Xiaomi Mi 6 News: Comes With Snapdragon 821 & Snapdragon 835?

A shortage of Snapdragon 835 processors has caused Xiaomi to use initially the Snapdragon 821 chipset instead so the Xiaomi Mi 6 could launch in March. The Chinese phone maker is not the only one affected by the lack of Snapdragon 835 SoC. Other phone makers too face a similar shortage and used the Snapdragon 821 to launch the LG G6 and Sony Xperia XZ.

Snapdragon 835 Shortage

GSM Arena explains that Xiaomi’s first in-house chipset is not up to the task so it prefers to use the Snapdragon. There are rumors though that the reason behind the shortage has Samsung snapped up all the Snapdragon 835 chipsets for the upcoming flagship Galaxy S8. The tech website estimates that the new flagship Xiaomi Mi 6 with the Snapdragon 835 SoC may launch sometime in May after it rolls out the S821 and Helio X30 phones, or about the same time as the XZ Premium.

Android Central confirms the speculation that Samsung purchased all the initial supply of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 for the Galaxy S8. Given the situation, the Xiaomi Mi 6 with Snapdragon 821 SoC would serve as the base model. Once the new flagship with the Snapdragon 821 comes out, it would be the premium model.

In-House Chipset For Budget Phones

Xiaomi prefers to use the Snapdragon 835 chipset for its premium phones while it would use the in-house Surge 1 S1 SoC, which the Chinese phone maker unveiled in February, for its Xiaomi Mi 5C, a budget phone. It adds that Xiaomi would also launch a limited edition of the Xiaomi Mi 6 with a ceramic back.

Since Samsung is scheduled to launch the Galaxy S8 on March 29, the supply of Snapdragon 835 chipset expects to remain scarce until April, NDTV reports. The premium variant of the Xiaomi Mi 6, besides featuring the Snapdragon 835 chipset, it would have a Quad H 2K OLED display with dual curved edges, 6GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage and dual rear camera setup.