I’ve had my fair share of impressive small smartphones this year, from Google’s Pixel 11 Pro to Vivo’s excellent X500 Pro. And after spending time with several foldables and camera flagships, you’d think another conventional slab phone would be boring. So the Xiaomi 18 Pro had a lot of impressing to do, and well, it has me hooked…. already.
I’ve only had the global model for a couple of days, but it’s already made quite an impression. Between its gorgeous finish, useful rear display, and a feature-packed HyperOS 4 experience, there’s plenty here to get excited about. The best part is that Xiaomi has managed to squeeze all of this into a relatively compact flagship.
With its global launch scheduled for November 17 in Paris, here’s what has stood out to me so far.
Vikhyaat Vivek / Digital Trends I can’t get enough of this design
The first thing that caught my attention was the Cosmic Blue finish. It looks absolutely gorgeous in person, with a reflective glass back that has an almost silky, soft-touch quality when you run your fingers across it. Xiaomi has paired that glass with an aluminum alloy frame,
