14 DAY TRIAL // Chinese electronics company Xiaomi is branching out quickly. The low-cost device maker started out with smartphones that became super popular with consumers in Asia and worldwide quite fast.
But Xiaomi is also interested in building other products. For starters, the company pushed out a tablet of its own, called the MiPad. It also has a low-cost fitness tracker that can be used to unlock your Xiaomi phone and a bunch of other stuff, like routers.
Xiaomi wants to make action cameras
Anyway, it appears that Xiaomi is gearing up to make a gracious debut in a new field – that of action cameras.
Yes, you heard that right, according to the folks of Giz China, the low-cost device manufacturer is planning to launch a GoPro-style action camera and is already talking to a Shanghai-based company to see this happen.
Apparently, the so-called Mi Camera (the name is an invention, the real product could turn out to be called something entirely different) will arrive with a 138-degree wide-angle lens. The small and portable action cam will reportedly be able to shoot 4K videos at 30fps or 1080p at 120fps.
The resulting videos will be stored on a SD card, with the maximum capacity supported being of 128GB.
Xiaomi's Mi Camera to be ridiculously cheap
But what’s more exciting is that the Mi Camera is said to arrive on the market with a super affordable price tag of just $17 / €13 (!!!)
Judging by what we have so far, the Mi Camera sounds like it will be quite a product. Just consider the fact that GoPro has just launched its latest HERO4 Black, which also allows users to shoot 4K video at 30fps and 1080p at 120fps.
The previous model, Hero3+, could only handle shooting video in 4K at 15fps, so the two cameras are quite comparable.
Surely, Xiaomi will also add other nifty features to the device and the camera could end up taking advantage of Wi-Fi connection or a touch screen display on the back (like it’s the case of the GoPro HERO4 Silver model).
The GoPro HERO4 sells for either $399 / €314 or $499 / €393 depending on which model you are buying; these prices utterly pale in comparison with the rate Xiaomi will probably ask for its Mi Camera.
As of late, we have noticed an increasing number of manufacturers that are taking up the making of action cams. Recently, Taiwanese device maker HTC, known for its smartphone products, launched the RE camera, which is meant to be used for lifelogging. Kodak also released the SP360 that can shoot 360-degree images.
Update: It appears the source has updated the information regarding price, showing the Xiaomi Mi Camera will most likely cost $163 / €130.