Xiaomi 17 Pro has an iPhone-like design, but with a second display on the back [Video]

Ahead of its formal debut in the near future, Xiaomi is showing off the new Xiaomi 17 Pro, which has an iPhone-like camera bar on the back, but uses that real estate for a rear display.

In a post on Weibo, Xiaomi shares a brief video that shows the Xiaomi 17 Pro. At first, the phone is shown with a sectioned design that features a section along the top that includes the cameras. It’s not quite a Pixel-like “Camera Bar,” but rather more similar to Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro redesign.

The twist, though, is that the raised camera area doubles as a secondary display.

The Xiaomi 17’s rear display is only shown briefly, but we can see that it can show a clock, images, and at least one type of widget. One of the views also seems to show the display being used as a camera viewfinder, which seems like the most obvious feature to add. The full capabilities will likely be shown in later teasers and, eventually, the full reveal.

Xiaomi refers to this as the “Magic Back Screen” in the translated post.

A few years ago, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra had its own rear display which was capable of acting as a viewfinder, clock, and as a way to see notifications while the phone was flipped over. It stands to reason we’ll see similar functionality this time around, though the new display looks a lot larger than the 1.1-inch panel used last time around. Similar to the Motorola Razr and Galaxy Z Flip 7, the display gets right up to the cameras and wraps around.

Xiaomi previously shared a sharper image of the rear display on the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, as pictured below (via GSMArena), but has since removed it.

What do you think of this rear display?

Xiaomi 17 will launch later this month and will be one of the first phones using Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

More on Xiaomi:

• Xiaomi officially launches its first Google TV streaming stick, but the specs don’t impress
• Xiaomi’s latest flip phone has a way bigger battery than any of Samsung’s new foldables
• Xiaomi 15S Pro and Pad 7 Ultra launch with its first in-house chip

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