Six months after Samsung introduced its Galaxy S26 series with an Ultra model with privacy screen, Xiaomi has become the second major Android manufacturer to offer similar technology with the Xiaomi 18 Pro series. Like Samsung, Xiaomi’s phone implements its privacy feature at the pixel level to ensure that the user is the only one who sees notifications, messages, or specific parts of the screen. This effectively creates a privacy screen without the need for external software or a third-party screen cover. According to the company, the panel features standard wide-angle pixels with narrow-angle privacy pixels. When standard mode is enabled, the two pixels light up the entire screen, as you would expect from a flagship OLED panel. With privacy mode enabled, Xiaomi disables standard pixels, meaning a person looking at the phone at an angle greater than 60 degrees won’t see what’s displayed on the screen.
Xiaomi calls this technology “SuperPixel 2.0” and promises that users won’t experience any compromise at normal viewing distances. That’s a key difference from Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, which some reviewers complained was darker and grainier when privacy mode is enabled. Xiaomi says the 18 Pro model uses a new M11 luminescent material, which brings up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and supports the BT.2020 color gamut.
In addition to the new hardware, Xiaomi lets users enable this feature via a quick settings shade, physical AI key remapping, or Xiao AI voice commands, as you can set the privacy display in specific apps or pages, or whenever its front camera detects that someone is “spying on you from behind.”
Getting to know Xiaomi’s 18 Pro series
Xiaomi’s new 18 Pro phones arrive after months of speculation and just weeks after Apple launched its iPhone 18 Pro models. You’d be forgiven for mixing the two remotely too, although Xiaomi’s device adds to the iPhone’s polarizing camera deck design by adding a functional 2.86-inch rear OLED display running at 120Hz, which can be used to take selfies with the main camera and interact with the phone when its face is down.
With a 6.4-inch main display, the Xiaomi 18 Pro is also one of the first smartphones to feature Qualcomm’s recently announced Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 processor. Xiaomi also offers this smartphone with up to 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.
In the camera department, it features a Leica triple camera setup, with a 200 megapixel (MP) primary wide-angle lens with a Light Fusion 960L sensor, a 200 MP telephoto lens with 3.2x optical zoom, and a 50 MP Leica Ultrawide sensor. The selfie camera has a 50MP sensor, but users also have the option to use the main lenses using the rear display.
In China, the company is packing a 7,000mAh battery with 100W wired charging capabilities and 50W wireless charging. Xiaomi also says the 18 Pro will be available globally, although it has only announced prices in China so far, which range between $900 and $1,500. Without giving further details, the company plans to launch this flagship phone in international markets by the end of the year. Interestingly, Xiaomi’s latest announcement comes a few weeks after the unveiling of its 18 Fold series, which BGR had an exclusive hands-on experience at Xiaomi’s booth at IFA 2026 ahead of the official launch.
