Last year a Chinese manufacturer introduced a powerful smart phone at one of the lowest retail prices ever known to the outside world. Now after a year “Xiaomi” has taken the Chinese smart phone market by storm and giving big names like Samsung, Iphone and HTC a tough competition. The latest release- Xioami Mi 2 boasts specs that are on par with the latest smart phones like Samsung Galaxy S3, Iphone 5, HTC One X and Google Nexus 4.You can take your pick among three smart phones in the MI series. Currently its portfolio includes the Mi-1 at around ¥1,300 ($208), the Mi-1s at ¥1,500 yuan ($321). The Mi-2 is already available at a price of ¥1999 ($240) that is 60 percent cheaper than that of an unlocked iPhone 4S 16GB. It’s a dream of all those western budget smartphone owners. The latest phone packs punch with features such as Android 4.1, a 1.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 4.3-inch IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixels and a 2000 mAh battery. However, there are minor software glitches in the phone’s MIUI OS but for the price you are paying you cannot complain and most those problems are removed by the regular firmware updates.
Many observers believe that Xiaomi is pricing its products close to their production costs in order to rapidly penetrate and capture the smart phone market of China. As if China wasn’t enough, Xiaomi aims to target customers abroad with massive orders being taken from Taiwan and some European countries. The thousands of “where can I buy a Xiaomi?” comments from various blogs suggest that the tech junkies in west cannot wait to get their hands on Xiaomi.
