Xiaomi has launched two new flagship models that once again dare to shake up the market dominated by the iPhone 6 Plus of Apple. Dubbed the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro, the phones promise to deliver an impressive specs lineup but on a price range that's definitely easier to reach compared to the competition.
The company launched a pair of 5.7-inch handsets which, unlike the older siblings, resemble an Android instead of Apple. Xiaomi must have been trying to avoid being labeled as the "Apple of the East," which it has always been labeled as, because of the striking resemblance of its devices with the iPhone.
Xiaomi called the phones the "most epic flagship phone of the year." The previous flagship phone was the Mi 4, which the company launched in July 2014.
The Mi Note features a Gorilla Glass display with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor of 2.5GHz and a RAM of 3GB. The device, which includes a back cover that's made out of glass with curves along the edges, is sleeker than the iPhone 6 Plus by 0.15 mm. It also has 4G LTE connectivity, dual SIM-card slots, and a battery of 3000 mAh. The pricing starts at $376 without contract. The device will hit stores in China on Jan. 27.
The Mi Note Pro is a more powerful version of the device slated to arrive in late March. It will be powered by a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 4GB of RAM and 2K display. The device is said to have faster download speeds. Pricing is estimated at $534.
Xiaomi already has a 5.5-inch handset, although it caters more to the lower-end market, with the price set at around $162. It has become a top-selling phablet in China.
According to research firm IDC, China currently ranks as the world's leading market when it comes to big-screen mobile phones that have larger than 5.5-inch displays.
"China leads the world, with more shipments of phablets than the next ten largest phablet markets combined," said analyst Melissa Chau of IDC in November last year. One of the reasons cited is that a number of phablets are sold by domestic vendors in the local market and many of them are offered at low prices.
The newly launched phablets will definitely help Xiaomi to grow its ever-increasing market share. In the third quarter of 2014, the company ranked the third largest smartphone vendor in the world, following Apple and Samsung. While China is the primary market, the company is also expanding its presence to Southeast Asia and India.
