Xiaomi Mi MIX soon available outside of China (but only in Vietnam)

The Xiaomi Mi MIX is generally considered to be more style than substance, but that didn’t stop it making waves when it was announced last year. Xiaomi’s concept phone, which features an unmistakable end-to-end display design, was launched as a China-exclusive handset in November, but the Chinese company has now announced that it will soon be available in Vietnam too.

The news arrived during an event in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday, where Xiaomi revealed it had struck a partnership with distributor Digiworld Corporation to sell products for the first time in Vietnam. At the same event, Xiaomi also stated that the Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4A and a range of Mi Power Banks would also go on sale there.

The Mi MIX’s near bezel-less, 6.4-inch, 17:9 display and ceramic body give it a unique look, but in our Xiaomi Mi MIX review, we argued that the design isn’t always practical. The front facing camera is mounted on the bottom of the device meaning it needs to be flipped upside down to take a selfie and the piezoelectric speaker, which generates sound by vibrating device body, provides poor audio quality. These issues may be addressed in the Mi MIX sequel, however, which has already been confirmed.

Despite that the Mi MIX is going beyond China, this does not indicate that it’s going to make its way to the US anytime soon: Xiaomi is still expected to be more than a year away from releasing products in the States and a company product manager has previously talked about the difficulties of bringing such a device to other markets.

The Mi Mix is available for pre-order from today until March 22 at retail stores across Vietnam.