Xiaomi 18 Pro Makes Its First Appearance! Flatter Camera, Ultra-Narrow Bezels, and a Rear Screen That Can Use AI to Generate App Cards on Its Own

The long-rumored Xiaomi 18 Pro has finally made its official debut. In a video, the President of Xiaomi Group briefly showed off the Xiaomi 18 Pro’s signature “rear screen” feature for this generation: users can use AI to generate the app cards they want, and it can also be clearly seen that the camera no longer protrudes and sits flush with the rear screen. It is expected to launch in late September.

Image source:Kuai Technology

Xiaomi 18 Pro real unit leaked: camera sits flush with the rear screen, ultra-narrow bezel flat display, rear screen supports AI-generated app cards, rumored to debut Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6

Recently, the President of Xiaomi GroupLu WeibingThe actual Xiaomi 18 Pro was personally shown off, retaining the previous generation’s “Miaoxiang” rear screen design, but the camera module and rear screen are now on the same plane and no longer protrude. The front uses a flat display with extremely narrow bezels, and the bezel width is expected to set a new record for Xiaomi’s numbered flagship lineup.

In terms of specs, the Xiaomi 18 Pro is rumored to debut Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, may use TSMC’s 2nm process, is rumored to have a battery capacity exceeding 7,000mAh, and will feature a Leica triple rear-camera setup (main camera, ultra-wide, periscope telephoto), with the periscope telephoto changed to 3.2X. Lu Weibing also revealed that this is “the biggest upgrade in the history of the Xiaomi numbered series,” covering four areas: performance, imaging, battery life, and AI.

Meanwhile, the rear screen feature has evolved from simply “checking the time and changing wallpapers” to “letting you create your own apps.”

Last year, the 17 Pro’s rear display was mainly used to show the time, notifications, wallpapers, and raise virtual pets, plus a few fixed small cards.

This time, the Xiaomi 18 Pro not only adds built-in cards like an egg-boiling timer, water-drinking check-in, and vocabulary memorization, but also supports AI-generated app cards for the first time! You can describe what you want in one sentence, for example, “Make me a card that reminds me to drink water every hour” or “Make a Book of Answers,” and AI will directly generate a custom card and put it on the rear screen.

Xiaomi said that according to usage statistics for the rear screen on the Xiaomi 17 Pro, cards are used as many as 4 million times per day on average, and wallpapers were added 3.5 million times, meaning that many people really are using it every day. This also explains why Xiaomi continues to make the rear screen a key feature of the 18 Pro series this generation and further adds AI-generated app cards to strengthen its differentiation from other flagship phones.

As for the official launch date, it is still uncertain for now. However, this year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2026 will be held from September 22 to 24, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 will only be announced then. Therefore, the Xiaomi 18 Pro launch event will most likely be scheduled for a few days after this event, which lines up perfectly with the “late September” claim.

Below are the currently rumored differences between the Xiaomi 17 Pro and 18 Pro, for easy comparison:

Source: KOCPC Chinese