Image via <a href="https://twitter.com/DarthMowl/status/555617448138137600" target="_blank">Darth Mowl</a>
After teasing a super-thin new smartphone earlier this week, smartphone maker (or, maybe more accurately, “smartclone maker”) Xiaomi revealed its 2015 flagship model, the Note. Just to be clear, this is an entirely new device, and doesn’t seem to be related to the company’s existing “Redmi Note” smartphone.
It’s also not related to Samsung’s similarly named devices, though it hardly seems unreasonable to think that Samsung’s execs aren’t exactly pleased with the name. iPhone users may detect quite a bit of irony (karma, perhaps?) watching the Korean company squirm as it gets ripped off by a competitor, though.
The 5.7-inch phone is positioned as an iPhone 6 Plus competitor. It features a 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization—a far cry from Apple’s 8 MP shooter—and a 4 MP front-facing camera.
There is one thing the iPhone 6 Plus has that the Note doesn’t, however: a “camera bump.” According to the International Business Times, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun was “almost mocking the protruding camera lens” found on Apple’s iPhone.
Aside from the larger screen and improved camera, the executive also noted also that Note is only 6.95mm thick. The iPhone 6 Plus is 7.1mm. There’s also a weight difference, with the Note weighing in at 11 grams lighter.
The Note runs MIUI 6 (based on Android) on a 2.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and contains a hefty 3 GB of RAM. Software tweaks make the phone easier to use with one hand by bringing the interface closer to the bottom of the screen, just like the Reachability feature found on Apple’s latest devices.
A “pro” version of the Note is said to run on a more powerful octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor. It will also gain an extra gigabyte of RAM. The display resolution on the pro model has also been increased to 2048×1536.
The regular model is powered by a 3,000mAh battery, but whether the pro version will get a bump in that department is yet to be revealed.
The Note will be available in 16 GB and 64 GB (yes, the same sizes as the two smallest iPhone 6 Plus models), and will retail atRMB 2,299 andRMB 2,799, respectively. The pro model will reportedly cost RMB 3,299.
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This hurts Samsung more than Apple as I think these are lower prices than comparable Samsung models.
As a Note 4 owner I see it as another option that keeps me in Android. I have zero brand loyalty because every year I tally up the score on what I think is the best for me. I never buy based on name because people become blind to easily. So if HTC decides to release a Note 4 or iPhone 6 plus competitor I’m all for it. Competition is good.
That was my first thought. With all of Samsungs missteps and failings with their Galaxy business, this is likely to be the final nail in Ssmsungs coffin.
Samsung is very must struggling with their smartphone business and competitors are looking to turn Samsung from “suffering” to “unsustainable”.
Totally. Apple has their own attraction, and the primary reason why iPhone users went to Android was essentially larger screen models, but since Apple was able to increase production, kick out 64 Bit processing to make larger screen models more practical, now a certain portion of the Android market is switching back to Apple. I’m sure after 2 years (because many smartphone users are on a 2 year contract) we’ll see how many Android users switch to Apple. Xiaomi just uses Apple styling to make Android users THINK they are buying an Apple product, but I highly doubt they will attract that many Apple users, but I believe they will attract more Samsung users instead.
But the Xiaomi doesn’t have fingerprint technology, they don’t have 64 Bit processing, so it’s more of just a generic 32 Bit phablet with OK specs, but it’s just styled after Apple. If Google is going to exert more control over the OS, like they say they are going to do, they might force Xiaomi to not have their icons look so much like Apple’s icons, which they currently do.
I honestly don’t know how successful Xiaomi is going to do in the markets that Apple has 40 to 50% market penetration. Yeah, they are doing well in China, but right now, Apple doesn’t have a huge market presence, yet, and that’s mostly because China, like India doesn’t have a lot of wealth amongst their working class.
The s810 is 64bit …. My brother get 1 MacBook air 1 MacBook Pro retina 15″ iPad air + one iPad mini and finally a xiaomi mi 3 as main smartphone….. Apple user do love xiaomi product. I like my iPhone 6 , but the mi 4 pro is an good ass looking phone.
“smartclone maker” – LOL
13MP sensor…I’d never want that in my phone; it’s useless spec-whoring without much need for it
Unless of course Apple put a bigger sensor in their phones. And your “spec-whoring” will be replaced with “It’s fantastic”.
Things are always useless, until your preferred manufacturer starts using it.
and yet the 8mp Iphone camera beats all android handsets in Image quality even though other manufacturers have 50 million mp on them.
in fact the iphone even beats all teh compact cameras and second to only the canon DSLR in image quality. so its not about MP its about the sensor. seriously its been said time and time again on these forums
The Nokia Lumia 1020 has a 41 megapixel camera on, yet it will NEVER take better photos than a DSLR. My Canon 7D with its measly 18 megapixels will put to shame any smartphone’s camera any day of the week and 100 times on Sunday, no matter how many megapixels they stuff it with.
So yeah, it’s not just about megapixels.
Moz – apologies but you really need to do your own research because I have never heard anything so misguided in my life.
The iPhone is capable of beautiful photos – but all they are are snapshots. Even the most basic and cheapest DSLR gives you more control over your photos than the iPhone ever will – and so will a relatively advanced compact too for a fraction of the price.
Don’t take what has been said time and time again on a Apple forum seriously – you’ll find they are slightly biased.
Moz, you’re an insane person if you think the iPhone can take photos as good as even a 4 to 5 year old compact digital camera.
Wait for the iPhone 6s… It will have at least a 12 MP sensor. Not for better pictures (cuz we all know that doesn’t matter that much), but for 5K video.
I think the purpose of 13MP camera is to shoot the 4K video.
I read that Apple is working on a 20MP camera with dual lens, when they will come out with that is probably when the storage levels increase to the point where the base model is more than 16GB. I really think Apple would have done even better if they just had the base model iPhone 6/6+ at 32GB for the price of 16GB, etc. I think once Apple gets the Foxconn 2nd gen robots implemented, they might be able to get a LOT higher production levels and maybe even drop the prices down $100 for all models and still retain healthy margins. If they did that, they’d get a TON of market share in the emerging countries.
I think they might actually get a poly carb iPhone 6/6+ at the end of this year when they release the iPhone 7/7+ or whatever they are going to call them. It should be interesting.
Yeah, 13MP isn’t required, but since all of Apple’s main competitors are increasing the MP level for their cameras, Apple at some point is going to have to increase theirs as well.
The storage levels could have increased a long time ago. The price difference for 64GB in storage compared to 16GB is a few dollars. Apple will keep using 16GB for as long as they possibly can.
Oh my, another big screen with Android. What is that now, 4356234542345 different models out there running Android?
Haha, so true! It’s a huge ugly mess.
Having a huge range of hardware configurations really stopped Windows succeeding.
Oh hang on…
One thing that I believe strongly is that there are about 5 Million XDA developers that essentially collect Android phones and they actually might represent maybe even up to 50 Million to maybe even 100 Million units worth of sales a year since they seem to collect smartphones just to play around with them. It’s not uncommon to run into some Android geek that roots their phones and for some reason, they know everything about every model Android phone on the market on a fine detail level. I’ve actually had discussions with some that actually had just about every major phone on the market, including both iPhone 5S, 6, 6+, Note 3, Note 4, S4, S5, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, LG models, HTC models, etc. etc. I thought it was a lot of money for them to spend, but apparently they said they spend about 8 to 10 hours a day on a smartphone, which to me is just ridiculous, but to them it’s their normal. I guess they see themselves as experts and they post these stupid YouTube videos to make money. Imagine that, all you do for a living is buy smartphones, play around with them, post some stupid review videos on YouTube and that’s their life.
And those people probably make a really good living and get a lot of those phones for free.
1080p and 2048×1536 are not the same aspect ratio. Not sure quite how to make any sense of that.
Wow, you’ve really outdone yourself here, 9to5Mac. Your pathetic iSheep approach to journalism is laughable, and the reason is not because the Xiaomi phone is better than the iPhone 6 Plus (it could be worse), but because of your idiotic assumptions. “It features a 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization—a far cry from Apple’s 8 MP shooter”.. how the heck did you arrive at the conclusion that the camera is a far cry when you have not even seen any actual pictures out of it?!? “According to the International Business Times, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun was “almost mocking the protruding camera lens” found on Apple’s iPhone.” Is it really so hard to use Google translate and find original sources? I guess it is for you.
Every time I see someone use the term “iSheep,” I assume they are an angry virgin. I have yet to be wrong.
I also get a kick out of the fact that literally every anti-Apple commentator uses the exact same terms to describe the Apple fan base. Irony so delicious you can put it on a sundae!
So they’re not taking on Samsung who was making phablets before Apple?
Samsung made the “phablets” before Apple or any other companies, Now Apple and among of other companies took the idea of inventing the phablet.
Therefore, Clearly the Xiaomi copied the piece of unique design of the interface from the iOS 7 + Android hybrid. Now they have recently released the new flagship called “Mi Note” which is clone version of iPhone 6 Plus and name from Samsung Galaxy Note.
Where has Apple stated that they invented the phablet??
@nsxrebel Apple never claimed that they “invented” it as they’re aware that Samsung made the first Phablet before other companies.
So Apple simply told that everyone “wanted” a larger phone than iPhone 4/5. Which Apple made it, But Steve Jobs would have disliked it, because at the first he said that larger phone makes look ugly phone.
Naaaa dell with the sell streak and htc flyer for the first tab with a pen
“A far cry…”
Does Xiaomi, say, build their own image signal processor? I’m guessing the answer is “no,” so it’s pretty likely that this 13 megapixel “far cry from Apple’s” camera won’t take photos as good as the ones the iPhone does.
13 megapixels is not automatically better than 8 megapixels. There’s a lot more that goes into it. That’s like saying a Nokia phone’s 41 megapixel camera is a “far cry” from a Fuji 16 megapixel mirrorless camera.
“Does Xiaomi, say, build their own image signal processor? ” Did Apple? No?
sircheese69, actually Apple did design their own video encoder and video image processor in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus: https://www.apple.com/iphone-6/technology/
actually Apple did design their own video encoder and image signal processor, it’s all built into the Apple A8 chip. See: https://www.apple.com/iphone-6/technology/
Surprisingly for Xiaomi this doesn’t actually appear to be a carbon copy of an Apple design.
Apparently Xiami are now the third largest smart phone maker on the planet, so Samsung and Apple had better take notice of what they’re doing.
you mean taking design cues from Apple and Samsung?
They are only 3rd because they copy Apple and Samsung’s designs. And blackberry and Microsoft don’t have a clue. And compared to Apple’s sales they are just a spec of dust if that.
As soon as Xiaomi left the safety of their homeland (no IP problems) for India they found Erickson patents blocking. Xiaomi had better stay home.
Except megapixels doesn’t mean better pictures. Apple has proved that over and over and over again. This cheap copycat will get them as many sales as there last cheap copycat. Barely will be noticeable. Xiaomi needs to be its own company and stop copying Apple because it isn’t working.