Some time last year, my phone totally died on me, forcing me to purchase a replacement - apart from the money, I wasn't really complaining, as I have been eyeing the Xiaomi 13 Pro for quite some time, clearly impressed by its camera's prowess. Everything about the phone was great. As the flagship model powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Gen 2, there's no concern for processing power, and my only gripe was that I could only afford the 256GB variant...

After spending some time with it, I found a serious problem with the phone - the curved edge of the display! I'm going to explain my hatred for this feature.

Yes, some might think that it is a pretty design, but in reality, there are just too many cons to justify it. 

Pros:

• Larger screen to bezel ratio
• Allows the phone to look slimmer

Cons:

• As the curved edge is still part of the display, the extreme edge of the content that you are viewing might fall into that curved area and get slightly distorted
• The curved edge is still part of the touch screen, and hence one-handed operation of the phone will easily result in accidental touches by the fleshy part of your palm (there's even a setting for you to adjust the unresponsive area near the edge of the screen - even the phone manufacturer knew it was going to be a problem!)
• Setting the area near the edge to be unresponsive can also result in issues - certain apps, games or programs might require touches near the edge to operate and this could break the experience.
• It's impossible to get the perfect tempered glass screen protector. As the curved edge require a curve tempered glass piece, seamlessly adhering it to the screen becomes an issue. Tempered glass manufacturers have came up with two solutions - a really thick adhesive layer, or a thin UV-cured liquid glue. With the former, touchscreen responsiveness is subpar and operating the in-display fingerprint sensor can be an issue, and with the latter, it doesn't take more than a couple of weeks for the edges of the adhesive to wear...

In my opinion, this is a design feature that I can absolutely do without. Thankfully, it seems that the latest Xiaomi 14 Ultra no longer has this annoying and useless feature.

- Zhi Xuan