Xiaomi Play teased, but we're still trying to figure it out

We’ve heard murmurings of a Xiaomi Play in recent days, but the Chinese brand has now confirmed the name and teased the device.

Xiaomi posted a series of teaser images on its official Weibo account, while also revealing a December 24 launch date for the upcoming device.

The teaser images show a phone with a waterdrop notch, which could make this one of the first Xiaomi devices (if not the first) with the distinctive display cutout. We also get a glimpse at the rear of the device, showing a dual-camera setup and rear fingerprint scanner.

The rear of the device certainly seems to match up to a Xiaomi device spotted on TENAA in recent days, as XDA notes. The TENAA device (model number M1901F9E) sports the same dual-camera layout, as well as a circular fingerprint scanner.

The Play moniker doesn’t mean it’s a gaming phone though, especially when you look at the specs listed on the Chinese regulator’s website. The listing shows that the phone could have an unnamed 2.3Ghz octa-core chipset, 3GB to 6GB of RAM, and 32GB to 128GB of expandable storage. Ever heard of a gaming-focused smartphone with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage in 2018? Me neither.

We also see a 5.84-inch full HD+ LCD screen and a 2,900mAh battery, which would be rather small for a gaming phone; it’s on the smaller side of mid-range smartphones in general. Otherwise, the listing also reveals that the phone will ship with Android 8.1 (no Android Pie here), and a headphone jack. So those wanting to listen to music while charging can indeed do so.

We’ll need to wait until December 24 for all the Xiaomi Play details but, if anything, it seems like we’re looking at a mid-range phone rather than a gaming-focused device with flagship power.

NEXT: Best Chinese Android phones (December 2018)