TAIPEI, Taiwan — Xiaomi, has long been considered as “Apple of China”, according to data firm Canalys, Xiaomi became the world's sixth-largest smartphone vendor in the Q1 of 2014. It unveiled on Tuesday its lastest flagship Mi4 smartphone in Beijing, aimed at the premium handset market dominated by Apple and Samsung. However, it's a squarely good news for all its Taiwanese supply chains.
Xiaomi's CEO Lei Jun wrote the following in his Weibo account “The journey of a piece of steel metal,” which also happened to be the welcoming words on the Mi4 press invitation, indicating the upcoming Mi4 will have high-end specifications and metallic look.
Inventec, AUO, COMPEQ, Unimicron, and Wistron are part of Mi4's Taiwanese supply chain, which will be busy taking orders as long as Mi4 is on sale. Mi4's Taiwanese supply chian covers from chipset, touch panel, PCB, connector, lens module, and OEM/ODM firms.
The handset is powered by a superior quad-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon 805) processor clocked at 2.5 GHz. The device houses a solid 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage capacity. However, at this point there is no information available to substantiate microSD card support. Also, the phone runs on MIUI V5 based on Android 4.4 KitKat OS.
The Mi4 sports 16 MP rear-facing camera unit with dual LED flash and Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) feature and a surprisingly good 5 MP front-facing shooter. The phone also houses a superior Li-Po 3200 mAh battery unit within the sleek body. The only other top-selling handset with this battery specification is Sony Xperia Z2. Surely, Mi4 supports global 4G LTE.
The Mi4 has a 5-inch, 1080p screen and a Qualcomm Inc Snapdragon 801 2.5 Ghz processor, said Chief Executive Lei Jun at a launch event in Beijing.
