Xiaomi, ‘Apple of China’ as it is often called, has now become a hot topic with its entry in the smartphone business in India. Chinese manufacturer has launched its first smartphone in the Indian market, the Xiaomi Mi 3. The phone is priced at Rs.14,999 ($250) and will officially go on sale on July 15. The Xiaomi (pronounced as ‘shao-mee‘) Mi 3 is the company’s flagship device is a pleasant surprise if you take its price into consideration.
The Mi 3 has already won hearts in the east, and predictably Xioami seems to be expecting a huge turn over in India. They have an advantage since the specs they’re offering at this price, are quite good. The budget segment in our country is currently super crowded with low spec mobile phones. One of the biggest competitor Xioami has to face is the Moto G.
The Xiaomi is packed with a 5.0-inch, 1920×1080 resolution IPS panel from LG or Sharp, Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC with quad-core 2.3GHz CPU and Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (non-expandable), 3050mAh battery and MIUI 5 on Android 4.3.
The phone has got a 13MP rear camera with dual-LED flash. Equipped with ultra large Exmor sensor and f/2.2 aperture, you can expect the camera to perform well in various light conditions. For your video conferencing needs, Mi 3 offers a decent 2MP camera on the front. The 3050 mAh battery, will give you about 500 hours of standby time; or about 50 hours of music playback, or 25 hours of talk-time or 21 hours of 3G Internet use.
Another important feature is that while the Xiaomi phones don’t come with the Play Store and Google Apps in China, the company has decided to provide support for them India. You’ll also get about 10 GB of free online storage, which you can use to store your phones contact list, photos, videos, documents and texts.
So far, no official word on retail availability is out but it is said that Xiaomi has signed a deal with Flipkart to sell this phone exclusively through them. However, this is not the only device that Xiaomi will be launching in India this year. Along with the Mi 3 smartphone, Xiaomi has also launched the Mi Power Bank in 10400mAh and 5200mAh capacities but without pricing and availability details.
Also, a recent teaser posted by the company on its official Facebook account suggests that few more devices will be launched very soon.
Although there is no word out about the phones that are going to be launched in India after this one, but there are speculations that Xiaomi could launch the Redmi series, which comprises of Redmi Note and the Redmi 1S, on 15th July as well. If the devices get launched in India sooner than expected, the other players in the market like Micromax, Karboon and Lava will have to match to the competition sent by our neighbour.
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