Xiaomi has launched the Mi 4c, its latest 5-inch flagship, in China as a follow up to the (older but still fairly new) Mi 4i. The Mi 4c is said the be the first smartphone in the world with a Snapdragon 808 chip that has a price tag of around US$ 200 (without a contract). The phone is available now on mi.com with prices starting at CN¥ 1,299 (~RM 892) for 16 GB and CN¥ 1,499 (~RM1,029) for 32 GB. The phones come in a choice of 5 colours and these are White, Gray, Pink, Blue, and Yellow.
The Mi 4c replaces its 5-month old sibling, the Mi 4i, but intriguingly, Xiaomi’s Chinese site still carries the much older Mi 4; meaning it’s still available for purchase). The Mi 4c in itself is a carbon copy of its predecessor but only the outside, as much of the changes that have been made are to the internals. The device gets the brand new MIUI 7 OS which is based on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and as mentioned earlier, is equipped with a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 hexa-core SoC that’s paired to a Adreno 418 GPU.
The camera for Mi 4c is the same 13 MP Sony/Samsung sourced offering as before but Xiaomi has added phase detection autofocus for this one. The phone is now capable of focusing in 0.1 seconds and has additional software tweaks for optimising bright backlights, night scenes, and for noise reduction. On the front, a 5 MP wide-angle camera takes over the job, while both front and back cameras come with an aperture of f/2.0.
Mi 4c is the first device to feature an IR-blaster as well as Edge Tap. The former is capable of controlling over 2000 different appliances and includes support for DSLR cameras. Edge Tap offers a new way to control the phone by just using taps: a double-tap on the side works as as back button and a single tap on the side captures a photo (while in the camera app). The phone supports double-tap to wake too.
The primary highlight of the device is of course the reversible USB Type-C connector. Along with that, the phone now supports Qualcomm QC 2.0 fast charging for its high-voltage (4.4 V) 3080 mAh battery.
Mi Mobile
Apart from the phone, Xiaomi also launched its own MVNO service in China called Mi Mobile. Mi Mobile offers two prepaid plans that are claimed to do away with the kind of complicated packages that are offered by mobile operators there. The plans are said to go on sale on October 9 (for China only) at 10 am (their local time).
The first is a pay-as-you-go plan which rides on China Unicom’s 2G/3G/4G networks. A rate of CN¥ 0.10 (about 7 sen) is applied to per-minute voice calls, for each SMS, and for each MB of data.
The second is a data-centric plan that rides on China Telecom’s 2G/3G/4G infrastructure. The plan comes with a 3 GB data-package that is priced at CN¥ 59 (~RM 39) per month, after which the customers will be charged CN¥ 0.10 per MB of data. For the same CN¥ 0.10, customers will also be able to enjoy pay-as-you-use privileges for per-minute of voice call and for each SMS .
Xiaomi announced that customers can book their own numbers and purchase these SIMs online. The SIMs will be triple-cut to support mini-, micro-, or nano-SIM slots.
Mi Bluetooth Speaker
Also launched at the same time was the Mi Bluetooth Speaker. This portable speaker has a retail price of CN¥ 199 (~RM 131) and comes in White, Black, Yellow, Blue, and Pink colour options.
The compact all-metal speaker has a slightly larger footprint than a Mi Note, and it comes with two speakers (which are based on 36 mm neodymium magnet drivers) and one piece of ‘double-injected’ passive bass radiator. The speaker has an Anerva AV3102 chip for Digital Signal Processing and boasts a high volume of up to 90 decibels.
For its audio source, it can be either paired with other audio devices or work on its own with the built-in microSD card reader. The speaker has 1500 mAh battery that can last up to 8 hours of use on a single charge.
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