14 DAY TRIAL // Up and rising Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has just hosted a major press event in New Delhi, India, during which the company’s latest flagship has made a grand debut.
Former Google executive Hugo Barra took the stage and introduced to the world the Mi 4i, an affordable phone with a plastic wraparound body pretty reminiscent of the iPhone 5c.
If you’re wondering why the phone is called Mi 4i, it’s because when building the phone Xiaomi took inspiration from India’s legacy and culture. Sadly, the device will be made available solely in India, at least for the time being.
Now, let’s take a look at the specifications of the new device. The Mi 4i handset arrives with a 5-inch Sharp/JDI fully laminated display with 1080 x 1920 (full HD) resolution and draws life from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chip (mind you, it’s the second generation version with improved performance) fitted with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
Qualcomm India designed a chip especially for Xiaomi
We should mention that the Snapdragon 615 inside the phone has been fully designed by Qualcomm India and embeds four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz and four other Cortex A53 cores running at 1.1GHz for better power efficiency.
The handset is said to be 12% thinner and 13% lighter than the Xiaomi Mi4. Interestingly, the battery powering the handset has been made smaller in terms of physical size compared to the one inside the Mi 4, but actual capacity has been increased.
Xiaomi is also adding support for quick charging on the Mi 4i thanks to a 2A 5V charger in the box that can re-pump 40% juice back into your phone in only one hour.
In the camera department, there’s a 13MP main camera (Sony/Samsung sensors) with f/2.0 lens and dual-tone flash, plus a 5MP frontal camera with f/1.8 lens. Barra says that Xiaomi has managed to improve the phone’s HDR mode and add new camera capabilities including automatic gamma tuning, color correction, and low-light de-noising.
The Xiaomi Mi4i comes with dual-SIM slot, 4G connectivity, and runs Android 5.0 out of the box with MIUI 6 plastered on top.
Xiaomi has also added a bunch of nifty features like IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) in order to simplify things like line calls.
However, the most impressive aspect about the new phone is perhaps its price. The Mi 4i will go on sale on Flipkart on April 30 for only $205 / €190 a pop. It will be available in black, white, red, cyan, and pink.
