Xiaomi Launches Mi 4c In China

Xiaomi has made the Mi 4c official in a launch event held today in China. In typical Xiaomi fashion, the spec sheet of the device keeps pushing our expectations from the budget market segment.

First up, the design. The Mi 4c follows the unibody polycarbonate shell design from the Mi 4i. Based solely on looks, you wouldn’t be the first one to mistake it for a toy. The phone lacks any “premium” build materials on the outside, but to its credit, this helps keep the cost of the device low and allows Xiaomi to keep bumping up the internals. The marketing and promotional material of the device mentions “ultra-thin” bezels, which looks to be the case for only the side bezels. The top and chin bezels are equally and adequately sized. The phone comes in 5 colors: White, Black, Blue, Pink and Orange

The Xiaomi Mi 4c features a Snapdragon 808 hexacore processor clocked at 1.8GHz for all the six cores. There’s also the Adreno 418 in the GPU department, which is sufficient for powering the 5″ 1080p display. The Mi 4c comes in two storage options, a 2GB RAM + 16GB internal storage variant as well as a 3GB RAM + 32GB internal storage variant. There is no mention of a micro-sd card slot, so we presume that the device lacks expandable storage.Camera-wise, the phone packs in a 13 MP rear camera (either a Sony IMX258 or a Samsung S5K3M2 ISOCELL sensor) with Phase-Detection Autofocus, as well as a 5 MP front camera. For the battery, the Mi 4c features a decent 3080 mAh battery. The phone also supports dual 4G SIM, and surprisingly, runs on MIUI 6 instead of the newly released MIUI 7, although Xiaomi does promise that the device will soon be updated to MIUI 7 based on Lollipop.

 

The device is also a first in two areas in the budget market segment. The Mi 4c comes with a USB Type C port and supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 standards. A micro-USB to Type-C adapter is also sold separately for ￥5 (~0.8$), which will make the transition process to a new port become less of a hassle and inconvenience for early adopters. Further, the Xiaomi 4c also features a built-in IR blaster, which appears to be a well thought out decision when taking into account Xiaomi’s push into smart electronics in the Chinese market.

The Xiaomi Mi 4c also features a few software additions. The phone comes with double tap to wake functionality out-of-the-box, and also with what Xiaomi is calling “Edge Tap”, where you can quickly activate the front camera or go back in apps by tapping the edge. Do note that the phone features capacitive buttons as well, so you do have backup functionality in case you find this difficult to use.

All in all, the Xiaomi packs in a very tight punch in the compact and entry level category of phones. For the price of ￥1,299 ($205) for the base 2GB RAM model and ￥1,499 ($235) for the 3GB RAM model, one can easily look past the polycarbonate build materials of the phone as the specs under the hood will definitely please those looking for a decently powered device. The device will start retailing in China from September 23rd 2015, while global release and availability of the device remains unknown.

Here’s hoping that the heavy spec sheet does not end up being just smoke and mirrors.

What do you think of the Xiaomi Mi 4c? Would you consider purchasing it if it was available locally? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Source: MIUI Forums

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