At an event in India, hosted by ex-Googler Hugo Barra Xiaomi has tonight launched their first ‘Global’ phone the Xiaomi Mi 4i. The stream was unreliable at best, with multiple dropouts, but they’ve taken the wraps of a phone which is well priced and pretty powerful spec wise.
The presentation had a lot of focus on lifestyle and capturing those moments through their cameras which are 13MP rear facing and 5MP “selfie” cam. With a number of smart processing features that enhance your nature and panoramic shots as well as the beautify feature being on by default for the selfie cam; the camera functionality on the Xiaomi Mi 4i is going to impress the vast majority of users.
Something of an interesting, yet also extremely frustrating development is the fact that there was a point made of the drop, tumble and yes; bend tests that Xiaomi put their devices through as part of the design and testing phase for the phones. The reality is: Drop your phone, you’ll damage it and if you put enough pressure sideways on the device it will bend or catastrophically break.
Thankfully the presentation didn’t stall too long to linger on #bendgate, moving on quite quickly and giving us the Specs:
- 5” (Full HD) 1080P with Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 SoC
- 2GB DDR3
- 16GB Storage
- Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac
- 13MP rear camera with f/2.0 lens and dual-tone LED flash and 5MP front-facing camera with f/1.8 lens both featuring Sony/Samsung Sensors
- MIUI6 First Xiaomi Device over Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
- 3120mAh battery
- 7.8mm thin
The question on everyones lips at the end of the presentation of the new device and its specs as always is the price which came in at ₹12,999 which works out to (on the exchange rate at the time of writing this article) AU$265.00 which is a pretty sharp price for a phone which fits in the higher end of the mid range field .
Now the bad news, not unexpectedly the Mi 4i is only available in Asian markets – so actually getting your hands on one will most likely involve additional costs. But, if you’re interested in getting one, keep your eyes on importers who may decide to import the phone – we’ll keep you posted.
Edit:
Xiaomi has launched the product page for the Mi 4i which has a heap of information about the phone and its features. Head over to the Xiaomi Mi 4i product page and check it out.
Do you think if it was sold in Australia, the Xiaomi Mi 4i could become a high seller?
