As many of you know, Xiaomi had released quite a few smartphones this year, ranging from Redmi 3, Redmi Note 3 and Redmi 3s, which can be considered mid-range devices, all the way to the company’s new flagship, the Mi 5. These handsets might be really compelling, but if you’re looking for a waterproof (or even water resistant) smartphone, you’re probably not looking into either of Xiaomi-branded products. Why? Well, because Xiaomi doesn’t waterproof their phones, and the company’s CEO decided to explain why that is, read on.
Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s CEO, recently said that the MIUI 8 will contain fewer ads than the MIUI 7, and that the company sold over 100 million Redmi-branded smartphones to this day, and now he decided to talk about waterproofing. Lei Jun said that quite a few people asked why Xiaomi isn’t waterproofing their phones, and as his first reason, Mr. Jun said the following, long-term safety. He said that even a minor damage to the phone can cause the phone to deteriorate and render waterproofing ineffective. You can basically drop a phone, get a tiny crack somewhere, and the water will be able to damage your phone, even though it is waterproof. The second, and quite probably even more important reason, is the cost of doing that. He said that Xiaomi would be willing to build such a phone if customers are willing to pay 20-30% more than they currently do. Xiaomi boasts about high quality, and yet extremely affordable devices, and they’ve become quite good at offering such devices, and a waterproof phone would apparently not be as affordable as people think it would.
It would be interesting to see what people think in this regard, Xiaomi could fire up an official pool in order to get people’s opinions on this matter, they did something similar when they named their recently released Mi Max phablet, so why not now. Either way, it seems like we won’t be seeing a waterproof (or water resistant) smartphone coming from Xiaomi’s workshop anytime soon, but if customers keep the pressure on Xiaomi, who knows, maybe the company opts to manufacture such a device in the future.