You might have heard of Xiaomi, even though they’re not a well-known brand in the West. The Chinese company manages to command a brand presence close to Samsung’s and yet, their phones aren’t available in the traditional carrier model and they don’t sell all that many units. So how the hell do they do such a thing? Well, if you remember the Xiaomi Mi-2 that launched with similar specs to that of the Nexus 4, you’ll already know that it’s because they can deliver stunning smartphones with insane specs for brilliant prices. In a market like China, pricing is pretty much the deciding factor when it comes to being a successful smartphone manufacturer.
Their latest flagship device, the Mi-3, appears to have leaked out in China and what a device it looks like! There’s no denying that they’ve taken some inspiration from the HTC One but then, Samsung didn’t get to where they are now without “being inspired”. Under the hood is where things get really interesting. Take a look at some of the proposed specs:
- 5″ 1920 x 1080 display
- Snapdragon Series 800 clocked at 2.3GHz CPU
- 2GB of RAM
- 13-Megapixel rear-facing camera, 2 Megapixel front-facing
- 3000 mAh battery
- Android 5.0 with custom MIUI skin
If those specs haven’t caught you eye, then I’m afraid there has to be something wrong with. 2.3 Ghz in a smartphone, on four cores. That sort of processing power is insane, if this turns out to be for real, you may as well throw that ultrabook in the trash and hook this up to a monitor. Okay, so maybe it’s not that fast but you have to admit, that sort of clock speed is higher than anything we’ve seen before, and not just by 200 Mhz as normal.
As I said, pricing is one of the biggest – if not the biggest – factor as to whether or not your device is going to succeed. If Xiaomi priced this at the same $320 price they did with the Mi-2, there’s no doubt they’d have a winner on their hands. Getting hold of this phone in the States or Europe might be a little tricky but, it might be something to import.