Xiaomi’s waterfall concept phone is mostly glass and all class

Home / Hot Stuff / Smartphones / Xiaomi’s waterfall concept phone is mostly glass and all class

“Don’t go chasing waterfalls,” crooned TLC back in 1994, but Xiaomi evidently wasn’t listening. The company’s latest concept smartphone features a screen that wraps snugly around all four sides of the handset, curving an impressive 88º in a dramatic drop-off that has led Xiaomi to dub it the “waterfall” display. According to the makers, manufacturing a glass panel with four sharp curves is a supremely tricky process that involves bending the sides at a temperature of 800ºC and going through ten polishing procedures – and then there’s the challenge of bonding it to the display. The unibody concept also has no physical ports or buttons, with their functions filled by what Xiaomi calls “more elegant alternatives” like flexible film display acoustic tech to replace speakers, under-display cameras and eSIM cards. As the phone is a concept, we don’t expect it to go into full production, but just like its recently teased Mi Air Charge tech it might be an indicator of what’s in store from future Xiaomi devices. See what can happen when you don’t stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to?

About

Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.