Xiaomi's next flagship is getting way more expensive — and the phone itself isn't the reason

Leaks point to five launch colors: Black, White, Pink, Blue, Red

Chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, built on TSMC's 2nm node with an Oryon 2+3+3 CPU layout, Adreno 845 GPU, LPDDR5X memory

Camera reportedly upgrades from a triple 50MP array to dual 200MP sensors (main + periscope telephoto)

Starting price expected above 5,499 yuan (~$770), versus 4,499 yuan for the Xiaomi 17 — over 1,000 yuan more

Xiaomi Group president Lu Weibing has publicly blamed memory chip costs, which he expects to stay elevated through 2027, maybe into 2028

The honest read

I don't think Xiaomi is gouging here. My take: this is the DRAM/NAND shortage finally reaching phones the way it already hit GPUs and SSDs. A flagship phone's margins are thin enough that a real…