Xiaomi unveils 5-inch Mi-3 smartphone with option for Tegra 4 or Snapdragon 800 SoC

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has officially unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi-3. And the specs are mouth-watering to say the least. First off, there will two storage variants of the smartphone, a 16GB version selling for $327 (Rs 21510 approx) and a 64GB version, which will set users back $410 (Rs 26970 approx). Unfortunately, there's no mention yet of the smartphone hitting the Indian market, although the likelihood of that happening, in all honestly, seems pretty slim.

The smartphone also comes with a 5-inch display with a 1080p resolution. The company will be offering the smartphone with two chipsets to choose from. The first variant will come with a Nvidia Tegra 4 processor clocked at 1.8GHz under the hood while the other comes with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 800 SoC. Earlier reports had hinted at the Snapdragon processor being clocked at 2.1GHz, along with an AnTuTu benchmark that gave it a massive 84,262 point score. And the Mi-3 manages to pack all this in a body that is only 8.1mm thick.

The Mi-3 comes with a 13-megapixel camera as well as a 2-megapixel front shooter. Also thrown into the package is a dual-LED flash. Xiaomi is also packing in a continuous shot feature to give users the option of taking 10 shots in one second. Connectivity in the smartphone is taken care of with dual-band WiFi and NFC support. Despite the relatively slim form, the Mi-3 comes with a pretty impressive 3,050mAh battery.

Packed with high-end internals

The company will reportedly be pushing the new smartphone out in batches, the first of which will be seen by mid-October.  Xiaomi has built quite a reputation for its range of competitively priced smartphones that pack excellent features. Both these culminate in the company having a strong base of loyalists.

In addition to the smartphone, the company has also announced a new 47-inch Xiaomi TV.  The 3D TV will come in six colours. The unique bit is the smart TV software is based on MIUI, a custom Android ROM, and also has a quad-core Snapdragon 600 SoC along with 2GB of RAM. The TV also supports dual-band Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 4.0. Form-wise, the television unit comes with an 8.4mm bezel as well as 2mm to 4.8cm thickness dimension. The company has even thrown in an remote with 11 buttons and Bluetooth connectivity. The new Xiaomi TV will sport a price tag of $490 (Rs 31,860 approx) and start arriving from mid-October. As with the Xiaomi Mi-3, there's no announcement of a release outside China.

Xiaomi was in the news lately when it hired Hugo Barra, former Google Vice President for Android. Barra was reportedly present at the unveiling of the phone and the TV. The Next Web indicates that the Chinese company is now being valued at $10 billion and has reportedly overtaken Apple in terms of market share.