Xiaomi is researching smartphones without physical buttons, replacing them with gesture controls, force touch or voice commands.
The completely buttonless phone model, codenamed Zhueque, is expected to be launched and sold in the first half of next year in the Chinese market, targeting technology lovers in limited quantities.
According to rumors, Xiaomi may only introduce Zhueque for the purpose of showing off technology, not focusing on sales.
Zhueque is not equipped with conventional physical buttons such as power button, volume up and down or separate camera button but will navigate by swiping, force touch or using voice commands.
Before Xiaomi, Huawei used touch operations on the curved edge of the screen instead of volume up and down buttons but received many complaints that it was difficult to use.
Zhueque can also be equipped with a new generation of hidden selfie camera under the screen. In terms of configuration, the device integrates the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 4 processor, an improved version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 that will likely appear next October.
Xiaomi often has technology-demonstration phones like the previous Mix series, which had completely different features from regular smartphones with three super-thin edges, a selfie camera placed underneath, and a ceramic case. Xiaomi was also one of the first technology companies to make a smartphone with a transparent case.