Xiaomi’s new phone concept has a cascading display at all four edges

Xiaomi has announced its latest phone concept: a “cascading screen with four curves”. This means that the screen of the unnamed phone not only has deep 88 degree curves on the left and right sides, but also on the top and bottom, leaving no room for doors or buttons. Xiaomi says that the intention is to “extend the limits of the screen to infinity” and allow “a true monoblock design without doors”.

The obvious question is how this could work in the corners of the screen and, based on the promotional images, it looks like Xiaomi is simply leaving them blank with small rounded cutouts. Not exactly infinite, then, but still a cool trick – although for people who no longer like the relatively modest curved screens on phones like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, it sounds like a nightmare.

Advertising a concept device entirely through renderings does not have the impact of displaying it in person, as was common before COVID. A Xiaomi representative counts The Verge that this phone really exists and that they used it themselves, for what it’s worth. The screen is the result of “countless advances in glass folding and laminating technology”, according to Xiaomi, and “represents the sum of 46 innovative patents”.

This concept phone follows the announcement of Xiaomi’s seemingly bizarre technology, its truly wireless Mi Air Charge charging system. And in 2019, Xiaomi unveiled the Mi Mix Alpha phone, which featured a screen that involved almost the entire device, although it never went on sale. This latest concept may never be a commercially available device.

Xiaomi will announce the global availability of its flagship phone Mi 11, considerably more conventional, at an event next Monday, February 8.