We had an opportunity to meet with Xiaomi’s VP for Global Division, Hugo Barra, last week and we came away with some nice info for all the Mi Fans out there; Xiaomi is set to announce the price and availability for two more devices for the Malaysian market on the 25th of June.
Mr Barra also shared some numbers about Xiaomi in Malaysia. The company has had an on time delivery of 99.6% based on the 6-8 day delivery promise and to deliver a better experience, Xiaomi is also planning to setup a distribution point in KL within the next few months. Xiaomi is going to bring in more units for its online sales as the last round saw 7,000 Mi 3 units being sold in 1 minute and 5 seconds. In total, it took 5 minutes and 10 seconds to sell off the entire lot: 7k Mi 3 smartphones, 10k 10,400 mAh batteries and 5k 5,200 mAh batteries.
Xiaomi is also proud of its next business day promise of returning products that were sent in to their 4 service centres; currently, there’s an average waiting time of 22 hours. The company also has a September target for its Mi Home in Malaysia. This will function as an Experience Centre as well as a regular service centre. Mi Home will be located in an IT centric mall and will feature devices that consumers can try out for themselves, even products that have not been launched here in Malaysia.
That’s it for the updates on the company and now, we can take a look at the products that are coming soon. The first device that we’re going to talk about is the Redmi 1S. Xiaomi announced last month that this device will make an appearance here in June and looks like the company is on target. The 1S is a dual-SIM, dual standby device with the left SIM slot for 3G connections and the one on the right for 2G. With that, both SIMs can actually make/take calls and both are able to send/receive text messages. Xiaomi has also bumped up the internal memory and the allowable capacity for SD card to double of what they were on the original Redmi. Both Redmi 1S and Redmi Note also have this feature called Lite mode (aka called senior mode in China) that makes the onscreen buttons bigger and the UI much simpler to use. It makes the smartphone work like a feature phone and it even reads back the numbers that are being keyed on the dial pad as well as reading out the contents of text messages.
Here’s a quick look at the specifications of Redmi 1S:
- 1.6 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU and Adreno 305 GPU.
- Runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with MIUI V5.
- 4.7”, 720 x 1280 IPS HD screen with a pixel density of ~312 ppi.
- 1 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory and accepts microSD card of up to 64 GB.
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0 with OTG support.
- Has GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA + HSUPA.
- 8 MP auto-focusing rear camera with LED flash and 1.6 MP front camera. Aperture for rear camera is rated at f/2.2.
- 2000 mAh, removable, Li-Po battery.
- Dimensions 137 x 69 x 9.9 mm and weighs about 158 g.
- Comes in deep gray for now with white and pink colours expected in the future.
There was also one more interesting piece of hardware option that we don’t get to see anymore. Since the battery is removable, Xiaomi will also be selling external batteries and more importantly, external battery chargers to go with your new Redmi 1S. The batteries and chargers will cost RM25 apiece.
For colour options, only the grey version will be released this time with an August estimation for the white one (pink might make it here but it will depend on market forces). Otherwise, you will be able to personalise the device with back covers and screen protectors which are priced between RM20-RM30 for the former and RM10 for the latter.
The other device, which has already made an appearance on Xiaomi’s Malaysian site, is the Redmi Note. The one that will sell in Malaysia will be the advanced 1.7 GHz version with 2 GB of RAM. This too will have an IPS display and it handled 3D games like Riptide GP with ease. The Redmi Note has similar dual-SIM, dual standby setup as the Redmi 1S but the memory card slot limits external microSD card to just 32GB.
Here are the specifications for the Redmi Note:
- 1.7 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 CPU and Mali-450MP4 GPU.
- Runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with MIUI V5
- 5.5”, 720 x 1280 IPS HD screen with a pixel density of ~267 ppi.
- 2 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory and accepts microSD card of up to 32 GB.
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0 with OTG support.
- Has GPRS, EDGE and HSPA+.
- 13 MP auto-focusing rear camera with LED flash and 5 MP front camera. Aperture is rated at f/2.2.
- 3200 mAh, removable, Li-Po battery.
- Dimensions 154 x 78.7 x 9.45 mm and weighs about 199 g.
- Comes in only white colour.
The Redmi Note will come with a default white cover but consumers will be able to purchase other covers, including the white flip case, online.
As mentioned earlier, the price and availability of the Redmi 1S and Redmi Note will be announced on the 25th of June and the devices should make it to one of the Tuesday sales soon after. For now, you can participate in the ongoing ‘Note the Price’ contest to get yourself some F-codes for the Redmi Note. The codes will get you ahead of the buying crowd as it eliminates waiting time: just logon to the Xiaomi Malaysia site, add the F-code and you can start ordering immediately.
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