Xiaomi launches the mid-range flagship Mi 8 SE, Snapdragon 710 in tow

Xiaomi unveiled its new lineup of devices yesterday. The company, for the first time ever, released three devices in its Mi flagship iteration—the Mi 8, Mi 8 Explorer, and the Mi 8 SE. Head over to the related articles panel at the bottom of the page for the reports on the first two.

The Mi 8 SE is probably the most interesting device of the three. It sports a 5.88-inch FHD+ OLED display. Of course, like all three devices, it features a notch. The notch on the SE is a tad useless, however, since it doesn’t come with the 3D facial recognition system found on the Mi 8 and Mi 8 Explorer. There’s a regular fingerprint sensor nested at the back of the device, and that’s perfectly fine.

Memory-wise, it comes in configurations of 4/64 GB and 6/64 GB. There's a dual rear camera setup comprised of a 12 MP primary sensor and a 5 MP depth sensor. Not bad, but not exactly impressive on paper either. The front of the device houses a heavy 20 MP sensor for all selfie lovers.

Speaking of the front of the device, Xiaomi says the Mi 8 SE has an 86.12% screen-to-body ratio, which is unbeatable in the device’s price bracket. It’s also said to have the physical footprint of a traditional 16:9 5.2-inch device.

Driving all the technology is Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 710. This makes the Mi 8 SE the first device to feature that processor. The Snapdragon 710 is the first in Qualcomm’s 700-series and offers performance values slightly weaker than last year’s flagship Snapdragon 835. The SE gets its juice from a 3120 mAh battery, and is chargeable via a Type-C port, with 18 W Quick Charge 3.0 keeping thing quick.

It’s available in Black, Red, Gold, and Blue. The base model with 4 GB of RAM starts at US$280, while the 6 GB model will set you back US$300.