The Xiaomi Mi6 will reportedly come out this 2017 in multiple configurations and chiefly powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 and 835 SoC. The Mi6 on SD 821 is seen to be deployed earlier than the version running on SD 835, which likely will get a late 2017 release date.
The Xiaomi Mi6 on SD 835 coming out late could be due to the low yield rate of the mass production for the 10nm FinFET chipsets. According to WCCFTech, shipment of SD 835 is only expected to pick in the second half of 2017 so the Mi6 powered by the same processor is unlikely to hit the market anytime soon.
However, Xiaomi is believed to still proceed with its release date plans for the Mi6 in the first half of 2017 but the first flagship model to get unpacked will tap the SD 821 as main engine, and in some markets powered by the MediaTek Helio X30 chip. Techno Buffalo said these Mi6 models will be labeled Lite and Regular and both will be supported by 4GB of RAM.
It's possible that the Mi6 Lite and Regular will debut early to give the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6 a competition. If that is the plan then Xiaomi is likely to push for a rollout between April and May, by which time the two Android flagships would have been readily available.
But it is the Xiaomi Mi6 Premium that is steam rolled by SD 835 that seems to be worth the wait. Citing the leaked specs shared by Chinese-language blog My Drivers, WCCFTech said the Mi6 on SD 835 will boast of overclocking processing speed - up to 2.7GHz from its regular spin of 2.45GHz. The speed bump, the report added, "is quite massive for a smartphone."
And the Xiaomi Mi6 powered by SD 835 is all geared up for multitasking, if the same report is to be believed. The model will come installed with 6GB of RAM.
One key detail though that makes the leaked specifications somehow questionable is the storage. The cited post, as evidenced by an included screenshot, claimed the Mi6 will unbox with 256GB of internal memory, which is not impossible at all.
But the specifications also indicated the inclusion of microSD slot that supports 200GB+ plus of extra storage space. It should be noted that in previous iterations, Xiaomi has shunned memory expansion feature for its flagship handsets.
On release date, which will be within 2H 2017 for the Premium SD 835 model, the Xiaomi Mi6 will jump out of the box rocking the latest Android Nougat, likely version 7.1.