Tag: Xiaomi smartphones

Xiaomi 14 review: A lot to ‘Leica’ in this one

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In an era saturated with smartphones, standing out amidst the competition requires a blend of innovation, functionality, and elegance. The Xiaomi 14 epitomises this amalgamation, serving as a testament to the collaborative efforts of Xiaomi and Leica. From its impeccable — and improved — design to its cutting-edge camera technology and robust performance, the Xiaomi 14 redefines excellence in the realm of flagship smartphones.

Design ingenuity

These days, smartphones relentlessly pursue larger displays, but Xiaomi takes a refreshing approach with the Xiaomi 14, striking a harmonious balance between form and function. With its 6.36-inch LTPO OLED display, the device offers an immersive viewing experience without compromising on usability. Its slender profile, measuring 8.2 mm in thickness and weighing a mere 193 grams, makes it remarkably ergonomic for one-handed use—a rarity in today’s market inundated with oversized devices.

The Xiaomi 14’s design ethos extends beyond mere aesthetics, prioritising user comfort and convenience. The inclusion of flat sides and a curved back not only enhances grip but also exudes a sense of refinement and sophistication. Crafted with an aluminium frame, the device exudes durability and premium craftsmanship — a hallmark of Xiaomi’s attention to detail. It is only slightly smaller than my iPhone 14 Pro Max, but its brilliant design and weight distribution trick you into thinking it is more compact than it actually is.

Available in Matte Black, Jade Green, and Classic White variants, the Xiaomi 14 offers consumers a choice of colours to suit their individual preferences. My review unit came in the Jade Green variant.

Moreover, the thoughtful inclusion of an IR blaster, seamlessly integrated within the camera module, underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to functionality and user-centric design. Gone are the days of awkwardly pointing your phone flat at any of your appliances, hoping you hit the right button. Now, you can hold the phone naturally and control your TV, AC, what have you.

Also read: Redmi Buds 5 Review: Pocket-friendly music

Display brilliance and camera mastery

At the heart of the Xiaomi 14 lies a vibrant display that captivates the senses with its brilliance and clarity. Boasting a peak brightness of 3000nits, a pixel density of 460PPI, and a fluid 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, the device delivers an unparalleled visual experience, whether indoors or under direct sunlight. With Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support, the Xiaomi 14 elevates multimedia consumption to new heights, immersing users in a world of vivid colours and lifelike imagery.

However, the true pièce de résistance of the Xiaomi 14 lies in its camera prowess, a result of the collaborative efforts between Xiaomi and Leica. The device’s 50-megapixel primary sensor, coupled with additional telephoto and ultra-wide sensors, captures moments with unparalleled clarity and precision. Leica’s expertise shines through in every shot, delivering images that are rich in detail and true to life, even in challenging lighting conditions.

Moreover, the Xiaomi 14 offers a plethora of Leica-tuned features and filters, allowing users to unleash their creativity and express their unique vision. From portrait modes to documentary styles, the device empowers users to explore new horizons in mobile photography, all with the signature Leica touch.

Performance excellence and software innovation

Under the hood, the Xiaomi 14 is powered by the formidable Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, ensuring blazing-fast performance and seamless multitasking. However, what truly sets the Xiaomi 14 apart is its integration of HyperOS, a revolutionary operating system that heralds a new era of interconnected device networking. With HyperOS, users can seamlessly integrate their Xiaomi devices, from smart bands to CCTV cameras, creating a cohesive ecosystem that enhances productivity and convenience.

Anuj Sharma, Xiaomi India’s Chief Marketing Officer, told me at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona that the Xiaomi 14 was the first smartphone made with HyperOS in mind.

Benchmark tests attest to the Xiaomi 14’s performance prowess, consistently outperforming its peers in processing capabilities. Moreover, with promises of four major software updates and five years of security patches, the device ensures longevity and continued optimisation, providing users with a future-proof investment.

Battery efficiency and charging innovation

Despite its (relatively) compact dimensions, the Xiaomi 14 houses a robust 4,610 mAh battery, optimised for maximum efficiency by HyperOS and Snapdragon’s power-saving technologies. During extensive usage, including multimedia consumption and gaming, the device delivers impressive endurance, easily lasting a full day on a single charge.

Further, the Xiaomi 14 boasts rapid charging capabilities, with support for 90W wired and 50W wireless charging. From zero to full capacity in just 36 minutes, the device epitomises convenience and efficiency, ensuring that users spend less time tethered to charging cables and more time enjoying their favourite activities.

In conclusion

The Xiaomi 14 transcends the boundaries of conventional smartphone design, delivering a holistic experience that encompasses style, functionality, and innovation. From its sleek design to its unparalleled camera capabilities and robust performance, the Xiaomi 14 sets a new benchmark for flagship smartphones.

While minor drawbacks such as pre-installed bloatware may exist, they are overshadowed by the device’s myriad strengths and innovations. As such, the Xiaomi 14 emerges as a compelling choice for consumers seeking a premium Android experience without compromising on affordability or versatility.

In a market saturated with options, the Xiaomi 14 stands tall as a paradigm of excellence, embodying the ethos of Xiaomi’s commitment to innovation and user-centric design. Whether you’re a photography enthusiast, a multitasking professional, or simply a discerning consumer in search of the best-in-class smartphone experience, the Xiaomi 14 promises to exceed your expectations and redefine your smartphone journey.

Also read: Xiaomi’s HyperOS lays the road ahead as the tech giant turns 10

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi 14 Ultra leaked specifications reveal camera set up and key specifications, check details

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is expected to launch its latest device Xiaomi 14 Ultra soon. Amid the speculations over the much-anticipated launch, a Chinese tipster on Weibo (a Chinese microblogging website), has leaked some of the key details, including the camera setup and operating system of the upcoming smartphone.

According to the details leaked on Weibo, the upcoming Xiaomi 14 Ultra is expected to sport a quad rear camera unit while having a 5,180 mAh battery support with 90W wired fast charging and 50W of wireless charging options. The tipster also mentioned that the handset is likely to run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is one of the most anticipated models from the tech manufacturing company which will be succeeding the Xiaomi 13 Ultra which was launched in April, this year.

According to the tipster, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is expected to sport four 50-megapixel cameras in the unit. The tipster claims the smartphone features the Sony LYT900 as the primary sensor with f/1.63 aperture. The complete camera unit of the phone is said to have a pack of dual telephoto lenses with a new architecture.

Apart from this, the tipster also shared that the phone will have a glass body and a depth sensor with upgraded specifications. It is likely to have a slightly curved screen with an ultrasonic in-display finger scanner for authentication. As per the reports, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is likely to have a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with 2K resolution with a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is anticipated to be launched officially by March 2024, while arriving with upgrades over the Xiaomi 13 Ultra which is priced at CNY 5,999 or ₹71,600.

However, in the same series Xiaomi 14 Ultra will be standing alongside Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro, which were launched in October, this year in China. Both the models sported Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC while using Xiaomi’s Hyper OS as an interface. The previously launched models featured LTPO OLED displays with up to 2K resolution and 120Hz dynamic refresh rate with a Leica-tuned triple rear camera setup.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Now, Xiaomi phones could charge in 8 minutes flat; company shares video

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In a demo of its hyper-fast charging technology, leading Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi claimed that its next smartphone models could complete charge in eight minutes with wired chargers and in 15 minutes with the wireless ones.

“Charge up to 100% in just 8 minutes using wired charging and 15 minutes wirelessly! #XiaomiHyperCharge,” Xiaomi tweeted from its official handle on Monday.

“Too good to be true? Check out the timer yourself! #InnovationForEveryone,” the Chinese smartphone manufacturer added and shared a video.

Charge up to 100% in just 8 minutes using wired charging and 15 minutes wirelessly! #XiaomiHyperCharge

Too good to be true? Check out the timer yourself! #InnovationForEveryone pic.twitter.com/muBTPkRchl

— Xiaomi (@Xiaomi) May 31, 2021

The video shows a custom-build Mi 11 Pro with a 4,000mAh battery getting fully charged in eight minutes with a 200W wired ‘HyperCharge’ charger, or in 15 minutes with a 120W wireless charging system.

This is not the first time Xiaomi is exhibiting its fast charging technology.

Two years ago, it announced a 100W system that could charge a 4,000mAh battery in 17 minutes, while last year, its Mi 10 Ultra, which had a bigger 4,500mAh battery, was shown to be fully charged in 23 minutes at 120W.

Another leader in this field is Oppo with its VOOC technology forming the basis of OnePlus’ Dash and Warp fast charging systems.

A year after Xiaomi’s announcement of the faster 100W charging system, Oppo demonstrated a 4,000mAh charging in 20-minutes using a 125W system last year while its current flagship is X3 Pro charging at 65W.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra features the biggest battery in Galaxy S series at 5000 mAH and features fast charging. According to Samsung, it needs a 25W charger to give full charging for a day with little wait time. Samsung adds that if plugged with a 45W USB-C charger, their Super-Fast Charging 2.0 lets the phone hit 100 percent charge in record time.

With a 6000 mAh battery, Samsung Galaxy M31s also has robust fast-charging functionality.

OnePlus 8 Pro which comes with a 4510mAh battery can be charged to 50 percent by using OnePlus’ Warp Charge 30T in 30 minute and 100 percent in 80 minutes.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi fixes ‘tech glitch’ responsible for weather app not showing border locations

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Tech giant Xiaomi has said that a technical error in its weather app was behind its smartphones not displaying weather for locations in Arunachal Pradesh.

“We would like to clarify that the weather app on our devices uses data from multiple third-party data sources and we understand that for many locations, the weather-related data is not available on the current app,” the Mi India spokesperson clarified.

A lot of Xiaomi smartphones users complained on Twitter saying that in-built weather application does not return any results when they try to find a city or town in Arunachal Pradesh, not even the capital city of Itanagar. The issue was highlighted on a youtube channel after being brought to notice by one Itanagar user on Saturday. The issue has now been fixed.

A HUGE CONCERN

Default weather App in @XiaomiIndia phones doesn’t show weather of cities in Arunachal Pradesh…
RT 🔃 and circulate..

cc @PMOIndia @GoI_MeitY @rsprasad @AmitShah @HMOIndia
#TGFamily pic.twitter.com/UGLJBzFmJy

— Gaurav Chaudhary (@TechnicalGuruji) October 17, 2020

Now, any weather apps’ data is provided by a third-party weather company. AccuWeather.com is the data provider of Xiaomi, OnePlus and a few other major smartphone brands. One might think that the issue is at the data provider’s end but that is not the case, Itanagar’s weather can be seen on AccuWeather.com but not on Xiaomi’s smartphones which extract data from AccuWeather itself.

Netizens are connecting this issue with the ongoing Sino-Indian border dispute. Remember, China had included parts of Arunachal Pradesh within its international boundaries as revealed by Sky Map’s April 2020 Version. Sky Map is a Chinese authority responsible for digital maps operated by a unit directly under Beijing’s National Surveying and Mapping Geographic Information Bureau.

India on Thursday reprimanded China for its complaints about infrastructure development in Union territory Ladakh and border infringement from McMohan line. “Our position on Arunachal Pradesh has also been made clear several times. Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India. This fact has also been clearly conveyed to the Chinese side on several occasions, including at the highest level.” said Anurag Srivastava, official spokesperson, MEA in a press conference in the National capital.

-by Sachin Khasturia

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi says widening India product range to shed budget image

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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China’s Xiaomi Corp is shedding its image as a budget brand by widening its India product portfolio to include pricier, high-spec smartphones and smart TVs, a senior company executive said on Monday.

Xiaomi, which began selling devices in India in 2014, has outflanked South Korea’s Samsung Electronics as India’s top smartphone player, according to tech research firm Counterpoint.

The Beijing-headquartered company’s devices, typically become instant sellers on e-commerce websites and top sales in the up to $250 price-segment.

But Xiaomi’s more expensive smartphones face stiffer competition from Samsung and Chinese rivals Oppo and Vivo. And technology analysts say it is seen as a cheap or budget brand by customers.

Xiaomi has tried to change that by launching phones with high-end processors and cameras, priced above 20,000 rupees.

“We are inching up in the entire ASP (average selling price) curve,” Muralikrishnan B, the Chief Operating Officer of Xiaomi’s India unit told Reuters. “There is acceptance coming in at the higher end of the price band and in our definition higher end is now 30,000 (rupees)”

Xiaomi’s range of smart TVs, priced from 11,999 to 54,999 rupees, and other internet-enabled products have also helped bolster its smartphones sales and brand image.

“There are various ways in which you make inroads into the consumers psyche, into their home and help one category grow from the other,” Muralikrishnan said.

Xiaomi, which sells the bulk of its smartphones online, is also expanding its retail network in India: it will open 10,000 stores in the country by mid-2020 from over 6,000 stores currently.

It also plans to soon launch a consumer lending business in India, its biggest market outside of China.

On Wednesday, Xiaomi unveiled two new phone models and a new version of their operating system, based on Google’s Android mobile platform.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi readying four smartphones with 108MP cameras, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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With Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi having earlier revealed that it was working on a smartphone with Samsung’s 108MP ISOCELL Bright HMX camera sensor, a recent report has now claimed that the company will launch four 108MP camera smartphones.

The information regarding upcoming 108MP camera smartphone codes were revealed through MIUI’s Mi Gallery app, XDA Developers reported on Monday.

The MIUI’s Mi Gallery app reveals the codename of the four 108MP camera smartphones. The codenames are “tucana”, “draco”, “umi”, and “cmi”. No other specifications of the upcoming smartphones have been disclosed.

In addition, the report denies Mi Mix 4 as being one of the four phones in development with 108MP camera, as was previously rumoured.

Samsung has already started mass production of the ISOCELL Bright HMX camera sensor. The upcoming sensor will be able to capture 108-megapixel grade photos with a resolution of 12032×9024 pixels. The sensor will still come with a 0.8-micrometre (µm) pixel size, the same as its 64MP predecessor.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi launches Black Shark 2 in India: Specifications, features, price, etc

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on Monday launched a new  gaming smartphone, Xiaomi Black Shark 2 in India with a starting price of Rs 39,999.

It comes with two variants — 6GB RAM along with 128GB storage(Rs 39,999) and 12GB variant with 256GB storage (Rs 49,999).

The sale of the smartphone begins from 4 June at 12 PM on Flipkart.

Black Shark 2 comes with a full HD+ resolution. It features a 6.39 inch AMOLED display with 1080×2340 pixel resolution. The device will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor.

It will also be equipped with Liquid Cool 3.0 liquid-cooling technology and a vapour chamber cooling system that will keep the device from overheating during gaming sessions.

It has other features like HDR game visual effects, Super Theatre Mode, 100% NTSC, full DC filming, intelligent motion compensation technology.

At the rear, the Black Shark 2 sports 12MP dual-rear camera, and it comes with a 20MP front-facing camera.

It’s backed by a 4,000mAh battery and comes with a 27W fast charger.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Xiaomi Redmi Note 7S launch set for May 20

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is planning to launch its new smartphone Redmi Note 7S on May 20, 2019.

In a tweet, Xiaomi India chief Manu Kumar Jain revealed that the Redmi Note 7S would be the next 48-megapixel camera phone in the Redmi Note series in India.

India ❤️ #RedmiNote
India ❤️ #48MP

So we’ve decided to get you both! 😎#RedmiNote7S – An all-new SUPER Redmi Note for all our India Mi fans is coming! #48MPForEveryone unveils on 20th May. Mark your calendars! 🗓️

Know more: https://t.co/UTUtp6eLbH#Redmi ❤️ pic.twitter.com/cCbeOeaDc3

— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) May 16, 2019

Similar to the Redmi Note 7 Pro, the teaser image in the tweet revealed that the Redmi Note 7S is also likely to come with the dual rear camera setup.

In February this year, Xiaomi launched its first 48-megapixel camera phone in India, Redmi Note 7 Pro. The smartphone was launched with Redmi Note 7 with a starting price of Rs 13,999 for the base 4GB RAM + 64GB storage variant.

The price and specifications of the Redmi Note 7S are yet to be revealed.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow