Xiaomi Mi4 Launched For Rs.19,999 [Full Details]

[Updated: 29th Jan]

Xiaomi has had a great success in India with its earlier flagshipMi3. Now, it is bringing the latest phone from its stables to India: The Mi4. The phone itself is not new, albeit this will mark its official entry in the Indian market. If previous results are any indication, Xiaomi should not have any huge issues in making this product a big success too.

Mi4 will be a 5” phone with a Full HD screen and 441 ppi density. This makes it smaller than the new iPhone 6+ and Nexus 6. In my personal opinion, this is a good thing. Many people would like to have a great specs phone in smaller screen (5-inch) segment. Xiaomi has done a smart thing by catering to large screen aficionados by launching a separate Mi Note series announced few days back

Mi4 will sport a 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 series quad-core CPU with a 330 Adreno GPU. Coupled with 3 GB RAM, this is some serious firepower under the hood. Without a doubt, Mi4 is a flagship phone! It also flaunts a 13 MP camera with a front 8 MP (overkill perhaps!). The battery is just a bit more than 3000 mAH and the phone supports 2G & 3G as well as 4G LTE.

Besides this, the phone will portray the usual features like WiFi, Bluetooth and rest of the blocks.

Here is a comparison between the 2 phones – The Mi 4 Vs the Mi 3

Technical words aside, there are three things that will make Xiaomi Mi4 different from the other phones:

1. OS:

Running Android 4.4.3 (Kitkat), it will be a little behind with Android 5.0 already in the market. However, the MIUI screen is well applauded in general and is considered a beautiful and refreshing interface. Also, Xiaomi is a good OEM in the sense that the phones are updated relatively quickly. It will not be as good as a Nexus or iPhone but with its custom fittings, people should like it. And yes, it should also have the Lollipop update sooner rather than later!

2. Build:

Everyone likes inexpensive products but no one likes cheap products. That is a very important business fact. The build quality of Xiaomi Mi4 will be very important for Indian audience. If the phone is not good looking and doesn’t give a flagship vibe, it will not be entertained by customers, especially in India. While the quality looks good as we can see till now, only after its release in India will we be able to look at it and say whether it will be a hit or not. However, given that it has a full metal body, the build of Mi 4 is expected to be top notch.

3. Price:

Xiaomi has created new benchmarks for pricing the phones. While in China, they offer services that help them offset the loss, there is no such scheme in India. This means they will have to offer a higher price here that they can’t do here. The previous Xiaomi phones have sold because of the price point. We should find out today, if the tradition will continue with Mi4 or not.

Hugo Barra was a prominent figure in Google and his expertise is working very well for Xiaomi. The phone will again be sold via Flipkart in similar mechanism (flash sales) as before. I sincerely wish there was a way to get Xiaomi out of this way of selling. However, for now, we should not expect any major changes in Xiaomi’s method of sale.

[Updated]

The phone has been launched for a price of Rs. 19,999 for 16 GB model exclusively on Flipkart. No other model is available currently. At this price Xiaomi Mi4 does look tag expensive, especially if you compare with it’s predecessor! We would have liked it closer to Rs. 17k rather than Rs. 20k.

How To Buy Xiaomi Mi 4 From Flipkart?

As was the case with Mi 3, the users interested in buying Mi4 will need to first register. The first flash sale will be conducted on February 10th at 2pm. You have to first register for the phone here.