Xiaomi’s Mi 8 Pro & Mi 8 Lite will launch in Malaysia this weekend

If you can’t wait for the launch of the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 in Malaysia, the Chinese smartphone maker has another brand new flagship coming right at you. It’s called the Mi 8 Pro and if you’ve been keeping up with the news, you’ll know that it’s basically the Mi 8 Explorer Edition without the high price tag.

Xiaomi Malaysia just revealed on their Facebook page that the company would be having a special in-store launch at four different locations throughout Malaysia. This launch will be held on the 10th of November 2018 and will take place at these four Mi Stores:

Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur

Imago, Kota Kinabalu Sabah

AEON Bukit Tinggi, Klang

Kuantan City Mall, Kuantan

There will also be exclusive gifts for early birds (queue starts at 10.30am). These include what look like a pair of headphones and a backpack worth RM138.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro

Xiaomi’s Mi 8 Pro is pretty much the same device as the Mi 8 Explorer edition — except the fact that it comes with two extra colours. Up front, Mi 8 Pro features a 6.21-inch notched AMOLED display that pushes a resolution of Full HD+. Inside, the device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 flagship processor, 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS storage.

Unfortunately, this smartphone also packs the Mi 8 Explorer Edition’s tiny 3,000 mAh battery, which is 400 mAh smaller than the regular Mi 8. That said, it still supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4+ fast-charging via USB Type-C.

For photos, the Mi 8 Pro packs the same 12MP f/1.8 + 12MP f/2.4 dual camera setup at the back. This gives you a short telephoto on one lens with a wide angle on the other. Together, they can also work to give you bokeh-fied portrait photos.

Good news is, the Mi 8 Pro also carries the Mi 8 Explorer Edition’s pressure sensitive in-display fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the Mi 8 Explorer Edition’s 3D face unlock, so you’ll have to settle for the Infrared Face Unlock that works like the regular Mi 8. There’s still a 20MP selfie camera up front, though.

For now, there’s no information on pricing and availability just yet, but we’ll update this post as soon as we hear from Xiaomi Malaysia. From the looks of things though, it looks like we’re only getting the Transparent Titanium colourway for this device.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite

Besides the Mi 8 Pro, Xiaomi Malaysia is also launching the Mi 8 Lite. As its name would suggest, this is a watered down version of the Mi 8 that’s designed to compete in the mid-range. It was almost as if Xiaomi didn’t already have enough excellent mid-range smartphones.

Regardless, the Mi 8 Lite features a 6.26-inch display up front that also pushes a Full HD+ resolution, but this time uses an LCD panel instead. Not to be confused with the Snapdragon 710-powered Mi 8 SE, the Mi 8 Lite is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor that’s mated to 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of eMMC 5.1 storage.

Keeping the lights on is a 3,350 mAh battery that supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 fast-charging technology, via USB Type-C. Like its Pro sibling, however, the Mi 8 Lite also lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack.

For photos, Mi 8 Lite is equipped with a dual camera at the back with a 12MP f/1.9 aperture main camera and a 5MP secondary sensor for depth effects. In front, the Mi 8 Lite packs a 24MP selfie shooter with a 4-in-1 super pixel feature for better low-light performance.

Clearly targeted at the younger audience, Mi 8 Lite comes in three colourways, though it looks like we’ll only be getting the black and two-toned blue-purple colour variants locally.

Unfortunately, we can’t confirm this yet as details surrounding this launch are still scarce, but we’ll update this post as soon as Xiaomi Malaysia gets back to us.

Edit: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Mi 8 Pro featured a 3D face unlock array. The article has been corrected and the error is regretted.