Xiaomi's transparent phone shows off a dummy circuit board
That cool peek at the internals was too good to be true.
When we had our hands-on with Xiaomi's Mi 8 Explorer Edition, we expressed our doubts that the circuit board you could see through the transparent rear actually showcased the phone's actual internals, not least because of the board's atypical layout. The company insisted it was real, but it seems that the visible parts are in fact all for show.
Recently unearthed pictures indicate that the board is not actually connected to the phone's circuitry. The photo shows that the dummy board leaves space for parts like the processor, but there's no sign of the ball grid array the chip would need to connect to in order to actually function. The real components, it seems, are underneath this phony board. So, while Xiaomi has tried to make its phone stand out and look cool by putting the board on display, this is literally window dressing.
