Last week Xiaomi showed off a render of the upcoming Mi Mix 3 flagship that revealed its notch-dodging slider mechanism, and now product management director Donovan Sung has followed up with a photo confirming another feature: 5G support. The phone is set to be launched in October, far earlier than any 5G networks are going to be up and running, but Sung says the company “can’t wait for the official rollout of 5G next year.”
As for what we can expect from Xiaomi’s precise implementation of 5G, Sung cites download speeds that are “more than 10x faster than 4G speeds,” which isn’t much to go on given the huge variation in 4G technologies. The photo shows the Mi Mix 3 using various bands at a test facility, including one LTE connection that could be an “anchor band” for the 5G connectivity, but it doesn’t really tell us a lot about the phone’s theoretical capabilities. A lot will depend on the kind of networks that operators actually roll out around the world.
Still, this is the most notable device with 5G support announced to date. The Moto Z3 will get 5G compatibility through a Moto Mod with a Snapdragon X50 modem, while Huawei and LG have both announced plans to release 5G phones in the first half of next year, but that’s about it so far.