Ever so often you see a product that challenges your perceptions. It usually offers two of the three epoch-making criteria — faster, and/or cheaper, and/or better — but seldom all.
I was reading about Xiaomi’s new 5.15” Mi 5S and 5.7” Plus smartphone, and while it is not available directly in Australia, its specifications for the price had me gobsmacked.
Let’s start with the price – The Mi 5S and the Mi 5S Plus cost 1,999/2,599 Yuan – about $400/500 respectively. Then take into account the stated aim of its founder Lei Jun who said, “The Mi 5S and Plus are intended to outdo the iPhone. I believe we beat both of them.”
The result was over three million “registrations” in the first 72 hours. Stocks were sold out on opening day with lines hundreds deep at each company or approved store.
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Regular iTWire readers would have heard me nag about “The end of the $1000 smartphone is nigh”. I started predicting this in July 2015. Since then there has been an almost complete upset in the smartphone “game” where Chinese companies (OPPO, Vivo, OnePlus Huawei, Xiaomi, Moto/Lenovo, etc.) have been gaining amazing market share, primarily at the expense of Apple, and to a lesser degree Samsung, particularly in the home market.
For example, Apple has gone from number one to number five in China in the past year or so – and its market share is still “eroding”, according to Venture Beat. It reports that iOS has declined a further 4.4% to 14.3% in the three months ending July 2016. That is not to decry its performance in the US where it still has just over 30% of sales.
Back to Xiaomi – and the story is probably the same for the other Chinese companies who command over 85% of the local market.
Specifications of the new Xiaomi model (where they differ between the 5S and Plus they are in brackets)
- Looks: Dead knockoff of the iPhone but with a much higher screen to body ratio
- Screen: 1920 x 1080, full HD, IPS LCD (better than the iPhone)
- Processor: Qualcomm 821 quad core (the fastest, latest Snapdragon)
- RAM/Storage: 4/6GB LPDDR4 RAM, 64/128GB UFS
- Rear Camera: 12MP Sony IMX378 [Dual 12MP Sony IMX258], 1/2.3”, phase detection auto-focus, 1.55µm pixel size, Auto HDR, dual LED
- Front camera: 4 MP, f/2.0, 1/3" sensor size, 2µm pixel size, 1080p
- Battery: 3200mAh [3800], Qualcomm 3 fast charge 83% in 30 minutes
- Size/Weight: 145.6 x 70.3 x 8.3 mm x 145g [154.6 x 77.7 x 8 mm x 168g]
- Qualcomm ultrasonic Sense ID fingerprint sensor (under the glass), 3D force touch (similar to Apple peek/poke), Dual Sim, up to 40 LTE bands (Tri-Band aggregation), Wi-Fi AC, dual-band 2x2 MIMO, milled metal body and a headphone jack
If you simply compare specifications, every one of these is better than the equivalent iPhone (that is made in China by Foxconn). But Xiaomi has gone further with ForceTouch, an Apple-like UI, and camera app, etc.
These are spectacular phones at spectacular prices and simply prove that companies can and do make extraordinary amounts of money from a flagship phone that costs about US$200 to make!