Xiaomi, the Chinese tech company that has often been referred to as ‘The Apple of China’ in the Western media, introduced its latest flagship smartphone, the Mi 5, earlier this year. The company has also launched a whole host of new smartphones over the past year as part of its more pocket-friendly ‘Redmi’ line, including the mid-range Redmi Note 3 and Redmi Note 4, both of which come with pretty impressive hardware for the price. However, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Xiaomi in recent times. The company was the leading smartphone vendor in its homeland not so long ago, but its inability to launch a flagship product last year cost it dear, with Huawei taking over the top slot in the country with a number of attractive offerings of its own.
However, having finally launched the Mi 5 earlier this year after what seemed like an eternity, Xiaomi is apparently getting ready to launch its second-generation premium phablet at some stage in the coming weeks. There have already been numerous leaks about the Mi Note 2 over the past few weeks that have revealed just about all the key hardware specs of the upcoming phablet. Now, a few leaked Powerpoint slides that show off what looks like marketing material for the upcoming phablet, have seemingly confirmed most of those hardware specs that have been rumored thus far. That includes the 5.7-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) AMOLED display with ‘Force Touch’ and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip.
The device is also expected to come in two different versions, with the base model carrying 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, while the more premium version will sport 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage. Neither is expected to have a microSD card slot, though. The Mi Note 2 also promises to be the first Xiaomi smartphone with a dual rear-camera setup that’s expected to include the 23-megapixel Sony IMX318 sensor and the 12-megapixel Sony IMX378 sensor. The front-facing selfie-cam is expected to be an 8-megapixel unit. The device is also said to come with a fingerprint scanner, an iris scanner and an NFC chip, while the battery will reportedly be a 4,100 mAh unit. According to the leaked slides, the base version will be priced at 2,799 Yuan ($415), while the more premium version will sport a 2,999 Yuan ($445) price-tag.
