After being teased over the last few days on Xiaomi’s twitter feed, the brand’s mysterious ‘global Mi phone’ is now official, the Xiaomi Mi4i.
Looking a lot like the cheaper, slightly more plastic version of the Xiaomi Mi4 which was launched last year, the Mi4i is very much an alternative to the Mi4 as opposed to being a replacement for the previous version.
The smartphone has a polycarbonate unibody design that’s thinner and lighter than the Mi4, coming in at just 7.8mm thick and weighing 130g.
Running it will be a 2nd gen 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 615 processor that runs at both 1.7GHz and 1.1GHz, 2GB RAM as well as 16GB storage with dual-SIM connectivity on top. The battery is just a hair larger than it’s predecessor at 3120mAh, but it supports Quick Charge and is rated at 1.5 days of average use before needing a charge.
The screen is a 5 inch 1080p IPS display at 441ppi which features Sunlight Display which automatically adjusts screen brightness and image quality in direct sunlight. It’s supposedly much brighter and saves up to 30 percent more battery than regular brightness adjustment. The Mi4i will also be Xiaomi’s first smartphone with Android 5.0 Lollipop with MIUI 6.0 out of the box.
Unfortunately, the Mi4i doesn’t support a microSD card slot so you are going to be stuck with just that 16GB storage.
The rear camera is a 13 MP shooter with Xiaomi’s 5-element lens and a wide f/2.0 aperture, with the front camera a 5 MP snapper with a f/1.8 aperture with a 80 degree wide angle.
Devices in India will also get to enjoy Visual IVR that will take the bite out the customer service experience on mobile letting you to skip voice prompts by displaying it all on screen instead. Visual IVR will be in the MIUI beta build in India first before it’s rolled out to everyone else.
The Xiaomi Mi4i will retail for Rs.12999 (about RM 746) and will come in blue, white, black, yellow, pink, with the Malaysian availability coming in May, with the price likely to be under the RM 800 mark.
Images from Miui.com
