- 2 days ago
Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max review - the second screen is back...and it's never been this good
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00:00So I've been testing Xiaomi's next-gen flagship phone.
00:03And you know sometimes one phone company will copy another one,
00:06but change it up a little bit.
00:07Well, I've never seen a company change less than Xiaomi has here.
00:11They've adjusted the numbering on their phones to call them the 17s.
00:14They've shifted their naming structure to Pro and Pro Max.
00:17They've announced the phones a month early in September,
00:19all while featuring a very familiar-looking camera plateau design.
00:23Now, clearly, this is a marketing trick.
00:25This is all to make absolute sure that when you think about the iPhone 17 Pros,
00:29that you also think, and maybe even come across, Xiaomi.
00:33And part of me thinks this is really not a good look,
00:35that this kind of cheapens a brand that is otherwise clearly capable of making unique tech of their own.
00:41But then part of me completely gets here.
00:43Because when you actually take the bait and you put these phones side by side,
00:46it draws attention to the really unique things that Xiaomi's doing that no one else is.
00:51Like, oh yeah, did I mention?
00:52Xiaomi's camera plateau is also a full-on second display.
00:56So if you bought a 17 Pro, this is what you'd get.
00:59A super-tall box with a charger.
01:03A 100-watt charger casually in the box.
01:06The USB-C cable.
01:08And a little insert, which has the case.
01:11A lightly frosted hard shell.
01:12That's a pretty high-tier package.
01:14And then this is the Pro Max, which has all the same stuff inside.
01:24So the weird thing about this phone is it looks almost intentionally like a knock-off iPhone, right?
01:28With the naming and the design.
01:30And to be fair, even the user interface.
01:32Like, the home screen's got Apple-style icons.
01:33You pull down from here, you've got Apple's control center.
01:36I'm pretty sure I've even seen some iOS 26 liquid glass inside of here.
01:39I give them a year before they tell us their CEO is now also called Tim.
01:42But the thing is, it doesn't feel like a knock-off.
01:45The display is bright and super high-end.
01:47The borders around it are every bit as thin and even as other top phones.
01:51Every time you press things and click buttons, the haptics are phenomenal.
01:55Very satisfying experience to type and navigate.
01:58Or, let's just try something for a second.
02:00This Pro over here is a pretty tiny phone, right?
02:02It's got triple cameras on the back.
02:04It's got not one, but two displays.
02:06How big of a battery do you think they've managed to fit into here?
02:086,300 milliamp hours.
02:11That's a 25% bigger battery than the iPhone 17 Pro Max and even the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
02:19And so, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, 7,500.
02:2350% bigger than those other phones.
02:25And it translates.
02:26It is giving me stupid levels of endurance.
02:29I feel like I'm a kid again and I go into the candy store and my mom hands me $50 to spend.
02:33You could buy everything.
02:34And because it's achieved using a silicon carbon battery with the highest concentration of silicon so far,
02:39it's not made the phone any thicker or heavier.
02:43In fact, when you pick it up, the first thing you notice is that it's actually lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
02:47Okay, fine.
02:48But they have had to compromise on the performance to get to this.
02:53Psyche.
02:54These phones have 16 gigs of the fastest RAM I've ever seen on a phone.
02:58They've got the fastest storage and they're basically the first phones to have the new Snapdragon Elite Gen 5,
03:03which is the chip that will power most Android flagships next year.
03:07I tried a whole load of tests and benchmarks on it.
03:09And while I wouldn't call it a transformational leap,
03:12it is firmly ahead of this year's crop of Androids like Samsung's S25 Ultra.
03:16It can get quite hot on the sides, but not once have I noticed that actually affecting sustained performance.
03:21So at least it is effectively getting heat away from the chip.
03:24So it's pretty clear.
03:26The phone's fundamentals are crazy good.
03:28But that's what makes this magic back screen all the more interesting.
03:32Because clearly, Xiaomi didn't need to do this.
03:35The Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max are not one-off gimmick phones.
03:39They're not part of a sub-brand.
03:40They're not niche concept devices that are only going to be released as a test.
03:43These are Xiaomi's mainline 2025, 2026 flagship phones that they will most likely release in all their regions.
03:50Which makes them like the one launch that they wouldn't want to be adding a potentially expensive to produce,
03:55potentially gimmicky toy to.
03:57And so the fact that they've decided to go for something so unconventional makes me think one of two things.
04:03That Xiaomi are either A, using this as a very expensive piece of marketing.
04:07Something to get people talking and go viral on TikTok.
04:10Because they know that once someone considers their phone,
04:12they will become impressed by all the other things that it does.
04:16Or B, that they are actually confident that the second screen is the future of the smartphone.
04:21And that it's going to stick around for good.
04:23So, which is it?
04:25Well, let's be very clear about one thing right off the bat.
04:27We have seen rear screens before.
04:29We've never seen them like this.
04:30Because this rear screen has the exact same display characteristics as the front screen.
04:34It's got the same 3000 hits of brightness, the same 1 to 120 hertz refresh rate,
04:38the same touch responsiveness, the same cover glass.
04:40It doesn't feel tacked on.
04:42And the fact that Xiaomi has heroically pre-applied a screen protector to not just the front screen,
04:47but also the back screen has meant that I have not once worried about putting it down on a surface like this.
04:53But as beautiful as it may be,
04:55no one's catching up with the latest Mr. Who's the Boss videos on the three inches between the cameras.
05:00So what can you do with this that you would actually want to do with this?
05:03And this bar over here can summarize how convinced or unconvinced I am by the thing as we go.
05:09So level one, I guess, is personalization.
05:11Xiaomi were telling me that a big part of the appeal of this phone will be the ability to express yourself like never before.
05:17And I wasn't ready for how hard they went with this.
05:19So you've got a whole load of different clock faces, and this is already pretty cool.
05:23You've got really intricate mechanical ones.
05:25You've got simple ones that you can recolor yourselves.
05:27And then even this one with a step counter built in.
05:30So pretty similar to a smartwatch homepage.
05:32And speaking of smartwatches, this stretch face feels like it is literally taken straight from Apple's source code.
05:38You've got pets that kind of interact as you touch them.
05:41Decorate with a spunky little sheep.
05:43Pretty sure that ain't a sheep, pal.
05:45But these are also really high res and surprisingly not that tacky.
05:49Like one of them is this really awesome butterfly cart that can actually swim behind, in front of, and even through the current time.
05:55And then if you don't like any of those, you can build your own.
05:58You can choose whether you want a clock or just text.
06:00You can write whatever text you want and change the color, the font size, the thickness.
06:04Then with the background, it's not just a pre-selected gallery.
06:07You can also generate with AI.
06:09And I've never seen it done like this.
06:10This lets you turn any image into a realistically animated video, custom designed for this rear screen in any one of these styles.
06:18I have fed this thing all sorts of absolutely terrible photos of things.
06:21But each time it comes back with something that is shockingly usable.
06:24From my favorite little plant that I turned into a plushie.
06:27To a selfie that turned me into an anime villain.
06:29This is such an excessively extra piece of software.
06:32But I think that's exactly what this needs.
06:34Because it's such an excessively extra piece of hardware that you need to justify it.
06:37So, so far, I'm impressed, but far from convinced.
06:40Because whatever you set on this display, it's going to spend 99% of its time dim like this.
06:45And then it's only when you tap it that you wake it up.
06:47Thankfully, it does do more than this.
06:49Because then you can swipe down and you've got a music player, which honestly I think looks stunning.
06:54And I can see the use case of it.
06:55You've got some friends over, you're playing music, you want to control it.
06:58But you don't actually want to be on your phone.
07:00You can pin things.
07:01So let's say you needed to remember to buy milk.
07:03You can pin the note for that or a photo of milk.
07:07If that's how you roll.
07:08They have made it pretty convenient.
07:09Because you can even just circle things and the phone will extract the text from that thing
07:13and create this permanent note.
07:15It's like the 2025 equivalent of writing something on your hand.
07:18I'm trying to think of all the things you could do with this.
07:20I guess you could pin a QR code that you want people to scan.
07:22Or if you've just started a business, using it as free advertising.
07:26It's like a tiny little billboard.
07:28It feels like every company now has added some sort of second space to their phone software
07:32to give you small updates.
07:33Like Dynamic Island on the iPhone or the Now Bar on Samsung.
07:36And clearly, Xiaomi are trying to make the second screen their version of this.
07:40So they want this to work with all the meal delivery apps and the flight tracker apps.
07:44But right now, that's all quite limited because it's not launched globally yet.
07:47So the only thing I have now for app integration is if you set a timer in your clock,
07:51then the back of your phone can carry that timer on with this liquid actually depleting along
07:56with your time.
07:57It's actually kind of stressing me out.
07:58There is also a notifications aspect too, which I guess is a very similar concept to nothing
08:03phones where when you're out to dinner, you can stick your phone down so that you're
08:06present, but knowing that if someone calls you or texts you, that you can still see it.
08:10And actually, look at that.
08:13It automatically answers on speaker, but this is just not a very good way to be handling
08:17your call.
08:18Can you hear me?
08:18It's pretty clear.
08:19It's got that standard underwater vibe.
08:21Underwater vibe.
08:22So even maybe while my phone's propped up there.
08:24Hello.
08:25Yeah, in terms of clarity, I can hear you.
08:27Okay.
08:28But it's still just a slightly worse way of answering the call on the front of your phone
08:32because there's no mic at the back here.
08:35So this part of the phone's functionality, I'm not really sold on, especially considering
08:39that Xiaomi actually has their own version of Dynamic Island for secondary things like
08:44this.
08:44But the camera experience, which does also involve this rear screen, is oh my god.
08:50Okay, so the cameras on this phone, I wouldn't call them a breakthrough in themselves, but
08:54they're really good.
08:55The photos it takes are actually pretty much always as detailed as the iPhone 17 Pro Max
08:59is, if not sometimes more, with also incredible dynamic range.
09:02Though it does do something very strange with my skin tone that even if I disable every beauty
09:07setting, I cannot get rid of.
09:08But my suspicion is that's because this model currently being China only means that they've
09:13tuned it to Chinese preferences.
09:14The ultra-wide camera is this tiny little reject at the bottom, and it's kind of like you'd
09:18expect, not particularly good in low light, but it keeps up during the day.
09:22And the zoom is really powerful.
09:24A little heavy-handed on the AI image enhancement when you zoom in a lot, but nonetheless, it's
09:28hard to argue the results aren't impressive.
09:30Here's the thing though.
09:31When you've got a set of cameras that are already really good compared to other 2025 phones'
09:36rear cameras, then that is going to completely obliterate other phones when you compare it
09:40to their front cameras.
09:42I mean, look how three-dimensional and depth-y the Xiaomi shot looks here compared to the
09:46iPhone's brand new revised front camera.
09:49And the way that the second screen is implemented here is awesome.
09:52Because if I'm using the camera on my front screen and I want to turn it around, all I
09:55have to do is to turn it around and swipe.
09:58And then when the camera is active on this rear screen, the front screen switches to now
10:01needing a swipe, which straight away almost completely eliminates the accidental presses
10:06problem.
10:06But the other thing that's really impressive about this is when you're using this back
10:10screen, you basically retain complete camera functionality.
10:14So I can take normal photos, which look crazy good.
10:17I can go to all my different zoom magnifications.
10:19So 2x, I can go to 5x for if you want to capture an absolutely harrowing amount of detail
10:25in your face.
10:26I'm actually so sorry for showing this to you.
10:27You can use the ultra-wide camera, which is actually a tiny bit wider than the widest setting
10:31on the new iPhone's front camera.
10:33Plus also you've got portrait mode.
10:34You can take video and you can take that video in any quality.
10:38So I've been shooting selfie video in 8K resolution.
10:42And yeah, it does look a little over sharpened, but there is absolutely zero doubt in my mind
10:47that this is the highest quality selfie video I have ever taken.
10:51And it's all finished off with this photo collage mode, which is so thoughtfully designed.
10:56You take a few photos back to back and it puts them together into a Polaroid, very much
11:00like a photo booth that then lets you hit one button over here to actually print.
11:04I'm just so taken aback by the amount of effort that's gone into custom graphics and animations
11:08for this one tiny feature on this one tiny second screen.
11:12Now, this isn't flawless.
11:13I wouldn't say that this is a completely intuitive gesture that you're going to want to do 15
11:17times a day.
11:18And if you think about it, modern day flip phones can do the same thing with their rear
11:21cameras on the front, but straight away the moment you take them out your pocket.
11:25But then none of them have cameras this good.
11:27I will say the camera experience here is such a big perk that it straight away on its own
11:32takes me to quite close to the fence.
11:34And then the strangest cherry on top ever, you can even game on this second screen.
11:41Xiaomi have actually gone as far as to create a completely bespoke case that is a working
11:47controller for the phone that is wirelessly powered by the phone to be able to game on
11:51this sub three inch display.
11:53So the case clips onto the back of here.
11:56When you hold this power button, it turns on and the back screen recognizes it immediately.
11:59And then it's got this entirely bespoke gaming interface.
12:04Why does it look so good?
12:05So let's just load up Angry Birds.
12:07And even the controls feel really good for buttons that have like a two millimeter travel
12:11distance.
12:11They've even built bespoke tutorials designed around the buttons Xiaomi's using here.
12:16It's such a strange little gaming experience.
12:18It's this tiny little screen, but the game looks and runs fantastic.
12:22I'm so in awe while also knowing that I will never ever actually play like this.
12:27So on balance, I'm nearly convinced by this back screen, but not quite.
12:33I think the camera stuff is majorly useful.
12:35I think the music control and the sheer level of personalization is so cool, but most of
12:39the rest of the stuff does feel like filler.
12:41And this gaming case is like the definition of let's do something crazy because it will make
12:45for great headlines and YouTube shorts.
12:47But this whole thing has successfully drawn my attention to the phone.
12:51And now my attention is on the phone.
12:54I like what I see.
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