Xiaomi is planning a revolutionary smartphone without physical buttons for 2025. The “Zhuque” project could change the smartphone world with innovative control methods and an under-display camera. But it remains to be seen whether it will actually make it to series production.
The Chinese technology giant Xiaomi is apparently planning a radical step in smartphone development. How Smartprix reported (via Android Police), the company is working on a device without physical buttons that could hit the market as early as 2025. The project, codenamed “Zhuque,” promises to fundamentally change the way we interact with our smartphones. The idea of a smartphone without physical buttons may seem strange at first.
But Xiaomi seems determined to make this vision a reality. Instead of traditional buttons, the device will use a combination of gesture control, pressure-sensitive edges, and voice commands. The exact details are still unclear, but it shows Xiaomi’s commitment to exploring the limits of what is technically feasible.
In addition to the revolutionary design, “Zhuque” is also said to be technically at a high level. The plan is to use the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 4 processor, which has not yet been officially announced, which suggests a release in the first half of 2025. The device is also said to be equipped with an under-display front camera. One can be skeptical here, because this is a technology that only a few manufacturers have been able to successfully implement so far.
The development of a completely buttonless smartphone undoubtedly brings with it great challenges. How do you turn the device on and off? How can you control the volume? And how does Xiaomi ensure that the operation is intuitive and reliable? These questions still need to be answered.
It is not the first time that a manufacturer has planned a smartphone without physical buttons. In 2019, Meizu presented a similar concept with the “Zero”, but it never went into series production – we tried it out at the Mobile World Congress 2019 (see video above). Other manufacturers such as HTC and Asus also experimented with reduced button concepts without making a major breakthrough.
