Xiaomi on Thursday launched the Mi 8 SE (Special Edition) alongside the Mi 8 and Mi 8 Explorer Edition. It is a great surprise from Xiaomi as most of the leaks and rumors claims launch of more than one smartphone while no one expected three devices coming at once. The Xiaomi Mi 8 SE is a smaller variant of Mi 8 with a mid-range price and slightly downgraded hardware. Never-the-less, the smartphone still features aluminum side frame and glass back which gives a premium look. So, definitely it is one of the best value for money smartphone.
Design wise, the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE looks identical to Mi 8 with a notch display, dual rear camera setup and a slight chin at the bottom. It is one of the first Android phone to powered by the newly launched Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC.
Xiaomi Mi 8 SE Specifications, Features
The Dual-SIM Xiaomi Mi 8 SE flaunts a 5.88-inch (2244 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18.7:9 AMOLED 2.5D curved glass display with 423ppi pixel density, and 86.12 percent screen to body ratio. As already mentioned, it uses Octa Core Snapdragon 710 Soc coupled with 4GB/ 6GB of RAM and Adreno 616 GPU for better performance and multitasking purposes. It has 64GB of internal storage which can’t be extended using a microSD card.
On the camera front, we have a 12MP rear camera with LED flash, 1.4μm pixel size, Dual PD, f/1.9 aperture, and a 5MP secondary camera with 1.12um pixel size, f/2.0 aperture. There is also a 20MP front facing sensor with large 2µm pixels for better low-light selfies.
The Xiaomi Mi 8 SE packs a 3120mAh battery that claims to offer 269 hours of standby, 108 hours of local music playback, 13 hours of video playback, and 7 hours of continuous gaming. The battery comes with support for 18W Quick Charge 3.0 for quick top-ups. On the software front, the device runs on Android 8.1 Oreo based MIUI 9 (up-gradable to MIUI 10).
There is no 3D face ID feature that the standard Mi 8 has, so you need to rely on the fingerprint scanner allocated on the back for your biometric security. The device is just 7.5mm thick and weighs 164g.
Price and Availability
The Xiaomi Mi 8 SE comes in Black, Blue, Red and Gold colors, is priced at 1799 yuan (US$ 280 / Rs. 18,960 approx.) for the 4GB RAM with 64GB storage version and the 6GB RAM with 64GB storage version costs 1999 yuan (US$ 312 / Rs. 21,070 approx.). It will be available in China from June 8th.
