[ad_1]
Xiaomi’s latest smartphone has just been revealed. It’s the first to show off Qualcomm’s new flagship chip, the Snapdragon 888. There’s a lot more that’s groundbreaking too. For me though, it’s the cool way that you can measure your heart rate by pressing on the screen that is highlighted. That’s a nice feature that the iPhone 12, among others, can’t match.
Sure, there’s the 108MP camera sensor that uses 4-in-1 pixel binning to create great 27MP shots even in low light. That camera can also shoot 8K videos, by the way. There are also two other rear cameras, a 13MP ultra-wide angle and a 5MP telephoto camera (telemacro, Xiaomi calls it on his blog).
The front camera pokes out through a hole punch – this is not an under-screen type of camera phone, even though Xiaomi has included such technology before.
And while Apple was recently mocked for ditching the power plug from iPhone cases, this phone comes without a power brick.
Of course, the screen is quite advanced. The 6.81-inch display is an AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 480Hz sample rate. All protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.
It’s that screen that contains the cool additional feature, the heart rate sensor.
Other phones from companies like Samsung have included optical heart rate sensors before now, but these have always been on the back, next to the camera. And that’s been one of the issues, that unless you look closely, it was always too easy to smudge the camera lens while blindly searching for the heart rate sensor.
There is no such problem with this configuration. The in-display fingerprint sensor is where you not only unlock the phone, but also monitor your heart rate. It also has facial recognition.
It is not clear exactly how the heart rate sensor will work at this time. Does counting your heartbeat come to life every time you unlock the screen with your finger?
And will the fact that it’s there mean that users will have a much more complete history of their heart rate?
The phone just went on sale in China, so we hope to put it to the test soon enough.
Follow me on Instagram by clicking here: Davidphelantech and Twitter: @ davidphelan2009
[ad_2]