Those of you who customise your phones may have experimented with MIUI – a highly popular custom ROM which runs on a variety of handsets. Add to that variety one more handset – MIUI will now run on it’s own dedicated platform as well, as the MIUI phone was just announced in China (where Xiaomi, the company behind MIUI, is based).
The MI-ONE, or Millet as it is properly known, features a dual core 1.5GHz MSM8260 Scorpion CPU (from the 3rd generation Snapdragon family). This thing is fast.
Besides the CPU, the MI-ONE has an Adreno220 GPU, 4GB of ROM and 1GB of RAM, a 4″ Sharp screen (854×480 – not qHD), 8MP rear camera, and a powerful1930mAh battery. The bootloader is also unlocked, and runs (unsurprisingly) MIUI OS based on Android 2.3.5.
The phone weighs 149 grams, a bit heavier than one of its most notable competitors – Samsung’s Galaxy S2 at 116 grams. The cost – 1999 Chinese yuan, which is equal to roughly $313 USD, or around $300 AUD. This means you’re looking at a shade over $300 for a phone that is in many ways (good ways) identical to phones that cost two to three times as much.
For now, it will only be available in China, but undoubtedly (like most things) it’ll make its way to other shores, hopefully ours as well!
