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The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. Uh, does it have a screen in the camera push?
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Yip. This is a screen.
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Here the camera interface is shown on the screen. It looks like it only reflects the front screen.
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I decide to believe that Xiaomi designers stared directly at the Nokia 808 while designing the Mi 11 Ultra.
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It comes in black and white.
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That camera bump seems very long.
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The cutting of the front camera would be interesting, but this device still has one.
Xiaomi is poised to launch the Mi 11 Ultra as its next flagship smartphone, and one of the most interesting design touches is a small display size of the stamp size in … uh, the camera bump? The Philippine YouTuber Tech Buff offers an exclusive leak of the device with a few pixels where there are normally no pixels. If you sit there and ask “why?” the answer is ‘attention’. The answer is always ‘attention’. We’re writing about it now, so it’s totally working!
Tech Buff eventually filmed the video, but XDA Developers has a mirror of the video on YouTube.
We do not yet have official specifications, a launch date or marketing information, but the phone turns out to be a fairly standard 2021 flagship with a Snapdragon 888 SoC. The rear contains the largest camera bump in the world, with two large lenses, a “120x” periscope camera (this is not the actual optical zoom rating) and an LED flash. In addition to all the normal camera stuff, a small exhibition, which is apparently the same aspect ratio as the front screen and apparently always reflects the front screen. The video shows the rear screen keeping pace with the front screen while the user navigates around in some apps. Hopefully you can also turn it off for the sake of privacy.
Again, without marketing materials to consult, it is difficult to know exactly what the point of the extra screen is. It can work as a viewfinder if you take a selfie with the rear camera, but it’s hard to imagine using it much more – it’s just as ridiculously small. The phone has a camera on the front so you can still take selfies the old-fashioned way.
By pushing a screen into the camera push, the Mi 11 Ultra means one of the biggest camera pushes ever. The camera push is clearly super high and extends across the entire width of the phone. One advantage of this is that it means that the phone will be on a table. Phones with long camera pushes often swing back and forth when you try to use them on a desk, but they seem to be rock solid.
The white version of the Mi 11 Ultra with a full black camera bump is a dead call signal for the Nokia 808. The phone has been using its giant camera bump for a giant camera since 2012. hardware, and consequently can still withstand the modern flagship smartphone cameras. If we go with these giant camera shots, I wish someone would copy the 808 strategy instead of … whatever it is.