Xiaomi is renowned globally by fans and device owners alike for pricing their devices to sell, and being able to do so because of limited batch sizes for the manufacturing and production runs of the device, regardless of which one. The Mi family has grown, both regarding the number of devices and the number of owners and fans of the devices and company. And they have great reasons to, seeing as Xiaomi is great with community outreach and gets that community’s support all year, new-device-coming or not. But the fans, though important, are not the focus of this segment. This segment is for the Mi 4. The phone announced just today in China in the Olympic Green Convention Center. The device, Xiaomi’s fourth consecutive super phone at a super price, has a new design and Xiaomi’s latest promo and announcement video footage (and renders, obviously) show the device in both the ‘look at the outside of me’ and the ‘look what goes into making the outside of me’, much like Apple did when they redesigned the chassis for the iPhone 4 and 5.
Xiaomi’s phone, first off, looks beautiful and elegant, regardless of materials chosen for construction. The piece of material that is highlighted in one of the videos is a single piece of steel, which is ultimately transformed into the metal band around the ‘equator’, if you will, of the phone, where the power and volume buttons sit. So, the phone is gorgeous. Grounds established. But what else is there to say about the design, which is different enough from the Mi 3 from September of 2013? Well, there’s the maintainence of physical size (overall) of the device, with the same size and resolution (5-inch, 1080p) LCD panel, which is thinner thanks to JDI’s OGS (one glass solution, which simply means less necessary glass panes inside the display, also used on OnePlus’s One device; also known as ‘touch on lens’ technology). The cameras on the Mi 4 are impressive and elegant as well, with a 13-and-8 megapixel back-front setup, where the front camera is still behind the front glass and the back camera is set in a small, squared mound that comes slightly off the already-tapered-in curvature of the back. The Mi 4’s back panel is not flat like the iPhone, and it bulges out like the Galaxy line of devices, where it lined up with a side-panel but curves and smoothes in, and it makes a rectangle so much more pleasing to look at and hold (probably, having not held one myself).
The Mi 4 is one of the most high-quality looking and best-specification-for-price devices this year, and many cannot wait to get their hands on one, but the design is still king for now. The device is not all-metal like some people complain about all devices and isn’t all-plastic which people see both benefit and cheapness within the decision. It mixes steel, removable (and interchangeable) back plates of varying materials and designs, and gorgeous front screen and sensor layout/design. Xiaomi have shown they know how to make a phone and sell it, and they have now proved that they know how to design one as well. Well played, Xiaomi. We all look forward to the release (July 29 for the WCDMA version, August for the CDMA variant, and September for the 4G LTE model) of the Mi 4. Stay tuned for further developments around the Xiaomi Mi 4, its design, features, and other miscellaneous details and factoids.