Hasta La Gadget!

Xiaomi, the break-out smartphone star of the Greater China market, is receiving lots of attention thanks to the somewhat salacious tale of ex-Android VP Hugo Barra and his recent move to the Chinese company. Xiaomi is looking to sell around 20 million smartphones by the end of 2013, and is doing so well that it’s challenging Samsung, a formerly dominant force among OEMs, at home in China. The company sees tight margins on hardware – intentionally – but it might have another ace up its sleeve in terms of appealing to potential international carrier partners.

Tech-Thoughts.net’s Sameer Singh was intrigued by recent statements made by Xiaomi CEO Bin Lin, who revealed that its customers are twice as active on the mobile web as those of any other OEMs. Numbers available publicly from the company detailing downloads from its MIUI app store show that the company has already managed 1 billion downloads in just over a year of operation, and Xiaomi also claims a rate of downloads of 5 million per day, the company claims.

Using those figures, and comparing it to those available from Apple and Google about their own download milestones, Singh is able to figure out that Xiaomi users are installing new applications on their devices at a rate of nearly twice that of their competitors using either the App Store or Google Play. Xiaomi phone owners average around 26.5 million apps downloaded per quarter per device, while those in Apple and Google’s mobile software ecosystem average around 13 to 15 million titles downloaded in the same span per gadget.

Xiaomi runs s skinned version of Android, which means if it ships overseas it’ll likely lean more heavily on the Google Play store than on its own MIUI application marketplace in order to offer up more localized content, and Singh also notes that with a wider, more mainstream user base, those app install numbers are likely to fall. But if Xiaomi can replicate some of that additional app-download juice in other markets, it’ll be able to offer up an additional incentive to carrier partners, too.

The key to convincing international carriers to take a gamble on yet another smartphone OEM, and to push those products alongside and above surer bets like Samsung and Apple hardware, will be convincing carriers that it’s in their best interest to do so, and that means convincing them that it’s possible to get a higher ARPU from Xiaomi smartphones than from anything else. Higher app and mobile we use mean more data used (and more pricey data consumed), which, paired with lower subsidy costs thanks to cheaper wholesale hardware prices, could make Xiaomi a very attractive alternative indeed.

After selling 7.19 million phones in China last year, Xiaomi is now one step closer to world domination with a new device that’ll take it to new territories: the Xiaomi Phone 2S (or MI-2S). As the name and look (pictured left) suggest, this is pretty much the same device as the 4.3-inch Xiaomi Phone 2, except it comes with Qualcomm’s newer Snapdragon 600 quad-core chip clocked at 1.7GHz, plus a beefed up camera of 13-megapixel resolution (with F2.2 aperture) on the 32GB model. The 16GB 2S, on the other hand, gets the same old 8-megapixel F2.0 imager. The rest of the hardware is the same old: 2GB RAM, 2,000mAH removable battery, 720p IPS display, dual-mic noise cancellation, 2-megapixel front-facing camera and WCDMA 850/1900/2100MHz radio (there’s also a CDMA version for China Telecom).

Unlike the previous launch, the 16GB flavor of this phone is already in stock on the day of announcement and is ready for purchase in China today for ¥1,999 or about $320 unsubsidized. Actually, strike that — apparently the first lot of 200,000 units promptly sold out (likely thanks to scalpers). Luckily, Xiaomi is finally tapping into the Hong Kong market via its xiaomi.hk website starting April 23rd, so chances are genuine buyers in Hong Kong won’t have to compete against the machines from mainland China; and Taiwan customers will also be able to buy a 2S from either local carrier Far Eastone towards the end of this month, or from xiaomi.tw starting next month. No word on the availability of the 32GB model just yet, but it’s already priced at ¥2,299 or about $370 unsubsidized.

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Via: Engadget Chinese (2S), (2A)

Source: Xiaomi (2S), (2A)

The Apple TV may not be officially available in China, but there are already plenty of cheap Android TV dongles and set-top boxes over there to keep the folks occupied. That said, many of them don’t offer a satisfying multimedia experience, so even for a latecomer like Xiaomi, there’s still space for competition. Having just launched the much anticipated Xiaomi Phone 2, the Chinese startup recently announced that it had acquired digital content provider Duokan for some time, and the first fruit is this conveniently named Xiaomi Box. Even with the bundled one-meter HDMI cable, the pebble’s priced at a competitive ¥399 (about $64) and we’ve been told it’ll be available in mid-December. Better yet, it claims to be compatible with AirPlay right out of the box! Read on to see if that’s the case with our pre-production unit.

Continue reading Xiaomi Box taps the Chinese smart TV market on the cheap, flirts with AirPlay (hands-on)

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Xiaomi Box taps the Chinese smart TV market on the cheap, flirts with AirPlay (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Much like the run-up to the previous flagship product launch, Qualcomm-backed Xiaomi has just announced that it’ll be selling a small batch of pre-production second-gen Xiaomi Phones, in the hopes to get some keen users to perform last-minute checks before mass production. To be exact, only 600 of these quad-core Jelly Bean phones will be made available online at local time 10am on September 22nd (that’s 10pm ET on the 21st); and even if you have CN¥1,999 ($310) to spare, you’ll still need to be one of the 1,200 expert members from the Xiaomi and MIUI online communities to be able to hit the “order” button. Nice hype drive, if you ask us.

Later on, successful buyers can simply swap their engineering units in for a final version of the 16GB or 32GB Xiaomi Phone 2 — the latter a new addition that co-founder Lei Jun announced on Sina Weibo last Saturday (where he also cheekily asked if anyone need a 64GB flavor). For those who qualify but would rather avoid the digital bloodshed next week, we suggest you wait until the official Chinese launch in the second-half of October; or try Taiwan by the end of the year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Xiaomi Phone 2 pre-production units available on September 22nd, limited to 600 lucky buyers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android users have quite a few choices to pick from when it comes to flashing custom ROMs onto their phones. There’s the ever popular CyanogenMod and there’s also MIUI. If you’re a fan of the latter, you might be interested to learn that the team behind the ROM has updated its code base to Jelly Bean. Unfortunately it seems that the Jelly Bean-based ROM will not be available for all devices just yet and only the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus are the lucky ones who will be able to flash the ROM onto their phones. If you own either device, you can head on over to the MIUI forums to check out the changelog and to see what sort of features and changes you can expect, or you can head on to another part of the forum where you will be able to download the ROM for yourself. As usual, you should proceed with caution and remember to back up your device before making any changes!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Galaxy Nexus reportedly having GPS problems after Jelly Bean update, Google officially announces Jelly Bean OTA update for Nexus S phones,