Xiaomi 17 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 confirmed, but only one makes sense

What's in a name change?

- JON MUNDY

Xiaomi and Qualcomm have both taken a bemusing turn in the naming of their next flagship products: the Xiaomi 17 smartphone and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip that will run on it.

Let's start with the Xiaomi 17. Last year's model was named the Xiaomi 15, and there’s no unlucky element to the number 16 in Chinese culture (that I know of). What gives?

Xiaomi president Lu Weibing has issued a Weibo post announcing (via machine translation) that “The all-new Xiaomi 17 series will be released this month.”

We also get confirmation that the lineup will consist of the Xiaomi 17, the 17 Pro, and the 17 Pro Max.

Interestingly, the executive also confirmed why the number skip. You might have guessed it yourself.

"Five years ago, we embarked on our premium strategy, learning from our greatest competitor and resolutely benchmarking against the iPhone," he explained. "To this day, Apple continues to excel. The success of the iPhone 17 series is evident to everyone, but we remain confident, which is why we are directly competing with the iPhone in the same generation and at the same level."