Xiaomi is the small company with a huge following, hailing from Shenzhen, China. They rocked the world with their smartphone, the Mi, a few years back, and this year, just this past week, they shot a hole in consumer’s idea of smartphones and the prices you pay to get them. Something like the Samsung Galaxy S5 will cost you upwards of $600 (USD) and that’s not cool, especially since most of the world doesn’t have carriers that subsidize the cost of the phone and trap you with a contract (or similar, like T-Mobile has done as of late). So if you want the latest and greatest from most companies, you have to shell out excessive amounts of money. But Xiaomi thought differently years ago, and continues to today, with their Mi 4 flagship.
The phone boasts a Snapdragon 801 processor, running up to 2.5 Ghz, backed with 3 GB of RAM, the Adreno 330 GPU, 16 or 64 GB of storage, and of course, that much-discussed design with metal glass, and plastic, as well as interchangeable back panels. The phone screams ” I am among the top in specifications, but put myself in the next price bracket down” and it does just that. Instead of making you give up $600 or more, it will cost the equivalent of $530 (equivalent since America is not a market that can buy these phones from Xiaomi as of now) to get, unlocked. Yeah, that’s shaking up the market structure a bit. But what new things are there? There’s one, and it involves Italy and Europe.
Xiaomi Italia, the company’s online storefront in Italy, put up a product page for the Xiaomi E4, a variant of the just-released Mi 4, specifically for the European market and networks. The downside, it doesn’t have LTE. Yet. Yeah, Xiaomi actually says on the page that the E4 will be launching and shipping in August, with an LTE-capable model in the future. Xiaomi has not, though, said when, even slightly, the LTE model will launch, but is planned to work with European LTE networks, as well as ‘all Italian and European operators’. It will be nice to have Xiaomi outside of China, especially because their fame and popularity extends far beyond the Chinese borders. Stay tuned for that later release date, and any happenings regarding the Mi 4 and E4.