera rumor is true, it could rival the Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus against a houseplant
Xiaomi tipped to set impressive new phone battery benchmark in 2025 – and I hope Apple and Samsung are taking notes
The Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro on a window sill.
Xiaomi Poco X7 Pro review: one of the best-value cheap phones you can buy right now
Xiaomi Mix Flip review open and closed
Xiaomi Mix Flip review: great to use, hard to find
Xiaomi 14 Ultra
The world’s best camera phone is tipped to get even more powerful, thanks to this new 200MP zoom lens
The Xiaomi 14T in Titan Blue against a leafy background
Xiaomi 14T review: considered compromises
Latest in Reviews
WWE 2K25
I've spent days in the ring with WWE 2K25, and it's like a five-star match ruined by the Million Dollar Man
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro electric toothbrush
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro review: A powerful seven-mode, Swiss-made sonic brush
Atelier Yumia
I was already sold on Atelier Yumia as an RPG, but I wasn’t expecting it to have my favorite crafting system in all of gaming
Alienware 27 AW2725Q monitor on desk displaying a scene from Cyberpunk 2077
I played games with Alienware's new 27-inch 4K OLED monitor and now I don't want to see another LCD panel
MacBook Air 15-inch with M4 chip on a creative's desk with screen open
I've reviewed the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) - and it remains the best 15-inch laptop I'd recommend for most people
Samsung Music Frame on a table beside some books and a vase
I spent six weeks listening to the Samsung Music Frame and it kept missing the beat