May is shaping up to be a pretty interesting month for the mobile industry. What’s normally a pretty slow month for tech news has events scheduled for LG, Motorola and even Google and Intel are holding a Chromebook-related event tonight. Not one to be left out is Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi, who has scheduled an event May 15th to announce new products. We have a pretty good idea just what the Chinese smartphone giant has in store for us, but we can’t be sure until the event towards the end of next week. The company has taken to Sina Weibo to announce the event as well as Twitter to tease what’s coming next.
A revamped version of the Mi3, tentatively dubbed the Mi3S, is said to be announced with a slightly improved handset build as well as improved specifications. It’s said that the device is to launch with 3GB of RAM as well as a Snapdragon 801 or possibly even a Snapdragon 805, but if Xiaomi is looking to keep their great price, then we’d expect a Snapdragon 801 over the more powerful 805. Android 4.4.2 KitKat is heading to the new device as well, which means Xiaomi could be ready to unveil a new version of MIUI.
During the event, we wouldn’t be surprised if Xiaomi were to take the chance to announce their much-rumored Android tablet, being called the MiPad. We’ve seen parts of the device leak out a number of times and it looks as if Xiaomi is taking a leaf out of Apple’s book, with the MiPad sporting the same aspect ratio as the iPad Mini and coming in at a similar size as well. Xiaomi has previously released an MIUI ROM for the Nexus 7, so it’s clear that they’ve been thinking about a tablet for a little while now. The Chinese company has been slowly but surely moving into other international markets and hopefully, we’ll be hearing about even more markets during the event next week.