Chris here and I have in my hands today the Mi 8 Explorer edition finally
it is out and finally shipping from China but it is quite expensive in fact
a lot more you have to pay for this model currently at the time of this
video over the standard me eight that I reviewed so in this video I'm not going
to go into an extreme amount of detail like it did with the other phone there
your standard edition so the me eight I've already reviewed I've covered that
I've done camera comparison so please refer to those videos if you want more
information about the cameras benchmarks and things like that
I will cover only just the minimum here and focus on the three key differences
so this model here has now 3d face unlocking proper 3d mapping it is the
first Android phone to do that it has an in-screen fingerprint reader and
unfortunately that in screen fingerprint reader tech comes at the cost of of the
battery capacity so it's been reduced from three thousand four hundred million
hours in the meet eight to only three thousand now so that's going to impact
of course the battery life it won't be as long on this one as it is on the me
eight and then the rear of it we have a transparent back so you can look at the
layout of the internals but what you're looking at isn't actually the internals
directly they're put like a plastic over the top of it so just looks fancy and
it's very pretty to look at and something different now show me were to
put just the chipset the RAM the ufs storage all exposed and then just the
glass that chipset of course would overheat so you can see the reasoning
why they've done that so this model I picked up here from trading chins in and
it's very hard to get hold of at the moment everyone's got to go through
basically dealers and the price of it is just so inflated but it will be coming
down eventually once more of these get out into the market so you can see the
packaging the box here is twice as big as the typical standard version the me
eight so obviously they've done something a little bit different here
and nothing on the black back of it so just got the slip on the top okay so you
can see there is the phone and they've put a transparent case around it so
that's the same theme of course as the case on the rear of this phone so take a
look and see what else we get in this box here so there's something right here
they've actually put this in anger this time and Chinese so if you'd like
to read that then go ahead now and pause the video and under that we have our
type c2 USB cable but this time around it is red so they've made just an
aesthetic little change there to make it look a little different
and then the little charger so this is rated to 12 volts 1.5 amps maximum
output quick charge 3 and even the charger plug has a red accent to it and
then lastly we have this slip here so this will probably have the warranty
cards and it should have our case hopefully show me has changed the case
here instead a TPU style one and give us something a little different so warranty
card something beer in Chinese the sim tool and then of course the 3.5
millimeter jack adapter so no 3.5 mm headphone jack on this and no micro SD
support so if you need both of those then on this obviously is not the fun to
get so yes it looks like they have changed the case here slightly different
transparent back it on it which is great so you can still look at those internals
and then it's just a rubber around the outside so it just has this protective
film over the screen that's just for transit obviously that comes off and I
will check the weight of it why not just to see if it's going to be lighter or
heavier so 177 grams and 7.8 millimeters thick that's without the camera which
just sticks out a little bit that brings it up then to 8.5 millimeters with for
camera taking a look at that extra wide not sure even that top is or they could
have slimmed that down a little bit but hey you know it's what it is
and we just have to accept that it does have a very nice AMOLED panel on and oh
so the earpiece rather small they did have to size that down for the tick
they've put in here the front-facing camera you can see obviously and then a
little hard to make out because it is quite dark here we've got an additional
couple of sensors right here on the top you can see the middle frame here is
rounded off smooths off nicely we have 2.5 dhhs on the glass and 10 aligns
there and then just the microphone on the top so that secondary mic of course
is for noise cancellation and calls and then for video as well and then a very
minor change here to those metal buttons on the right hand side
they've painted the power button now read the volume rockin is power button
they're both made out of metal they have a good feeling to them and they do not
rattle around like some phones so along the bottom you'll find a single loud
speaker even though it looks like - it's in fact one of them is just the
microphone I'll type C port then two antenna lines so the me eight and the me
eight Explorer they're not gonna win any records here for having the smallest
chin in the world it's still quite obvious there and I really wish that
that actually put capacitive touch menu keys in this space elites make use of it
now that's SIM tray which is on the left hand side it is made out of metal and it
does have a rubber gasket around it so that's gonna help keep out water if you
accidentally did happen to get a little bit on it and even dust - in the long
run and now on to the cool part of the phone here so here's the transparent
back we'll have the layout of the chips head so it says snapdragon on there you
can see and obviously this is all actually just fake but the screws do
look real those screws that are holding it into place there they in fact look
real so the markings on the chip that's Qualcomm logo it says Qualcomm
Snapdragon just below it it says AI engine and then just lists like the part
number for that to make it look like you're looking at the real chips here
and like I mentioned at the start if this was all exposed and this was what
it actually looked like then it would overheat straight away you get thermal
throttling and then with the - a 12 megapixel cameras on the rear it says
dual camera there and it's just listing the fact that it's a 1.4 micrometers in
size the pixels on that main sensor and this area right here you're looking at
that Sears innovation for every one that would be where the NFC antenna is so on
the rear we have the me logo there and you can see another fake printed circuit
board where the realtalk screw screwing it into place and it reads be the
coolest company in the hearts of our users and here it is in the case which
of course fits perfect leads from the manufacturer it says designed by Xiaomi
in Beijing 8th anniversary edition and you can still see all of those pretty
looking internals and around the top it covers the screen nicely so perfect
cutouts there the top microphone for the ports at the
bottom and it does raise up a little bit so if you were to put this flat face
flat down it won't touch the screen but only just overall a very nice case and
feels great in hand build quality of the phone overall is very good it is
definitely a flagship premium phone so the rear of it definitely stands out it
looks a lot different than your typical phone and I actually like it I think it
looks alright it's a nice change so even though what we're looking at is fake I
know that's going to disappoint a lot of people if it wasn't fake and if it was
the shielding electromagnetic shielding the heats better for the chipset
anything this is what we would actually be looking at something like that you
can see with my me six so of course looking at that is not as nice as
looking at even though it's fake this circuit board layout
okay so just jump straight into the phone here I've gone through the setup
already I've covered all of this the display and various other things in my
unboxing video of the standard models this one so please do check that out if
you want more information so it is still not shipping with me away ten that is
still in beta but later on at some point it will be shipping with me UI ten there
now if you're like me you're probably wondering where is the status LED well
here it is it's actually inside the earpiece now they've had to have moved
it and it's just in white so wonder if this is going to compromise that
earpiece even further having to reduce the size of it even over than me eight
standard edition so now I'm gonna add my face here it's asking for your 3d face
data and you can see there is a little disclaimer at the bottom still telling
you that it's not going to be as secure as a password but this myth it should be
a lot better than the 2d face scanning which can be full quite easily so I've
got the camera and all the other rubbish in the way I'm gonna see if I can do
this on camera okay it's telling me to look at it turn my head to the right oh
my eyes wider to my head to the right okay
I think I need to get a little closer okay opem eyes wider is it scanning my
face turn your head to the left done it I load my head
okay actually that is done it took a little while longer because of course
I've got the camera and the tripod in the way there now let's see how this
works so obviously gonna have to wait the
phone first and now that was very quick very quick I'll do that again yeah that
is really fast okay so now you can't see anything I'm gonna try this now in
complete darkness almost and that's still really quick okay it takes a
little while longer but so far that seems to be pretty impressive not bad at
all and then on to the fingerprint reader now so I'm setting it up as you
can see it's your typical setup so you need to move your finger slightly you
get the vibration to confirm it's scanned it and you can see it is
lighting up there on the screen so that's the space we have so that is now
done and I lock the phone and now you can see it's just popped up like the
vivo NEXS and that's been not too bad that is fast I don't think that's too
too much slower really than the real fingerprint reader on the meat eight
okay a little bit slower there try that again so you can see where you need to
place your finger now this been an AMOLED panel I am slightly concerned in
the long run about screen burn so if it's always going to be that set error
eye area I can imagine that after maybe two or three years you will see or even
less than that after you might see a little burn in there so hopefully show
me it's just gonna move that animation slightly but yeah that speed is good
know also did want to check out that dual frequency GPS so it is actually
working properly here getting an accuracy of around about now four to
three meters and it's locking on and using every single satellite and what
was happening with my in the eight the standard edition you could say is that I
tested it again just before I ended up selling that model that it would get the
accuracy of around three or four and then it always keeps showing an accuracy
of about 8 meters double this one here but it seems that that's either
been fixed hardware-wise here or they've fixed it and via software which is good
to see so there we go this is a shorter video from me because yes I've already
covered this mobile phones that's why I just wanted to focus on what is
different here but I can summarize very quickly having owned the Mi 8 for quite some
times I had that one for about six weeks and a year said it is a good phone then
notch obviously you're either gonna love it or hate it
what annoyed me wasn't the size of the knotch more but it was just the fact you
couldn't see some notifications straight away that you had to slide the
notifications down to view everything and it's not gonna be there at the top
that's just a minor thing but it's something you need to bear in mind and
also bear in mind that this model where 400 million hours less means that it
will charge probably under two hours so the full charge times will be faster of
than the Mi 8 in my testing but then the full battery life you're probably looking
about around about an hour less of on screen time so this one will get around
under ideal conditions on wireless continuous use about 8 hours of
on-screen time whereas you'll get around 9 perhaps 9 Plus on them me 8 the
standard edition so it does look really nice I think it actually looks nice I do
like the look of this here and then of course we've got that fingerprint reader
I'll demonstrate that again it's quick not quite as fast as the rear one but
it's a lot faster than I thought it was going to be and I have used the vivo Nix
s I reviewed that one which seemed to be around about the same speed as this
perhaps even a little bit slower there so the speed as I feel is perfectly fine
for that fingerprint reader but you probably won't actually be using it
you'll be using the face unlocking so I lock the phone and then I tap to unlock
and you can hear that confirmation noise that it unlocked straight away so no
one's probably ever going to actually be using the fingerprint reader once you
set up face unlocking my test it was almost pitch black in here there was no
light whatsoever I put the shutters down everything and it worked fine it
unlocked quite quickly now the security wise a password as they even mention
what the disclaimer is going to be more secure than this so it is a nice phone
the build quality is good it has an AMOLED panel right now that price is
just ludicrous in their right mind we'll be buying one
of these only us crazy youtubers that want to review it and get some views I
will be doing something like that so of course wait for the price to drop down
at the moment dealers have got it are this very very limited stock show me only
putting out a few every week or so but once they go past there once a lot of
units are out there they're in the market that price is going to start to
really plummet and then it may be worth considering but me personally if I was
going to be looking between the Mi 8 and then the Mi 8 Explorer it's a
no-brainer for me save the money go for the me eight I mean you got the same
exact phone you've got better battery life on that one unless of course you
must have that really flash looking back on it and you wanna well your friends or
someone with the in-screen fingerprint reader even though you won't be using it
you'll be using the three-deep face unlocking so as I mentioned in this
video a couple of times police do check my review of the me eight and then
camera comparisons are also over in the description further videos on the meet
eight thank you so much for watching and I do hope to catch you back in the next
one bye for now