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China Apple

China's Xiaomi Aims Its Priciest Phone at Huawei and Apple (bloomberg.com) 73

Posted by msmash from the further-expansion dept.
Xiaomi really wants to shed its down-market image. China's No. 2 smartphone maker is counting on its most expensive device yet to face off against Huawei and Apple at home while carving out a bigger footprint in Europe. From a report: The Chinese smartphone maker on Thursday unveiled the MIX 3, the fourth generation of a series introduced in 2016. Xiaomi's latest effort to acquire a premium gloss features a bezel-less 6.4-inch screen, Qualcomm processors and slick ceramic body. It now sports front-facing cameras on a sliding structure nestled behind the screen, doing away with the notch popularized by the iPhone. The device will go on sale from November starting at 3,299 yuan ($475) and going all the way up to 4,999 yuan for a "Forbidden City" special edition. It marks Chairman Lei Jun's effort to make greater headway into a more profitable premium market dominated by Apple, Samsung and -- to an increasing extent -- Chinese rival Huawei. That's where customers have deeper pockets to pay for services such as music and games that Xiaomi deems the future of its business. Xiaomi claims that its MIX 3 handset is the first commercial handset that is 5G ready (though the variant with 5G capabilities will go on sale in Europe only in the first quarter of next year.) Other specs of the handset includes: Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845; Screen: 6.39-inch FHD+ AMOLED (1080Ã--2340, 19.5:9 aspect ratio); RAM: 6/8/10GB; Rear camera: 12-megapixel, f/1.8 + 12-megapixel, f/2.4; Front camera: 24-megapixel, f/2.2 + 2-megapixel; Battery: 3,200 mAh; Internal memory: 128/256GB.
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China's Xiaomi Aims Its Priciest Phone at Huawei and Apple More

China's Xiaomi Aims Its Priciest Phone at Huawei and Apple

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  • Communist Party of China app is preinstalled (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:35AM (#57535433)
    Communist Party of China monitoring app is pre-installed.
    • it's pre-installed on the iPhone and Androids too. They're a Kleptocracy, so they keep a close eye on everybody.

    • Communist Party of China monitoring app is pre-installed.

      So? What would the Chinese government possibly do with my data?

      If my data is being uploaded to a government I'd rather have a government that's far away and has no personal interest in me. It's much better than having the NSA app preinstalled.

      • What would the Chinese government possibly do with my data?

        The possibilities are endless. Let me name just one: install malware on your phone that actively scans for vulnerable devices on your home network, ending up with malware on all those too, and owning all your passwords including your bank.

      • Communist Party of China monitoring app is pre-installed.

        So? What would the Chinese government possibly do with my data?

        If my data is being uploaded to a government I'd rather have a government that's far away and has no personal interest in me. It's much better than having the NSA app preinstalled.

        What could the foreign government of China do with the data of Americans? There are quite a few possibilities, including denying your visa request to visit China, punishing in various forms the Chinese and non-Chinese people that you are connected to, breaking into your accounts to observe personal and corporate information, gathering that information directly, implanting trojans to monitor and disrupt various infrastructure or financial networks, etc.

        The Chinese government has absolutely no personal inter

        • The US government is in a position to do me far more harm. That's not even a joke. The Chinese government doesn't bomb people and invade nations. Their police don't murder POC on the streets. Nobody kneels during the Chinese national anthem. All of these happen in America.

          • Their police don't murder POC on the streets

            No, they "disappear" people regardless of ethnicity.

          • The US government is in a position to do me far more harm. That's not even a joke.

            The US federal government is unlikely to physically or financially harm most US citizens. The local police are also unlikely to harm most US citizens that aren't black or Hispanic, which excludes the overwhelming portion of slashdot-land. There is a non-zero probability that the federal or local government in the US may harm the typical slashdot reader, but I'd be shocked if that probability isn't orders of magnitude below 1% for the typical slashdot reader. In the US, the far more significant problem is

            • Nobody feels the NEED to kneel. There's a huge difference there.

              Is someone seriously trying to defend the USA and cast it as the good guys? Have you been asleep since 9/11? Torture, wars of aggression, bombing the piss out of neutral countries? Did you miss all that? Heck, it didn't start on 9/11.

              The United States not only overthrew governments (sometimes democratically elected ones) - or attempted to - in Albania, Ghana, Guatemala, Greece, Cuba, Chile, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua, South Vietnam, Arg

      • The two are not mutually exclusive. Your data can be uploaded to multiple "security" agencies at once.

        It's like spy agency multicast.

    • Who is spying on you? Check one: China. Google. Apple. Facebook. All of the above. More than the above.

      This is where an active community of enthusiasts checking the network traffic for telemetry is absolutely essential, which we certainly have got on Android. Personally, I think the risk of getting caught actively spying and the ensuing erosion of customer base is enough to keep Xiaomi in line, at least in line with the usual privacy thugs above. I'd be more worried about apps like Wechat, or Facebook, or L

  • my first reaction was be no way (Score:3)

    by froggyjojodaddy ( 5025059 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:52AM (#57535517)
    .. but when I stop and think about it, if I'm spending $700+ on a phone, I don't really care about brand. I prefer Android so in a toss up between Samsung, LG, and Xiaomi, I'll really just go for the one with the most features appealing to me.

    I have a Samsung phone right now (first Samsung..) but with all the bloatware, I'm not going to buy another*


    *I can't root it as my company's UEM software will flag it as rooted and quarantine it *sadface*

    • Go for the one with a headphone jack. Looks like, not this one. Otherwise, its a lot of phone for a decent price.

  • The Luxury phone (That everyone has) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @10:52AM (#57535519)

    Everyone is trying to be the Rolex of Phones. However such devices depreciate in value, so they cannot be priced as such. So while the $1000 phone is on the pricey side, it isn't really something you can go to a stereotypical snobby party and impress your peers with. That Premium Luxury phone is so common that you will fail to impress the blue collar worker, who may have the same model (but may had to sacrifice a bit more to get it) And within 3-4 year. The price would depreciate so much that they cannot be given away.

    Unlike a Rolex Watch which if I got one 50 years ago, it would still be worth a lot of money, probably more then you bought it for, and would still be useful and valuable.

    These phone makers are trying to be the big name in premium, while not making a premium product. Mostly because technology depreciates so quickly, and are still priced at a level people can afford if they really want them.

    Sure these devices are something that is always on you, and probably should look good as well be functional. But these companies put a lot of effort into trying to be something they will not become.

    • Enjoy your Rolex and I hope you'll keep impressing people with it for a long time.

      • I don't have one. Too expensive and I would be giving up too much for something I probably wouldn't wear 99.99% of the time.

        But the point is some people buy these Premium phones thinking they will look like they are Mr. Successful. While no one really cares, with maybe with the exception of a teenager who cant buy anything at all. Granted we have our inner childhood ambitions of just getting any toy you want and the jealously you have towards the kid who actually had the GI Joe Aircraft Carrier, even if y

        • some people buy these Premium phones thinking they will look like they are Mr. Successful

          They look like they're carrying their lunch in their pocket, frankly. I can see this working with a purse.

        • OK, I get your point, sorry for not reading your posting carefully. I personally think that expensive watches are as superficial a status symbol as expensive phones, though definitely not as ephemeral. People used to have gold teeth and claim they were the best type of artificial teeth, etc, but in reality they were considered a status symbol that has, thankfully, faded.

    • But these companies put a lot of effort into trying to be something they will not become.

      As long as their buyers are too stupid to realize this, these companies have no reason to care.

    • let everyone know you've got a lot of money. The trouble is it's hard to tell one phone from another because at the end of the day it's just a square. That worked for a while with iPhones until there were enough of them on the secondary market to dilute the value.

      It's called a Veblen Good [wikipedia.org]. The Rolex doesn't really have any more value than a watch a 1/10th it's price (sometimes less, you'd be surprised what you can get for $500 or less if you're a hiker). But if you're a sales person trying to show off a

      • Rolex used to make the best watches in the world. They invented all sorts of things like jeweled movements, waterproofing, etc. They were the first wristwatches to be granted a "chronometer" certification - a Rolex really was worth more money in your grandpa's day.

        These days? Not so much. Lots of other companies make comparable watches. Rolex is just a brand name.

    • This phone is priced as a high midrange, nowhere close to Pixel or I-phone. But it's a flagship, no question. Same Screen resolution as Pixel 3, a little less than the XL. Looks like the value is there.

      For me, rom unlock is a huge plus, lack of headphone jack is a huge negative.

  • It now sports front-facing cameras on a sliding structure nestled behind the screen, doing away with the notch popularized by the iPhone.

    Uh-oh. Mechanical moving parts are a weak point, another thing to possibly go bad. Fuck this anti-bezel madness... I understand that the phone would look more elegant if you could make it "all screen", but if the alternatives are added mechanical complexity or an ugly notch, then both alternatives are worse than what they're trying to replace.

    • On the other hand, the front-facing camera is only present when you are using the front-facing camera. That sounds like it would be awesome for me, because I rarely use video chat and I'm not taking narcissistic selfies all the time. I would, however, not be looking at that stupid notch any time I use the display, which is every single time you use the phone for anything at all.

      Over time there might be mechanical issues depending on how it's implemented as you say. I'd also be curious as to if they can s

  • Down-market image? Er, Xiaomi is exactly the opposite of that. It is the luxury Chinese brand with top build quality, but a 5% profit margin which gives you great phones at a low price. They are quite "Apple-inspired", as their target market for quite some time now - high-end Chinese users - is fond of Apple, but they've been making some industry leading devices for a while now. E.g. their first Mi Mix was the first really thin-bezel phone of note. I have the Mi Mix 2, which is even better (and I came from

    • I wonder if Xiaomi is going to start designing its own SoCs like Huawei.

    • I live in Hong Kong these days where you can find xiaomi here and there. I must say that I like their attention to design, almost everything they make (and that includes watercookers etc) is pretty with a good feel to it.
      I have one xiaomi product, and I really love it: their “urban” backpack which is well designed (for example it has a waterproof little side compartment for an umbrella), good quality and looks much more office-like than most backpacks, and priced well too. Worth checking out.
  • They can try all they like to shed their "down market" image. The bottom line is that I, like many other folks, wouldn't pay top dollar for a Xiaomi piece of garbage.

  • Yeah, no (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday October 25, 2018 @12:51PM (#57536069) Journal

    If I'm going to pay that much for a phone (which I'm not, but anyway), it'll be to a company at least theoretically within my country's jurisdiction ...

    Typically my only reason to get some exotic Chinese thing (as opposed to some non-exotic merely Chinese-made thing) is price. If the price is the same high price, what's the point?

    • I do not know about you, but I prefer to have a phone *outside* my country jurisdiction...
    • Why? The Chinese government is not in a position to do you harm. The US government certainly is.

    • Value.

      If they are delivering the same features and quality for 80% of the price, then that represents far more value than other devices.

      I don't know if they are - that's left to be determined by reviews once the device becomes generally available. I will say that I have a "travel" phone that I use when leaving the country that is a Xiaomi A2 Lite that works pretty good for the $100 I paid for it, albeit a tad slow and needing a reboot every once in a while; but I haven't run across an Android device that d

  • The are totally pumped for the new Huawei phone. I do not know much about this, because I use my phone only for making phone calls, but Huawei seems to be the most attractive brand among their peer group. Of course they will not get it, as I will not shell out 1000€ for a phone, because I am neither moneybags nor a moron.

  • doing away with the notch popularized by the iPhone

    That is enough right there to get it on my Christmas list.

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