Samsung Galaxy S8 Vs Xiaomi Mi 6: Top specs shootout

Both the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Xiaomi Mi 6 boast of an-glass and metal body and yet both the phones look like they don’t even belong in the same universe. The Galaxy S8, with its near edge-to-edge screen, looks like a phone straight out of the future. The Mi 6, on the other hand, has a more generic design. In fact, it looks a lot like Huawei’s Honor 8 especially from the behind. The Mi 6, although it is much smaller than the Galaxy S8, is heavier. In Xiaomi’s defense, the Mi 6 packs in a slightly bigger battery in comparison.

While the Galaxy S8 has a rear mounted fingerprint scanner, the Mi 6 has a front-mounted solution. Xiaomi has incorporated an under-glass – ultrasonic – fingerprint scanner in the Mi 6 which means you’ll be touching a barren area of glass to unlock the phone. The Mi 6, but, comes with wide chunky bezels on the top as well as on the bottom. The front, in the case of the Galaxy S8, is meanwhile clean and sans any buttons. The phone, because it has a nearly bezel-less screen, offers as much as 83 per cent of real estate to work upon. In spite of the toned down bezels, the Galaxy S8 still has a home button upfront. It is software-based though. The invisible home button, as Samsung calls it, also offers tactile feedback.

The Galaxy S8, in addition to the rear mounted fingerprint scanner, also comes with an iris scanner and facial recognition for added security. Samsung Knox and Samsung Pay are also built-in.

The Galaxy S8 is IP68-certified for water and dust resistance. The Mi 6, on the contrary, offers splash-resistance which is a first for any Xiaomi phone. The front and back in the case of the Galaxy S8 is carved out of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Whether or not the Mi 6 has some kind of protective covering on-board is unknown for now. The Mi 6 does have a limited ceramic edition which is supposed to be harder than the standard Black, White, Blue and Silver versions.

The Galaxy S8 comes with what Samsung calls as an Infinity display. It boasts of an edge-to-edge screen and an unusual 18.5:9 aspect ratio instead of a regular 16:9. The Galaxy S8 is a 5.8-inch phone with a 2960×1440 pixel (WQHD+) resolution and Super AMOLED panel. It also comes with Samsung’s trademark always-on functionality. The Xiaomi Mi 6, meanwhile, comes with a 5.15-inch 1080p display “with reduced glare and 0.15-nit adjustments (total 4096 brightness levels).”

The Galaxy S8 available in India is powered by a 2.3GHz octa-core Exynos 8895 processor clubbed with Mali-G71 MP20 GPU and 4GB of RAM. It comes with 64GB of internal memory which is also expandable (by up to 256GB) via a micro-SD card. The Mi 6, on the other hand, is powered by a 2.45GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor clubbed with Adreno 540 GPU and 6GB of RAM. It comes with 64GB/128GB internal memory which is non-expandable.

Both the Galaxy S8 and Mi 6 offer dual-SIM, 4G LTE and USB Type-C port for charging and data syncing. While the Mi 6 runs Android Nougat-based MIUI 8, the Galaxy S8 comes with Nougat-based Samsung Experience UX.

The Galaxy S8 comes with a 12-megapixel (Dual Pixel) rear camera with f/1.7 aperture and optical image stabilisation. While the rear camera is largely the same as the one in last year’s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung has made software tweaks to enhance post-processing that should result in slightly better results. At the same time, the camera app now houses a barrage of fancy new animations to add AR effects to photos. The S8 further comes with an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus on the front. The Mi 6, on the other hand, comes with a dual camera setup on the rear – 12-megapixel+12-megapixel – where one lens is wide-angle while the other is telephoto. The Mi 6 offers 2X optic zoom and 10X digital zoom and should technically result in clearer distant shots and professional bokeh effects in portraits. On the front the Mi 6 comes with an 8-megapixel camera.

The Mi 6 comes with a stereo speaker setup, while the Galaxy S8 comes with a bottom firing mono speaker. The Mi 6, however, doesn’t ship with a 3.5mm audio jack.

While the Galaxy S8 is backed by a 3,000mAh battery, the Mi 6 offers a bigger 3,350mAh battery. The Galaxy S8, in addition to fast charging, also supports wireless charging.