Xiaomi is officially launching its MIUI 7 global ROM on Aug. 19 in India while the China ROM will be announced in China six days earlier. The company is also slated to launch the Redmi Note 2, a phablet which has already earned a certification from China-based TENAA.
The scheduled announcement in India will include a talk by Hugo Barra about the global MIUI 7 offshoot. The said global variant will reportedly come bundled with Google's Play Services.
"Some users might be confused about the MIUI 7 launch schedules," says Xiaomi. "For your information, MIUI 7 China ROM will be introduced in China on August 13, and MIUI 7 Global ROM with tailored features for global fans will be unveiled on August 19 in India."
In the meantime, Xiaomi is also preparing to launch the Redmi Note 2, an image of which was seen leaked by Weibo user @KJuma. There's also an image of the device's packaging that was seen together with the leak.
A TENAA certified device, the Redmi Note 2 will reportedly come in two versions. One will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC while the other will come equipped with the MediaTek MT6795 (Helio X10) chip. Both are said to come with octa-core processors.
The MediaTek MT679 has its processors running at 2.2 GHz. It is the same chip found on HTC One ME. Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 615 chip can also be found in Xiaomi's Mi 4i handset.
Based on the leaked image, the upcoming Redmi Note 2 seems to be running Android 5.0.2 Lollipop that is based on MIUI version 6.6.4.0 instead of MIUI 7. Other purported specs include a screen display of 5.5 inches with a resolution of 1080 by 1920, a RAM of 2GB, a non-expandable storage of 16GB, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera and 3100mAh battery. It measures a thickness of 8.05 millimeters and tips the scale at 159 grams.
Speculations hover on whether the company is actually making two different versions of the device which will also sell at two varying price points. Some rumors claim that the upcoming Redmi Note 2 will retail at $175. Other rumored price points were indicated as $177 and $128.
If Xiaomi is indeed announcing the Redmi Note 2 on Aug. 13, it means that it will have to find a way to gain greater attention from consumers as the date is also Samsung's chosen schedule to hold its Unpacked event in New York City. On this day, the South Korean company is set to officially announce the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus.
