Millet MIX 2S Review: From the concept machine completely to the practical school

A few years ago, Xiaomi, born in vain, turned the mobile phone market upside down with a “cost-effective” approach. With the consumption upgrade over the past two years, not only has the consumer demand for products, but also brings Regarding the brand, each brand is seeking ways to increase its own brand image. Some brands choose top level traffic spokespersons, while Xiaomi, which likes to rely on the Internet to start a brand, chose to speak with a product, so the Xiaomi MIX series should be shipped. Health.

From the millet MIX's 'full screen concept phone' to the millet MIX2 'full screen 2.0', the MIX series gradually de-conceptualized, from the concept of mobile phones to the direction of the top flagship. As the top flagship machine, the millet MIX2 is not fully grounded , For example, the most important camera in today's mobile phones has always been the short board of the MIX series. The concept machine can be self-willed. If you want to become a practical flagship machine, you need to have no obvious short board in all aspects. So you can see On the MIX MIX 2S, the addition of dual camera, remove the full ceramic version, it is conveyed from the concept machine completely to the flagship machine. In such a conversion, how exactly does the millet MIX 2S strength, this is what we need today Clear question.

Hardware Configuration:

Millet MIX 2S is very interesting from the naming point of view, mobile phones with 'S' as a suffix of the product we all see a lot, in general, are the previous generation of product changes, rather than a more obvious replacement product. Here we pass the table , to see where this millet MIX 2S has improved.

It can be seen from the table that the millet MIX 2S is more practical than the millet MIX2. The single pixel of the 1.4μm IMX363 sensor has significantly improved compared to the previous generation of 1.25μm, and the Dual PD has a full-pixel dual-core focusing ratio. PDAF has also made significant progress. Compared to the previous generation's improvement in photography, it is more practical for ordinary users. The addition of Xiaolong 845 makes the millet MIX 2S top-class in its flagship temperament.

Design: Continuation of MIX2 design, no surprises or disappointments

The millet MIX 2S continues the previous 'full screen 2.0' design concept. If viewed from the front, the millet MIX 2S is no different from the millet MIX 2 and still features a 5.99-inch 18:9 FHD+ full-screen screen with rounded corners. , Using the same COF packaging process as the previous generation, the width of the chin part is not reduced.

The front camera is located in the lower right corner of the fuselage, the default is slightly tilted upside down angle shot, the actual measurement does not hinder the face recognition, but the self-timer needs to flip the phone. The top is a catheter-type hidden earpiece, hidden on both sides of the ultrasonic distance sensor, these are The direct inheritance of MIX 2 design.

The body design, millet MIX 2S is a traditional sandwich body structure, that is, glass front panel + aluminum alloy frame + ceramic back shell. Among the aluminum alloy frame is 7 series aluminum, higher hardness, to ensure the entire machine Structural strength; while the back of the ceramic shell has a better gloss than the glass, which reflects a good sense of quality. And millet MIX 2 uses a four-curved ceramics, the back curve is more in line with the palm, the grip feel better.

In particular, the millet MIX 2S white version is a silver frame + white ceramic, the black version is a black box + black ceramic, compared to the black version of the one is better. Maybe Due to the consideration of process yield, the millet MIX 2S did not launch a higher-order Unibody all-ceramic version, which made the whole machine less of a taste of black technology. It has to be said that it is a pity.

Millet MIX 2 has been greatly changed on the back design, fingerprint identification centered, dual camera is located in the upper left corner, modeling is very similar to iPhone X modeling, with the vertical arrangement, and slightly protruding from the fuselage, the most is 12 million pixels Wide-angle main camera, 12 million-pixel telephoto sub-photographed at the bottom, flash in the middle.

Overall, the millet MIX 2S continues the design concept of 'full screen 2.0' without much surprise.

Photo test: Get rid of the MIX series of short photos, enter the outstanding ranks

As for the previous MIX series products, both the original MIX and MIX 2, their imaging performance is somewhat unsatisfactory, and the night shooting is obviously a short board. Therefore, Xiaomi brought more positives to the Xiaomi MIX 2S. Improvement measures, including telephoto + wide-angle dual camera, image sensor upgrade, introduction of AI algorithm, etc. We will explain in detail below.

The Xiaomi MIX 2S adopts the mainstream wide-angle + telephoto dual-camera solution. The wide-angle main camera adopts the Sony IMX363 sensor. This sensor has a 12-megapixel output with a single pixel area of ​​1.4μm. It also supports 2PD full-pixel. Dual-core focusing, with F1.8 large aperture and 4-axis optical image stabilization. The sub-camera has 12 million pixel output, F2.4 aperture, and is enabled in double zoom and portrait modes.

In addition, the Spectra 280 ISP built in the Snapdragon 845, compared to the Spectra 180 ISP used in the Snapdragon 835, the Spectra 280 ISP supports a wider color gamut and a higher dynamic range. At the same time, several hardware noise reduction units have been introduced. It is more efficient in multi-frame noise reduction, significantly improving the imaging performance of dark light, backlighting and other shooting scenes.

Contrast with Xiaomi MIX 2 obviously improved

On paper, the millet MIX 2S has significantly improved compared to previous generations. Compared with the MIX 2, the imaging performance has been greatly improved. (Left: Millet MIX 2; Right: Millet MIX 2S)

In the daylight-rich environment, compared to MIX 2, the color of the MIX 2S is more vivid and vivid, the rendering of the blue sky is more eye-pleasing, the picture quality of the two is basically the same, and the macro performance is also in the same level, but the MIX The 2S's focusing experience is clearly better.

At night, thanks to the combination of large pixels and optical image stabilization, the light volume of the Xiaomi MIX 2S is more assured, the brightness of the screen is even better, and the purity is also better. At the same time, if it is zoomed in, it feels a lot less. More detailed details. Experience, equipped with a 2PD full-pixel dual-core focusing millet MIX 2S apparently more outstanding, faster and more accurate focus, less pull drag bellows.

AI scene camera improves imaging

At the same time, based on the AI ​​Engine provided by the Xiaolong 845 mobile platform, the Xiaomi MIX 2S also introduced AI-assisted imaging and introduced the AI ​​scene camera function. Therefore, the Xiaomi MIX 2S can automatically identify the subject in the viewfinder and make it during imaging. Targeted style, parameter settings, improve the final film effect.

In the actual experience, we need to manually open the 'AI Camera' icon at the top of the viewfinder. After the opening, the Xiaomi MIX 2S can automatically identify the subject in the viewfinder and instantly feedback the change of the top icon. According to the author's experience, the time is recognized. Usually controlled at about 1 second. According to the shooting scene, the corresponding icon is also different, such as green plants, flowers, cutlery, cars, etc., is very interesting.

From the results, the left side is shot with an unopened AI camera, and the right side is shot with an open AI camera. In contrast, the AI ​​camera has a certain degree of enhancement in the imaging style. Taking the shot landscape as an example, the AI ​​camera automatically biases the color tuning to saturation. Rich, more eye-pleasing than ordinary mode.

Millet MIX 2S currently supports 25 kinds of tags, up to 206 kinds of scene recognition, involving a variety of weather, scenery, plants, people and animals shooting scenes, can fully meet the daily shooting needs.

In addition, with the system's update iteration, the millet MIX 2S will also support AI flares and present more artistic images. It is worth looking forward to.

More comprehensive portrait mode

Under the portrait mode, Xiaomi MIX 2S is more accurate in identifying the subject's edge, the background blur effect is relatively natural, and the screen has a strong sense of hierarchy and is at the mainstream level.

With a 5-megapixel camera in front, and with the self-developed AI image algorithm, Xiaomi MIX 2S can not only be smart and beautiful, but also can accurately recognize the face contour information, and then blur the background to highlight the portrait and shoot Photo portrait of temperament.

See below for more proofs of Xiaomi MIX 2S.

Overall, the imaging performance of the Xiaomi MIX 2S was a pleasant surprise. It changed our intrinsic knowledge of MIX products, especially the performance of the night beats.

Hardware Test: China-made first Snapdragon 845, performance without doubt

The powerful hardware configuration can be said to have become the gene of Xiaomi's mobile phone, especially for the flagship machine. This time, the Xiaomi MIX 2S is the first one made by the Xiaolong 845 domestic mobile phone, and the engineering difficulty is absolutely not to buy a chip on the PCB. Even Lei Jun is working on Weibo Science: When the development of mobile phones, Qualcomm's R&D performance is relatively low. Therefore, terminal manufacturers need to participate in testing and assist in repairing various bugs. Xiaomi even set up R&D in Qualcomm headquarters in Santiago. To ensure the smooth start of the Xiaolong 845. In this part of the article, we'll take a look at the start-up of Xiaolong 845.

The Snapdragon 835 uses the second-generation Samsung 10nm LPP FINFET process, four performance cores + four energy efficiency cores, with a large core clocked at a terrible 2.8GHz and a small core clocked at 1.8GHz. All eight cores are KRYO 385 architectures. , And the big core supports three launches, so it is likely to be based on the ARM A75's customized architecture, but we do not have to confuse the so-called 'magic reform', after all, the same strain, that is, the difference between ARM's pro son and son.

On the GPU side, the Xiaolong 845 was equipped with an Adreno 630. Its clock speed was the same as that of the Xiaolong 835 and it was 710MHz. According to official data, the Adreno 630 had a 30% improvement in performance compared to the 540 (a little higher than the increase of 540 vs. 530). The consumption is reduced by 30%, and the display interface data throughput is improved by 2.5 times. Adreno also supports OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, Vulkan2, and DxNext standards. It is still no problem to deal with various mobile game development engines.

Of course, for the hot AI, the Snapdragon 845 is not absent. Unlike the Kirin 970, which uses an independent NPU, the Snapdragon 845 is the Hexagon 685 DSP in the SoC, and the CPU and GPU are used to complete the AI ​​hardware. Calculations Specifically, the Hexagon 685 DSP supports 8-bit fixed-point arithmetic and handles application workloads involving vector mathematics. For loads that require floating-point precision, the high-pass filter performs 16-bit floating on the powerful Adreno 630. Point accuracy calculations; the CPU optimizes support for 8-bit fixed-point precision. These three different units use multi-core heterogeneous computing to make each part that is good at handling different data dedicated to the maximum potential.

Objective to run sub-tests:

Since the millet MIX 2S is unable to run GeekBench in the engineering version, we can only temporarily use the Bunny to 'entertain'. In fact, we can also see that the 270,000 running points are currently the top level in Android phones. 845 Whether it is thanks to the micro-architecture core call of DyanmIQ or the application of LPP, the Xiaolong 845's big core has reached a terrible 2.8GHz (basically to a limit state), Qualcomm's performance improvement is still on this generation of CPU. Obvious.

3DMark: Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL 3.1 ES, Xiaolong 835 results: Test 1 is 26Fps, Test 2 is 13.4Fps; Xiaolong 845 results: Test 1 is 31.2, Test 2 is 14.9;

Sling shot Extreme Vulkan, Xiaolong 835 results: Test 1 is 15.4Fps, Test 2 is 6.8Fps; Xiaolong 845 results: Test 1 is 20Fps, Test 2 is 9.9Fps;

On the GPU side, there is no doubt about the performance of the Adreno series in mobile SoCs, especially in terms of core execution efficiency. The Android domain has basically no rivals. Because 3DMark is different from the API used by Android in testing, the iPhone is in 3DMark. The performance has always been unobtrusive (Of course Ignore the number of graphics call in the same frame number Metal can hang OpenGL, so we do not have to tangled iPhone running scores). And just look at the Android phone, Xiaolong 845 compared to Xiaolong 835, On the older platforms such as OpenGL ES, there is still progress. Under Vulakn, the data has been significantly improved, with an overall increase of about 30%, which is basically consistent with the official claims.

Taken together, the theoretical performance of the Snapdragon 845 is approximately 25% higher than that of the Snapdragon 835 in terms of CPU, while the GPU is increased by 30%, and the AI ​​Suite is added. The AI ​​is achieved through the cooperation of DSP, CPU and GPU. Triple performance and Xiaolong 835 results. Considering that Xiaolong 835 gave us a very good experience during the whole year last year,

System experience:

MIUI has always been the leader in Android third-party custom OS. Regardless of function localization or system fluency, last year’s MIUI 9 was highly praised. In addition to these basic functions, Xiaomi MIX 2S also played on the MIX 2S. From the AI ​​card, the voice assistant 'Little Love Classmates' was completely transplanted to MIUI. Actually, whether it was the selling point of the mobile phone itself or whether Xiaomi had already built a huge smart home ecological chain terminal control, this step was not accidental.

The Xiaoxiao Classmate in Xiaomi MIX 2S can be awakened by voice or physical key. The voice needs to set the sound template 'Little Love Classmate' in advance, and then can exhale through voice at any time. The Xiaomi MIX 2S does not have the same Samsung as its Specifically set a Bixby key, but the power button as one of the ways to call out. Press and hold the power button for 0.5 seconds to exhale small love students, the key page will need to press the power button 3S will call out. Simply put, short press is Little love classmate, shutdown page will need to hold the power button for more than 3 seconds.

In terms of function, Xiaoai classmates can access or control Mijia equipment under the current system Xiaomi account after installing Mijia intelligent home control authorization. In other words, you can use the mobile phone as the portable terminal of the entire smart home. Control Center. Compared to the young lover who cannot move at any time, the mobile phone is no doubt more portable. For example, in the winter, you don’t want to get a bed in the cold of the bedroom, but the small love sound is in the living room, and you want to open it through your love. One air-conditioner or TV, you don't need to pull the throat to yell the little lover in the living room. You can also do the same with the MIX 2S.

In terms of semantic understanding, Xiao Ai's classmates have some localized training and can understand some of the software commonly used in localization. For example, to send a red envelope to WeChat XXX, the mobile phone will automatically open WeChat to jump to the red envelope page. Or ask what you are going to wear tomorrow. What is suitable for you? The student will also search for tomorrow's weather based on your questions and give suggestions accordingly. Compared to Siri, the understanding of localization is definitely higher. Built-in application, Xiaoai classmates can basically support better, including listening to songs, opening photos and other common operations.

However, due to the current status of the engineering machine version, Xiaoai classmates currently understand the ancient poetry, travel navigation settings are still not supported, waiting for the follow-up opening.

In terms of AR, this millet is the first product to support Google ARCore. With the continuous development of mobile phone performance, AR technology has gradually surpassed VR, becoming the most important technology field for mobile phones in the future. Google ARCore has adopted motion tracking technology. , Environmental understanding technology, and light intensity estimation technology are three-in-one. Integrate mobile phone understanding of the current environment. MIX 2S is the first product to support ARCore. It also has a game called The Machines built into the mobile phone. On any flat surface, the game screen can be projected on the screen.

And the game screen can change with the change of angle and distance. The whole picture rendering is also quite cool. Although the game story is relatively simple, it is undeniable that, in the future, more AR applications will join us in the future. All contacts occur.

In addition, in Xiaomi MIX 2S, supports full-screen gesture operation, and the optimization has been relatively smooth. And adding face recognition (can be used in conjunction with raising the screen, more practical). Another author is more unexpected is that the millet MIX 2S The front camera is still at the bottom of the fuselage, so it can be imagined that during the recording, the chin is basically facing the camera, but it has no effect on the accuracy and speed. The entire face recognition is smooth and accurate.

Evaluation summary:

From the perspective of product strength, the millet MIX 2S keeps the overall design of the millet MIX2 in appearance, which ensures the cost and mass production of the millet MIX2S. The addition of the dual camera greatly increases the photographing and makes up for the biggest short board of the millet MIX2. Moreover, the starting price of 3,299 yuan is also more accessible to consumers. It seems that Xiaomi MIX2S is starting to define products with a practical perspective. In addition, the launch of the Xiaolong 845 also brought enough attraction to the MIX 2S. Its top flagship mobile phone positioning.

There are a lot of mobile phones that end with 'S', but most of them represent a more mature product. From the naming of the names, it can be seen that the millet MIX series has gradually transitioned from the original concept of positioning high brand image. Became the top flagship series for Xiaomi’s routine. From the initial stunning appearance of the MIX series, Xiaomi’s brand image has been improved very well. The mission of MIX’s “concept machine” has been completed. It has accumulated over a year and a half. The product image of the MIX series has also become known to everyone, and now it has become a 'top flagship'.