Xiaomi 15S Pro Explorer Edition is the discarded version that will never see the light of day

In recent years, Lei Jun’s company has presented some variants of its flagship lines as part of the Explorer Edition, or Transparent Edition. As the name suggests, it is a line of smartphones known for its distinctive design characterized by a transparent rear shell that reveals the internal components.

After various editions the range has been set aside, despite rumors of a possible Xiaomi 15 Explorer. In reality the flagship line was supposed to have for real a transparent model, but in the end the device did not materialize (ending up in the brand’s scrap heap).

Xiaomi 15S Pro Explorer Edition shows that Lei Jun’s company still has in mind a smartphone with a transparent rear shell

Some images shared by Chinese media show the alleged Xiaomi 15S Pro Explorer Edition: compared to past versions the overall design is more sober, with the transparent camera module only (instead of the entire back). A more cautious and less futuristic approach that ultimately did not win over the top brass, despite the importance of the flagship.

The model 15S Pro, in fact, is a Chinese-exclusive and is the first Xiaomi phone with the proprietary chipset XRING O1. The SoC marked the brand’s return to this field and has been a success given its characteristics (a deca-core 3 nm solution with two main Cortex-X925 cores and GPU Immortalis-G925). In the future we might have phones with proprietary chipsets also at global level, but the company has confirmed that it will continue to rely on Qualcomm and MediaTek as well.

Returning to the Explorer edition, Xiaomi eventually stopped producing transparent versions of its flagship devices. The first model with this peculiarity was Xiaomi Mi 8, followed by Mi 9; note that the visible components are replicas, included for aesthetics. This is a practice now common among flagships that adopt a semi-transparent back.