Today, we have found three mainstream full-screen flagship mobile phones on the market, namely Xiaomi Mi MIX 3, Honor Magic 2, and Vivo NEX. Originally, I wanted to make a slide-themed “sliding three brothers mobile phone horizontal review”, but Lenovo’s Z5 Pro we can’t find it, we can only use the vivo NEX to charge. Therefore, this issue of the horizontal review will mainly focus on the comparison of Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and Honor Magic 2, while the Vivo NEX is a supplement.

It is a lift design represented by OPPO and vivo. By installing a stepping motor inside the phone to control the lifting of components that are not placed anywhere, the advantage is that it does not occupy the screen space and the whole process is automated; the disadvantages are also there, the whole lifting type The mechanical structure will take up too much space inside the phone, resulting in increased thickness of the phone, and the durability of use is still doubtful!

Design & Appearance

Finally, it is a comprehensive screen form released recently-the slide full screen, which is represented by our protagonist Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and Honor Magic 2.

When the three mobile phones are in the state of being out of the screen, the recognition is extremely low, and even as a media person, we can hardly tell. Even if the screen is lit, we can only identify the mobile phone through the difference in the system UI. It cannot be said that this is a shortcoming, but the development trend of the full screen. In the end, everyone is a whole screen, leaving it to Product designers have less and less design space, so homogenization is a natural consequence.

The screens of all three mobile phones accounted for more than 90%, and there were no components on the front to block the screen, which is very close to the true full-screen form in our hearts. All three are COF screen packaging solutions, so there is still a certain chin space at the bottom. We suspect that this should be related to cost control. Although the three mobile phones are all flagship, the price is only 3,000 yuan ($434.30) (mid-end price), and there is not enough material cost to use the high-end COP packaging process.

Both the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and the Honor Magic 2 feature a slider design that slides down to reveal sensors, front cameras, and more hidden under the screen. In contrast, the Vivo NEX has to be restrained a lot, only the front camera uses a mechanical lifting structure design, for the reliability of the phone, it is better than the former two.

The Honor Magic 2 screen integrates the under-screen fingerprint and integrates 3D structured light recognition on the forehead of the slider. In contrast, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 has neither a fingerprint on the screen nor a 3D structured light. It is somewhat unreasonable. The Mi MIX series is also known for its exploration. As a result, these two advanced unlocking solutions, none of them.

Regarding the slide experience, the two companies have completely different approaches to this matter. Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is equipped with a magnet structure inside the phone and uses the principle of magnet “reciprocal repulsion, heteropolar attraction” to ensure smooth sliding process. In contrast Honor, Magic 2’s rail structure is more traditional.

In terms of sliding feel, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is hard, the sliding paragraph is obvious, the sound is very crisp, and it needs a little force when sliding. In addition, the wit of Xiaomi is estimated to be worried that the thumb will slip when the user slides and unlocks, so the oleophobic layer is canceled (haha, I have written it myself) to further improve the anti-slip performance of the screen.

The Honor Magic 2 has a very soft sliding feel, and the paragraph feel is not very clear. There is an inexplicable “not strong”. In the daily use, Honor Magic 2 is not bad, but it can’t be compared with the sliding experience of Xiaomi Mi MIX 3. In addition, We also tried to push it slowly to the middle of the track, but it can still be stuck and will not rebind.

Forehead comparison, under the rough view, the design of the three is basically the same, they are concentric R-angle design, and the earpiece and light sensor are inserted into the top frame position, but the vivo NEX is a bit different. The vivo NEX body does not have an earpiece, but instead uses a screen sounding technology that transmits the sound through the vibration of the screen. At the same time, the light sensor is also integrated inside the screen. Actual experience, the effect of “screen sound technology” is not worse than the traditional earpiece, and it is not much better, but it has successfully solved the problem that the earpiece takes up screen space, which is worthy of praise!

Looking at the contrast of the chin area, you can clearly see that all three have a certain chin space, the vivo NEX is the widest, the Honor Magic 2 chin is the smallest, and the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is in the middle. If you don’t look at it, the three are actually similar.

Turning over to look at the back, this is where mobile designers can best use their design skills.

From the picture, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is the most common in the three, Honor Magic 2 has a gradient, and Vivo NEX has a colorful black. But don’t be fooled by photos. The back cover of Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is made of ceramic material. It is better than the other two models in terms of hand feeling. From the visual point of view, the ceramic material of Xiaomi really needs to be strengthened. According to the grapevine news, Xiaomi is already developing a gradient color ceramic back cover!

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 does not have the fingerprint and 3D structure light recognition, so it can only be regressed. The hole is selected on the back, which greatly destroys the integrity of the back and should be reduced.

Vivo NEX is also the back of the fingerprint opening, destroying the integrity, but considering that another version of NEX (the flagship version) has the characteristics of the screen under the fingerprint, and do not need to snap up, we will not say anything.

Honor Magic 2 has a screen fingerprint and 3D structured light, so there is no need to open the hole on the back, plus the design of the gradient color, it is not too much to say that it is the best visual perception among the three.

User Interface

On the system side, we will mainly focus on the ROM to optimize the sliding structure. In this session, vivo NEX is still a companion runner.

The Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 with MIUI 10 can customize the sliding interface, customize some common shortcuts, such as WeChat and Support, the payment code, calculator, countdown, etc., and even the user can choose the slider sound. Other interfaces are no different from ordinary Xiaomi mobile phones, and it is not unfamiliar to be familiar with MIUI.

Honor Magic 2 is equipped with Magic UI 2.0 based on Android 9.0. The overall UI interface style is still Huawei’s EMUI style, and the functional features are not much different. Moreover, Magic UI 2.0 does not make targeted optimizations based on the characteristics of the slider. Only one slider calls out the voice assistant function and expects subsequent functional improvements in glory.

Cameras

The rear camera of Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 adopts a combination of 24 Megapixels + 2 Megapixels. The main camera is the Sony IMX363, which has AI scene recognition function.

The Honor Magic 2 uses a three-shot combination of a 16-megapixel color camera, a 24 megapixel black and white lens, and a 16-megapixel ultra wide-angle lens. The arrangement of the exclamation points of the three cameras looks very awkward.

The Vivo camera of the Vivo NEX rear camera uses the same Sony IMX 363 as the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3, and the sub-camera is a 5-megapixel camera.

The three mobile phones are the flagship machines of this year. The imaging aspect can fully meet the daily use requirements, so we will no longer do boring camera sample comparisons, directly telling everyone that the good fight, are very strong.

Performance

In terms of parameters, it can be described as “Snapdragon 845 vs. Kirin 980”. The difference between the two release time is about half a year. The Kirin 980, which has the advantage of the late release, can use ARM’s more advanced process and architecture. This is somewhat unfair to the Snapdragon 845, but there is no way, who will let them be the current Android camp. The strongest two SOCs!

Starting with the architecture of the two SOCs, the Snapdragon 845 adopts the Cortex-75-based magic transformation architecture, and the Kirin 980, which has the advantage of the latter, directly adopts the latest architecture, the Cortex-76, so the performance is slightly stronger than the former.

Earlier, in the Snapdragon 820 period, Qualcomm adopted a self-developed structure, but since the Snapdragon 835 began, Qualcomm adjusted its strategy to semi-self-research, which is the “magic change” mentioned earlier. Huawei has always followed the design principles of ARM’s native architecture. As long as it is always up to date, this is the attitude of the two companies to the SOC architecture.

In terms of process technology, it is still dominated by Kirin 980. Kirin 980 uses TSMC’s 7nm process technology to maintain performance while maintaining power consumption. Compared to the previous generation processor, the Kirin 970, 25% more transistors were added, and the density increased by 55%. The Snapdragon 845 is a 10nm process technology, and the overall power consumption control will be slightly inferior to the Kirin 980.

There was a little episode about the process. Both Huawei and Apple claimed that they were the first to launch a 7nm process SOC. In fact, neither of them said anything wrong, but it was not accurate. Huawei is the first manufacturer to develop a 7nm process SOC (about two weeks earlier than Apple). Apple is the first SOC mass production of 7nm process technology, and it is put into the iPhone Xs and handed over to consumers. Manufacturer.

GPU performance has always been a shortcoming of the Kirin processor, so this time the Kirin 980 directly adopted ARM’s most popular Mali-G76 GPU, and also designed 10 computing cores, namely the Mali-G76 GPU10. From the theoretical data point of view, the Mali-G76 GPU10 is basically the same as the Snapdragon 845’s Adreno 630 GPU.

Implemented into the game experience, both sides of the mainstream large-scale games have targeted optimization, so the performance is almost the same, the small game does not need optimization at all, relying on its own powerful processing ability can run smoothly.

In general, Kirin 980 is ahead of Snapdragon 845, but only on the parameter level, in the actual experience, the difference between the two is actually not felt. Moreover, the leading advantage of Kirin 980 hardware can last for about half a year, because the next year’s Snapdragon 855 is the challenge that the Kirin 980 really needs to meet.

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and Honor Magic 2 have chosen the “slider” as a comprehensive screen solution. Because the release time of the two is too close, there is no such thing as who copied it. It is not excluded that it is the solution given by the upstream supply chain manufacturers, but only by the two at the same time.

The design of the slider has long since disappeared in the era of intelligent phones. No one expected that in the 2018 full-screen trend, it will reappear in people’s lives in this way. However, it is certain that whether it is a slide design or a lift design, they can only be a transitional solution for the current full screen. It is only the manufacturer that hides the sensor under the screen or integrates it on the frame. The main direction of the force.

Now, most of the components on the front of the mobile phone can be on the border or under the screen or there are other alternatives. Only the front camera is still looking for a solution, which shows the slide design and the lift design. A transitional plan for industry retrogression. Not long ago, it was reported that Samsung is developing an on-screen camera. If the Samsung S10 is officially equipped with a front-facing camera under the screen next year, it will be a good leading role for domestic manufacturers and promote the positive development of the industry.

Manufacturers are working hard to achieve a true 100% full screen, facing the many sensors on the front of the phone, each family is trying to hide it, various solutions are blooming, there is a feeling back to the functional machine era, this is positive It is what we media people most want to see – the difference brought about by product innovation.

Visit Also: Huawei Honor Magic 2 VS Xiaomi Mi Mix 3: Design, Hardware, Features, Review

Verdict

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and Honor Magic 2 are bucket-shaped flagships. They may have different outcomes in certain segments, such as the appearance of the phone, performance, camera, etc., but in general, the difference between the two can be ignored. However, judging from its main selling point “sliding cover”, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is obviously more prepared in this respect, and the Honor Magic 2 is somewhat of a catch on the shelves.

As for the Vivo NEX, as the accompanying runner of this horizontal review, the overall performance is not inferior to the other two, but it is only a low version, the flagship version is more worthy to start if you can tolerate its UI.