Xiaomi’s futuristic phone and its screen that wraps around the backside is delayed

Xiaomi's Mi Mix Alpha promised to be a phone unlike any other with its "surround display" that wraps from front to back. The futuristic phone was supposed to go on sale last month for $2,800, but according to Abacus, the phone's delayed with no launch date on the horizon.

Premium materials and new sensors — In addition to pressure-sensitive virtual buttons on sci-fi display, the Mi Mix Alpha was meant to be built from a combination of titanium alloy, sapphire glass, and ceramic. Xiaomi also boasted about its triple cameras (one with 108-megapixels), and novel features like humidity and air-quality sensors (you can read the full list on the official product page over here).

A model for others — While there's no timeframe for when we'll see the Mi Mix Alpha in the wild, some of its premium features will make their way to other phones. Samsung’s reportedly bringing a 108-megapixel sensor to its next Galaxy phones, LG is doing interesting (and less interesting) things with flexible OLED screens, and pretty much everyone is going to be offering a 5G device.

Xiaomi’s traditionally favored affordability over the fanciful, but the Mi Mix Alpha offered a glimpse at the company’s ambitions. Perhaps, like Huawei, Xiaomi wants to give Apple and Samsung a run for their respective money. Let’s hope so. Because aiming for the top makes the incumbents try harder. But let’s hope this doesn’t start a trend for concept phones. We’re not sure our hearts could stand it.