The Mi 7 is likely being re-developed, will now feature a notch

Xiaomi's main flagship for the year, the Mi 7, has gone under the radar over the past few weeks, with the company preferring to drum up attention for the Mi Mix 2S. Three weeks ago, a report by XDA threw some light on what the flagship would offer, but a new firmware file from the device suggests that the company may have made significant changes to it.

According to the report, the firmware has files that allude to the presence of a notch. There's a ro.miui.notch line in the build.prop, for example, and it's set to "True". There are also other micro files in some of the system apps that strongly indicate we'll be getting a notch on the device. The topic of the notch is a tad overbeaten at this point, so we're not going to go into whether we think it's a positive development or not—you can read our thoughts on that here. 

The Mi Mix 2S has been all but confirmed to also feature a notch; it's a good-looking notch, though—one that we can get behind, so we can only hope the Mi 7 gives us something similar and not an iPhone X-esque cutout.

Notch aside, the phone seems to have seen a slight battery boost, going from the previously touted 3170 mAh battery to a 3400 mAh unit. Good work by Xiaomi if that turns out to be true. There's also what appears to be an IR camera. The camera is likely going to be for some form of face unlock. It's also reasonable justification for the presence of the notch.

As usual, none of this is actually confirmed. We'll be sure to keep you updated on future developments, though.