Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max debuted today, and they are the first phones to offer Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro/Extreme chips. The SoC division is new, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Xiaomi essentially doubled down on the rear displays this generation. They are more useful than ever before. The rest of the fact sheet has your typical flagship specs.
These are essentially the same phones split by size and battery capacity. The simple Pro is obviously smaller, and the Max has more screen real estate. Each one has an LTPO AMOLED at 2K resolution with a variable 1-120Hz refresh rate. The peak brightness is 4000 nits, and Crystal Glass 3 keeps them safe.
Xiaomi new 18 mobile leans compact with a 6.4” screen size. There’s a 6.9” panel on the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max. These phones have a hardware privacy display, just like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but Xiaomi has a better implementation for it. They’ve added location-based triggers to the privacy display.
You can also trigger that privacy feature with the dedicated AI key on the side. That’s enough fawning over the front screens. Both phones in the series have a rear display as well: 2.7” on the Pro and 2.9” on the Pro Max. They are also 120Hz LTPO AMOLEDs at 4000nits.
What’s new on the rear screen is the Xiao AI assistant, which will now help users create custom mini apps to put on the back. They gave a few examples in the keynote. And of course, the same AI agent will generate wallpapers and create custom interactive widgets for the rear display.
The new phones are built around the fastest chips Qualcomm has ever put on the market. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro is installed on the Xiaomi 18 Pro, which is a tad weaker than the 18 Pro Max’s SD 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 variant. The latter has a faster GPU and NPU.
Camera setups are pretty much identical on both phones. They have three cameras each. Their 200MP main sensor is a 1/1.28” 23mm LightHunter 960 unit. There’s another 200MP (1/1.56”) sensor under a periscope telephoto lens that does 3.2x optical zoom. Below the camera island lies a 50MP ultrawide (102° FoV) unit.
Of course, the battery is larger on the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max at 8500mAh, proportional to the size gap. They slap a 7000mAh cell on the simple 18 Pro, though both handsets refuel over the same 100W wired and 50W wireless chargers. The newcomers obviously get a price hike this year. 12/256GB are the base variants. Xiaomi 18 Pro starts at CNY 5,999 (~PKR 248,000), and the Pro Max, with all its benefits, bumps the cost to CNY 6,999 (~PKR 290,000).
