Xiaomi has on Tuesday launched its first smartphone for the Indian market, the Mi 3, priced at Rs. 13,999. The smartphone,
first announced for India last week, is available from July 22, 12pm IST, exclusively on Flipkart. Pre-registration opens on Tuesday and will last until July 21 midnight.
The company
also announced the
Redmi 1S and
Redmi Note will be launching in India in August.
The
Xiaomi Mi 3 runs a highly tweaked version of
Android 4.4 KitKat, called MIUI version 5. It comes with a 5-inch full-HD LCD display (1080x1920 pixels) offering a pixel density of 441ppi.
(
Also see:
Xiaomi Mi 3: First Impressions)
With the announcement of Mi 3,
Xiaomi has become the first handset manufacturer to offer an Android smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset below the Rs. 15,000 mark. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8274AB) processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The Mi 3 is listed with 16GB of inbuilt storage with no expandable storage support.
It sports a 13-megapixel rear camera featuring a f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash while the front houses a 2-megapixel camera. It is backed by a 3050mAh battery. The Mi 3 measures 144x73.6x8.1mm and weighs 145 grams. It will be available in Metallic Grey colour.
(
Also see: Why Xiaomi's India Entry is Unlikely to Give Samsung Sleepless Nights)
Notably, earlier this week, Xiaomi, also
referred to as 'China's Apple', teased its next flagship smartphone, expected to be called the Mi 4, with
images of a 'steel invite' for the
July 22 launch event.
Xiaomi's Google+ page shared the images of the invitation letter made of steel for "The Journey of a Piece of Steel" launch event where the company is expected to reveal the Xiaomi Mi 4 with a metal chassis.
The company said in a Google+ post, "Invitation letters for the 2014 Xiaomi Annual New Product Launch Event on July 22: The Journey of a Piece of Steel." The Google+ post further confirmed that the Xiaomi's invitation letter has been made of real steel.
Xiaomi Mi 3: First Look