Tag: Hugo Barra

Xiaomi Fans Shouldn’t Expect a SD Card Slot on Future Flagships: Hugo Barra

You must have noticed that high-end smartphones from Xiaomi doesn’t offer MicroSD card support, except the first-gen handset. Many top smartphone brands like HTC, LG, Samsung offer expandability option up to 128GB (which surprisingly Samsung decided to skip this time in the latest Galaxy S6 series), but the China-based electronics firm is against its inclusion on their handsets. Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra remarked that its devotees shouldn’t expect a SD card slot on the future flagships.

Xiaomi’s Vice President of International, Hugo Barra said in a statement –

For high performance devices, we are fundamentally against an SD card slot. It is a trend: SD cards will disappear. You should basically not expect SD card slots in any of our flagships.

He just didn’t make a statement but also backed his verdict on ditching SD card slots. According to Hugo, his team doesn’t want to sacrifice battery capacity and ergonomics for extended content storage. The microSD cards is of no good to the device and adversely affects the functionality of the phone. As per Hugo’s description microSD cards “are incredibly prone to failure and malfunctioning of various different sorts.”

Explaining in fine detail how SD cards ruin the overall functionality of the phone –

You think you’re buying like a Kingston or a SanDisk but you’re actually not, and they’re extremely poor quality, they’re slow, they sometimes just stop working, and it gives people huge number of issues, apps crashing all the time, users losing data, a lot of basically complaints and customer frustration. It’s gonna be a while before you finally accept that maybe the reason why it’s not performing is because you put in an SD card, right? You’re gonna blame the phone, you’re gonna blame the manufacturer, you’re gonna shout and scream and try to get it fixed, so many different ways until you say, ‘Actually, let me just take the SD card out and see what happens.

From this, it can be concluded that the upcoming Xiaomi flagships will not have an option of removable battery too. Since removable back only sorts the purpose when you have to put a second card slot.

The lack of an SD card is not likely to create a stir in Xiaomi-ruled markets. The company releases smartphones with sufficient memory space, but for folks who choose lesser space handsets to add an SD card later will surely be disappointed. For now, Redmi series handsets sport expandability option.

There have been news of Xiaomi’s next flagship coming in two variants – Mi 5 And Mi 5 Plus. The latter one is, no doubt, inspired by Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus.

May 7, 2015
Xiaomi Hints at the Arrival of Redmi Note in India

It is been a while since Xiaomi has launched a new product in India. While the Chinese company is busy preparing for occasional flash sales and celebrating the new tag of being the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, it seems like the company is moving forward in the Indian market with new offerings.

In a recent post on Facebook, Hugo Barra (Vice President of International for Xiaomi) mentioned that the Redmi Note is finally ready for India. The device was expected to launch a month back, however, it didn’t happen. In an interview with a popular publication last month, Barra said that the Redmi Note will come to India in late October or early November. It looks like the early November in the Chinese calendar is here.

In the Facebook post, Bara mentioned “Mi Indonesia: 10,000 Redmi Note out of stock in under 40 secs today!” adding that the next in the list will be India. The post further mentioned that the Xiaomi’s Vice President’s may have landed in Bangalore, India for the same reason – launch of Redmi Note. Xiaomi India Head Manu Jain also confirmed that the company is aiming for the end of this month or early next month for the device.

Redmi Note is a 5.5-inch phablet, which comes with a MediaTek MT6592 octa-core SoC, and has a 13MP and 5MP rear back and front cameras respectively. The device also has a 8GB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 32 GB using a micro-SD card. The company has already announced that the Redmi Note in the country during Mi3 launch will be priced at Rs. 9,999. However, it is expected the Redmi Note will be available for Rs. 8,999, once it is launched.

November 13, 2014
Android Vice President Hugo Barra Leaves For Xiaomi

Hugo Barra, VP of Product Management for Android, is leaving his post at Google and heading to Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi. This news was first reported by AllThingsD, then later confirmed by Google.

Hugo Barra confirmed the news himself on his Google+ account.

“In a few weeks, I’ll be joining the Xiaomi team in China to help them expand their incredible product portfolio and business globally — as Vice President, Xiaomi Global,” he wrote.

Xiaomi is considered to be the “Apple of China” and makes mobile devices that run off the Android platform, so Barra won’t be completely distant from the OS he helped enthusiastically build. There’s no word yet on what the specific role Barra will play at Xiaomi.

Android, indisputably one of the most important endeavors at Google, has been undergoing some upheaval. In March, Andy Rubin, who guided the mobile software to be the world’s most popular over Apple, stepped down to “start a new chapter at Google.”

A Google spokesperson stated that “We wish Hugo Barra the best. We’ll miss him at Google and we’re excited that he is staying within the Android ecosystem.” Hugo Barra has been with Google since March of 2008. That’s a big position Google has to fill.

August 29, 2013