Xiaomi launches Mi4 in India, to go on sale on Feb 10

Registrations began on Flipkart from 6 pm on Wednesday

Xiaomi on Wednesday launched its flagship smartphone, the Mi4 and unveiled the MIUI6, the company's latest operating system based on Android 4.4.4 KitKat in New Delhi.

The company will sell about 30,000 Mi4's for  Rs 19,999/-  each on February 10, registrations for which began on Flipkart at six in the evening on Wednesday.

Xiaomi crossed the million-unit sales mark for smartphones in December in the country in a little less than five months, said Manu Jain, India head of Xiaomi. Jain added the company also aimed to increase the number of exclusive service centres to 100 in the country this year from five now and launch its own e-commerce venture by the end of this year alongside its partnership with Flipkart. Global Vice-president Hugo Barra said the company would launch the Mi Note and the Mi Note Pro in India “definitely before Diwali” this year. 

The 149g Mi4 has a stainless steel frame and a grated pattern design on its arched back cover. It runs on a Snapdragon 801 quadcore chip that clocks a speed of 2.5GHz. The five-inch IPS LCD display is full high-definition (1,920X1,080 pixels) with a pixel density of 441 an inch. The Corning Concore One Glass Solution protecting the display lets you work with wet hands or with gloves on, too. Viewing angles on the Mi4 on demonstration at the press conference were very good. Both the 13MP rear camera and 8MP front camera with Sony lenses boast an aperture of f1.8 and clicked crisp, detailed pictures. The Mi4 camera can record full high-definition and ultra high-definition (3,840X2,160 pixels) videos.

There were no lags and the touchscreen was snappy. The single-SIM Mi4 comes with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard flash memory and doesn’t support 4G networks. The invitation-only 5.5-inch OnePlus One at  Rs 21,999 one of the Mi4’s competitors, then would seem better with 64GB of memory and 4G support. Engineering failure (Xiaomi couldn’t build an antenna that would fit the phone) and policy uncertainty on the 4G spectrum in India when the company started working on the Mi4 came in the way of a 4G-enabled Mi4, said Barra. 

The Mi4 sports an infra-red blaster that lets you control other smart devices remotely.

Barra claimed the Mi4’s 3,080mAh lithium polymer battery helps the phone run for about 36 hours with each full charge. 

The MIUI6 moves to the next level with animation and customization. For instance, the icons are now animated and tasks take fewer clicks. So, you can uninstall an app straight from the homescreen and when you delete it, confetti-like dots colour-coded according to the app’s icon burst on the screen. The notifications are segregated, à la Gmail, into important and unimportant. While all the unimportant ones appear as an ellipsis in the status bar, only the important appear as floating notifications on the lockscreen. Attachments sent and received can be seen as a single thread in MIUI6 mail app.