Xiaomi's Mi Mix 3 might be the first 5G phone ever

As mobile carriers light up their 5G networks, the race is on for phone makers to launch phones that can support faster data speeds.

While most manufacturers probably won't have 5G phones available until 2019 or 2020, China's Xiaomi might release one by the end of this year, which would make it the first company to offer a 5G-ready smartphone.

Continuing with teases on social media for its upcoming Mi Mix 3, Donovan Sung, Director of Product Management at Xiaomi, tweeted a photo showing the phone being tested for 5G.

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Sung then followed up with another tweet hyping up how the company has "successfully tested 5G data connections on Xiaomi phones" and how 5G will offer download speeds that are "10x faster than 4G speeds."

It's great to see Xiaomi ready to race out the gate with a 5G phone, but consumers will still need to wait until 5G networks go live, and that will take at least a couple more years.

For example, Verizon's 5G network has only launched in three U.S. cities and in limited rollout. Not to mention the "fixed 5G" network is restricted to residential homes. Verizon's 5G network for mobile will launch later, but the carrier has yet to announce when exactly.

This wait on 5G for mobile from carriers is why Motorola's not in a hurry to launch its own 5G phone yet. Instead, it's releasing a 5G Moto Mod for the Moto Z3, which it's calling the "world's first 5G-upgradable phone," in early 2019.

Because what good is having a 5G phone in 2018 if you won't be able to get the faster data download and upload speeds? Bragging rights, sure, but that's really it.

It'll also be interesting to see how Xiaomi manages battery life for its first 5G phone. Poor battery life was one of the initial downsides to 4G phones. Anyone who ever owned HTC's Thunderbolt on Verizon knows how great it was to be first to get LTE speeds, but also how insufferable its battery life was. There's always a tradeoff being an early adopter.

Besides 5G connectivity, we also know one more thing about the Mi Mix 3: Its sliding camera, first teased by Xiaomi's president, is manual and not motorized.

A short video of the alleged Mi Mix 3 has surfaced showing how the sliding camera works:

Xiaomi may not be a household name in the U.S. (yet), but the company has not slowed down with mobile innovation over the last few years.

The company helped kill phone bezels with the original Mi Mix, and now it's looking like its third-generation Mi Mix will come with two innovations that could once again change the phone landscape.