It’s cool how the cover display on flip foldables enables main camera selfies, right? Well, these two don’t fold but they can do the same trick – the Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max have full-width secondary displays on their backs with a number of creative ideas on how to use them.
Xiaomi 17 Pro
The Xiaomi 17 Pro is the second small flagship that the company unveils today – this one is clearly the more capable model. And we don’t just say that because of the 2.7” secondary display on the back. It is a pretty awesome display, though, with 904 x 572px resolution, up to 120Hz refresh rate and up to 3,500 nits brightness with DC dimming.
What can you do with it? We already mentioned selfies, but this can do other things too – control the music player, use countdown timers, see incoming messages and calls, check notifications and so on. You can also pick cute wallpapers to appear on this display or grab the new retro case and use it as a pocketable game console.
Use cases for Xiaomi 17 Pro’s secondary display
The front display is similarly awesome – it’s a 6.3” LTPO panel with 1-120Hz refresh rate. It uses the M10 luminescent material and can reach 3,500 nits with DC dimming for lower levels. It’s protected by Xiaomi Dragon Crystal Glass.
The 17 Pro is powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which was announced earlier today. It’s paired with 12GB/16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB/512GB/1TB of UFS 4.1 storage. It also has a large 4,637mm² vapor chamber.
Despite this phone’s diminutive size, Xiaomi cranked up the silicon content in the battery and achieved 6,300mAh capacity. It’s super fast to charge too with support up to 100W wired (with either the Xiaomi or PPS standards) and 50W wireless charging. It can do 22.5W reverse charging, both wired and wireless. The Surge G2 battery management chip ensures that the battery will be in good health (at least 80% capacity) even after 2,000 charge cycles.
Xiaomi 17 Pro color options
In addition to the extra screen, the rear is home to three cameras. The main module uses a 1/1.28” Light Fusion 950L sensor (1.22µm pixels) with 16.5 stops of dynamic range. Its f/1.67 Leica Summilux lens has OIS.
A new floating prism design enables a longer telephoto lens on the Xiaomi 17 Pro compared to the Xiaomi 15 (that one had a 2.6x/60mm lens). This periscope module has a 50MP sensor, and a 5x lens with OIS and an f/3.0 aperture. Interestingly, this module can shoot macro images at 20cm distance.
The ultra-wide camera doesn’t quite live up to its name – the 102° field of view is not all that wide. The selfie camera has been upgraded to a 50MP sensor with an f/2.2 90° lens. By the way, there is a new 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor on the back too.
Xiaomi 17 Pro Max
Bigger and more powerful – not just compared to the 17 Pro, but also to the 15 Pro (which, confusingly, was the name of the previous large flagship). The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max features a 6.9” display, a similar 1-120Hz LTPO panel with 12-bit colors and up to 3,500 nits peak brightness (with DC dimming) to the small Pro.
Despite being much larger, the Pro Max has a similarly-sized secondary display as the Pro – a 2.9” panel (vs. 2.7”) with 976 x 596px resolution. Either way, it’s much larger than the secondary display that was featured on the Xiaomi 11 Ultra from four years ago.
Xiaomi 17 Pro Max color options
Like its sibling, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. It has a larger 5,533mm² vapor chamber and similar RAM capacities – 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X. Storage starts at 512GB (UFS 4.1), though, with an option to upgrade to 1TB.
This model also has a huge 7,500mAh battery. It supports 100W HyperCharge and PPS, as well as 50W wireless charging. This is practically a power bank, so you can make use of 22.5W reverse wired or wireless charging.
The camera trio features the same 50MP 1/1.28” Light Fusion 950L sensor as the 17 Pro. The f/1.67 Leica Summilux lens has OIS to capture more light and the sensor supports LOFIC HDR (Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor). The 50MP 102° ultra-wide and the 50MP 90° selfie cameras are the same too.
The larger phone has a redesigned telephoto camera, however. A different prism layout allows it to fit a larger 1/2” sensor (ISOCELL GN8) and the 5x lens has a wider f/2.6 aperture (compared to f/3.0 on the small Pro). There is a small downside here – tele-macro shots have to be taken at 30cm distance instead of 20cm.
Both the Xiaomi 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are rated IP68 for dust and water resistance. That doesn’t sound like much, but the small Pro can survive diving down to 4m under (fresh) water and the big Pro Max can go further, down to 6m.
Pricing & availability
The Xiaomi 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are launching in China first and you can already pick one up from the online store – here’s the small Pro and here’s the big Pro. Below are the prices for the different storage options in renminbi, plus a direct conversion to dollars (the actual global pricing will be higher than that, of course).
| Xiaomi 17 Pro | Xiaomi 17 Pro Max | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Converted | Price | Converted | |
| 12GB/256GB | CNY 5,000 | $700 | – | |
| 12GB/512GB | CNY 5,300 | $745 | CNY 6,000 | $840 |
| 16GB/512GB | CNY 5,600 | $785 | CNY 6,300 | $885 |
| 16GB/1TB | CNY 6,000 | $840 | CNY 7,000 | $980 |
Source 1 | Source 2 (in Chinese)
