Huge Xiaomi phone hits TENAA: is it the Mi Max 3? (Update: renders have landed)

Update, June 20 2018: It looks like the apparent Xiaomi Mi Max 3 listing on TENAA has been updated with images as well (seen below). The renders show a phone with similar stylings to the Mi 6X, such as the vertically stacked camera housing, rear fingerprint scanner, and subtle antenna lines.

Of course, the Mi 6X is relatively tiny compared to this upcoming device. The alleged Mi Max 3 is 176.15mm tall according to TENAA, while the Mi 6X comes in at 158.7mm. The upcoming phone is also taller than the Galaxy S9 Plus (158.1mm) and HUAWEI P20 Pro (155mm).

The TENAA handset is also expected to deliver a 6.9-inch full HD+ display and a 5,400mAh battery (a huge screen and large battery are par for the course when it comes to the Mi Max series).

Xiaomi also recently announced a June 25 event, but it doesn’t look like the device above will debut there. Instead, the company is reserving the event for its Mi Pad 4 tablet and Redmi 6 Pro device.

Original article, June 19 2018: Xiaomi’s Mi Max family delivers big screens at budget prices and it looks like the next in the series, Mi Max 3, could be on its way soon. China’s TENAA communications authority has listed an unnamed Xiaomi phablet with some distinctly “Max” characteristics.

While the listings don’t show any images of the phablet, we can see some telling specifications. The handset comes with a 6.9-inch 2,160 x 1,080 LCD screen (18:9) and 5,400mAh battery.

The previous entries in the Max series had 6.44-inch full HD screens (16:9) and 5,300mAh battery, so we’re looking at a similarly large handset. Xiaomi’s Max phones tend to be their biggest, with their greatest battery capacities.

A big power upgrade on the cards?

Other specs include an unnamed 1.8Ghz octa-core chipset, 3GB/4GB/6GB of RAM, and 32GB/64GB/128GB of expandable storage. We’re guessing that the Snapdragon 636 is powering the Mi Max 3, as the clock speed doesn’t line up with other recent chips (save for the lower tier Snapdragon 450).

The Mi Max series has also traditionally followed the Redmi Note range in the chipset department, adopting the Snapdragon 650 seen in the Redmi Note 3, and the Snapdragon 625 seen in the Note 4. The Redmi Note 5 has a Snapdragon 625 chipset this year, but the Redmi Note 5 Pro has the newer Snapdragon 636. Any other processor for the Mi Max 3 would be a surprise in our book.

Further Mi Max 3 details on TENAA include an IR blaster, fingerprint scanner, a 12MP main camera and 5MP selfie camera (the listing counts three cameras, but only actually lists two), Android 8.1, and a headphone jack.

The Mi Max 2 was launched in June 2017, while the original Mi Max first saw a launch in May 2016. Based on those timelines, the new phone should arrive before the end of July.