A Look at xiaomi 18 Pro leak: Major design upgrade incoming

Colour options for the Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max have emerged online, alongside the suggestion of a shift in the use of materials.

We’ve heard plenty about Xiaomi’s forthcoming flagship update, from claims of a camera upgrade to news of an impressive display.

Now, established leaker Digital Chat Station has issued a Weibo post which reveals key design details for the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max.

According to the post, these two flagship phones will retain much the same design as the Xiaomi 17 equivalents (see title image), which means that they’ll feature the same quirky secondary displays.

Initial engineering samples apparently shoe the phones in black, white, pink, blue, and red, which the tipster calls “a very rich colour selection”.

Xiaomi

Living in a material world

That’s not the most interesting news about the Xiaomi 18 Pro’s design, you’ll be relieved to hear. Responding to a question below this initial post, the leaker claims that the two phones will not use pure glass in the rear panel.

This suggests that the main design innovation with the Xiaomi 18 Pro duo will be the switch to a fibreglass material on the back cover, which uses a blend of glass and liquid plastic resin.

The benefits of this switch can include a lighter weight and greater shatter resistance, as well as the potential for a lower production cost (crucial given the current component pricing squeeze).

Previous rumours have suggested that the smaller Xiaomi 18 Pro could pack a pair of 200Mp cameras, while we’ve also heard that the larger Xiaomi 18 Pro Max will feature a new 6.9-inch LIPO screen that can drop as low as 1 nit of brightness, and which will support the BT.2020 wide gamut colour space.

We’re expecting both to be announced in September, immediately following the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit. As that suggests, the Xiaomi 18 Pro series should be one of the first to launch with the new flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip.