After much buzz created through social media, Xiaomi of China has launched its flagship smartphone Xiaomi Mi3 without fanfare on its Indian website at Rs. 14,999. This smartphone will go on sale in India on 15th July. Xiaomi has not mentioned whether they will effect the delivery themselves or through some e-commerce site. Xiaomi has also listed on its site Power Bank in two variants – 5,200mAh and 10,400mAh, without mentioning their prices.
The Mi3 features a 5-inch 1080p IPS display(1920×1080 Full HD) and is powered by a 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
It is equipped with 13-megapixel rear camera with dual LED flash and also houses a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, with capacity of shooting 1080p videos. This smartphone runs Android Jelly Bean 4.3 OS optimized with Xiaomi’s MIUI version 5.
For connectivity options, the Mi3 support dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and Wi-Fi Direct. It is fuelled by a huge 3,050mAh battery, whihc is claimed to deliver 500 hours of standby time, 50 hours of music playback, 25 hours of talk time and 21 hours of 3G Internet usage. This phone measures 144mmx73.6mmx8.1mm and weighs 145 grams. It will be available in metallic gray.
The price of Xiaomi is quite attractive keeping in view of its hardware specifications. On the software front, this smartphone should have the latest Android KitKat OS, which has become a norm now even with low-priced Indian phones. But still, the Xiaomi will give sleepless nights to its competitors especially its Chinese counterparts.
The success of Xiaomi in India will also depend about its management of logistics and after sales service infrastructure. We do hope that Xiaomi must have put these in place.
