Never mind Pixel HiLight: These upcoming Pro flagships will officially have a rear screen

Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi 17 Pro phones a year ago, and these devices stood out thanks to a rear display. Now, Xiaomi has announced that the Xiaomi 18 Pro series is coming, and there’s good news if you want a rear screen.

Xiaomi announced on Weibo that the Xiaomi 18 Pro series is coming. It also revealed that the series will offer a “brand-new” rear screen, and an accompanying teaser video shows a large display. Check out the clip below.

For what it’s worth, the screen shown here seems to be roughly the same size as the Xiaomi 17 Pro family’s rear panel. So it looks like you shouldn’t expect a significantly larger display. Otherwise, we edited a screenshot (see image at the top) and can spot a third camera and flash just below the panel. This would also be in line with last year’s phone. We can also see an extra hardware button on the side of the device.

The Xiaomi 17 Pro’s rear screen offered features like media controls, a rear camera viewfinder, alarm/stopwatch/timer/clock capabilities, call controls, flight info, interactive pets, delivery notifications, and more. But I hope the Xiaomi 18 Pro brings even more features to the table. Still, this seems like a more useful addition than Google’s HiLight LED on the Pixel 11 series.

It’s also worth noting that the previous Pro phones weren’t launched outside China. However, we hope the Xiaomi 18 Pro phones are released globally and that major app developers (e.g., Google, Meta, Uber) support the rear panel.