Reporting about Xiaomi made me follow the Chinese firm constantly. Reports about Xiaomi teaming up with Flipkart and launching website of it’s own in India were gaining speculations. After creating a buzz, Xiaomi has finally revealed its first smartphone for India, the Mi3. The device is priced at 14,999 and will go on sale July 15.
The Xiaomi Mi3 runs a highly tweaked version of the Android 4.3 dubbed MIUI version 5. It comes with a 5-inch full-HD LCD display (1080×1920 pixels) offering a pixel density of 441ppi.
With the announcement of Mi3, Xiaomi has become one of the first handset manufacturers to offer an Android smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset below the sub-Rs. 15,000 mark. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (8274AB) processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The Mi3 is listed with a 16GB inbuilt storage with no word on expandable storage support.
It sports a 13-megapixel rear camera featuring a f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash while the front houses a 2-megapixel camera. It is backed by a 3050mAh battery. The Mi3 measures 144×73.6×8.1mm and weighs 145 grams. It will be available in Metallic Grey colour.
The Mi3 is a slightly older Xiaomi phone but a bestselling device that was launched last year in September. The Xiaomi Mi3 has top end hardware at an affordable price; the question is whether it can woo India? With no competitor in its price bracket, the Mi3 directly competes with Nexus 5 that is selling way higher price of around 27,000. The Mi3 is the best value for money device not only under 15K but also under 20K and 25K. The only hiccup could be that Xiaomi is an unknown Chinese brand so it is quite likely that people would have their inhibitions before buying it as Indians often make fun of Chinese products by tagging them as “China Item”.
– By Anand Thakkar
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