At the Xiaomi event today, the CEO, Lei Jun, announced that it will be refunding all the first-time buyers of its very first smartphone, the Mi 1, announced 10 years ago.

The manufacturer revealed that it had sold 184,600 units of the smartphone which had a launch price of ¥1999 (~$308). The total revenue generated from the sales was over ¥370 million and that money has helped Xiaomi attain its present-day status as the second-largest phone brand in the world.

As a way to show its appreciation to these early adopters who put their trust in the company, Xiaomi says it is refunding the cost of the phone. However, since refunding each buyer will be too much of a hassle, it has converted the refund into a voucher of the same amount. The voucher can be used towards the purchase of any item on the Xiaomi online store.

The Mi 1 was announced in August 2011. The phone had a 4-inch LCD display, 1GB of RAM, a Snapdragon S3 dual-core processor, a single 8MP rear camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, and a plastic body.

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The post Xiaomi gifts all 184K Mi 1 first-time buyers a ¥1999 (~$308) voucher appeared first on Gizmochina.

Today we are not going to talk about any new devices. Instead, we will go through the history of Xiaomi Mi series smartphones, so that you can get a better idea of what kind of brand Xiaomi exactly is. And how they have evolved over the past few years. 

The year 2020 marks the tenth year of Xiaomi, a company that is undoubtedly an industry legend. In this decade, Xiaomi has not only been ranked among the top five in the world in terms of smartphone sales year after year but has also made it to the top 500 companies in the world. And in its tenth year, the Xiaomi Mi 10 marked the beginning of a move away from being extremely cost-effective flagships and into the ranks of high-end and premium phones.

But we can’t talk about Xiaomi’s success without talking about its flagship phones. So let’s go back in time and see how the youngest ever Fortune 500 company went from zero to tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization.

What you may not know is that in the first year of Xiaomi, its first product launched was not a mobile phone, but a customized operating system based on Android called MIUI, whose smooth, user-friendly experience built up a good reputation for Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Mi 1

And in the second year, i.e. in August 2011, the first Xiaomi phone, the Xiaomi Mi 1 with MIUI was launched. In the first online sale of the phone, 300 thousand units were sold out in just 5 minutes. The popularity was not only due to the fluid experience of MIUI but also because of its unbelievable pricing strategy. While having a similar configuration to the Samsung Galaxy S2, it was only half the price of the S2. Coming with a Snapdragon S3 1.5GHz dual-core chipset, a 4-inch display with 245ppi, and 1GB RAM, all of which were top configurations back then, the Mi 1 was priced at 1999RMB, which converted to around 300USD. At that time, no one could do that, except for Xiaomi.

Since then, the number 1999, has become Xiaomi’s lucky number, and it’s like a Magic spell.

But to be honest, the design of the first Mi phone was not outstanding at all, which also became one of the most criticized points of the Xiaomi flagships in the latter years. 

Xiaomi Mi 2

In the summer of 2012, Xiaomi released the Mi 2, which not only had an upgraded SoC but also had a bigger screen with a 342ppi resolution, which was even better than the Apple iPhone 4s. And it was equipped with 2GB of RAM, which was not common at that time. The Mi 2 continued Mi 1’s trend of offering superb value for money and also continued to gain strong support from Mi fans at the same price of 1999RMB. Hundreds of thousands Mi 2 in stock were sold out within minutes each time. 

Xiaomi Mi 2S

However, the most famous model of Mi 2 series is not the Mi 2. Instead, it’s the Mi 2s released in 2013. In that year, Xiaomi released 3 phones: the Mi 2S, the Redmi 1,

and the Mi 3. The Mi 2S was an improved version of the Mi 2, with an updated MIUI, a new snapdragon 600 SoC, and, as usual, the same price at 1999RMB. 

While the Android phones of the same period were relatively less powerful, the Mi 2s had a clear advantage at the time with excellent performance and powerful software support. And thanks to the long official support from MIUI 4 to MIUI 9, the Mi 2s has become one of the longest-lived models among all the Mi phones.

Because of its strong performance, it is still able to run some of the mainstream apps of today. Even now there are some users who haven’t given up on this model. That’s why the 2s was also known as a classic magic model by Mi fans in China, just like the iPhone 4 for Apple.

Although Mi phones have had great sales success from the Mi 1 to the Mi 2s, too many consumers complained about the lack of stock all the time, many of them started questioning Xiaomi as a ‘monkey tricking’ company that uses thirsty marketing strategies to consume users’ patience and enthusiasm. But the partial reason might be that as a startup lacking production capacity, Xiaomi didn’t have the ability to quickly respond to the huge market demand. 

Redmi 1

By the way, the first Redmi phone was released in the same year. As Xiaomi’s first sub-brand, Redmi took on the role of Xiaomi’s foothold in the budget market. For only around 120 USD, you could get a branded quality phone that was good value for money, which was a rarity in the global phone market at that time. More than 9 million pre-sales orders also proved the Redmi brand was on the right path. And the Xiaomi brand continued to build up its strength to make a real high-end flagship. 

Xiaomi Mi 3

Now coming back to the Mi 3 flagship released later the year. Xiaomi abandoned the mediocre design of the predecessors and changed it into a totally new design with a more angular appearance. It came with the global debut of the snapdragon 800 soc and an upgraded 1080P display with a 441PPI resolution. And the M3 was the first Xiaomi phone that had a non-removable rear cover. Thanks to the more integrated body, its battery capacity was improved to 3050mAh. Even with all these significant upgrades, again, Xiaomi continued the pricing strategy of starting from 1999RMB, not disappointing fans who believed they could get the phone at the amazing 1999RMB price tag. 

Clearly, it must have taken Xiaomi a lot of courage and efforts to bring such an important product at such an affordable price tag. However, the Mi 3 became a unique model in the history of Mi Phones with people’s polarized reviews. In addition to the praises about the upgrades we mentioned, some accused it of copying the industrial design of the Nokia Lumia series and complained about its poor build quality. 

Xiaomi Mi 4

In the summer of 2014, after the controversial design of Mi 3, the Mi 4 was released. For the Mi 4, Xiaomi put its focus on the phone’s design upgrades. With the slogan of ‘a steel plate’s artistic journey’, it was the first time a Mi phone used a metal stainless steel frame. And shifting from the angular style of the Mi 3, the Mi 4 returned to the design of the Mi 1 and Mi 2 series. The back cover had a special pattern design, and the whole machine got a huge boost in build quality. Unsurprisingly, 2014 was another year of big sales for Xiaomi.

In 2015, there were no updates of the Mi series. Instead, a new series was launched – the Xiaomi Note 1. As Xiaomi’s first attempt to hit the high-end market, the new Note 1 was not successful. The lack of a fingerprint reader and the four-month delay in the launch of the snapdragon 810 SoC due to overheating issues, left the Note 1 behind most competitors as soon as it went on sale. The lack of a widely praised flagship model in 2015 hinted at the oncoming darkness for Xiaomi.

Xiaomi Mi 5

In early 2016, the Mi 5 eventually came out. With its first attempt at a ceramic back cover, a white front face, a home button with a fingerprint sensor, and the latest Snapdragon 820, it was supposed to sell very well for a starting price of just 1999RMB. but the sales of the Mi 5 again was delayed by nearly eight months and it was out of stock for a long time after it went on sale. The delay affected its sales significantly, and it was the time when the brand was called out most by fans for its ‘hunger marketing’ Basically fans were frustrated that Xiaomi’s best products were not easily available for sale. 

Mi Mix 1

But fortunately, there was another heavyweight that took to the stage in 2016, the Mi Mix 1. For the first time in its history, users saw and admired Xiaomi’s industrial design capabilities on the Mix 1. It came with a full-screen design with three super-narrow bezels and a selfie camera on the chin below., which made it pretty stunning at that time.

Even today, it still looks pretty impressive. The ceramic back cover is as gentle as jade, and the camera and fingerprint reader are placed in the upper center, in line with the symmetrical aesthetic. It’s no exaggeration to say that it has to a certain extent inspired future smartphone screen design. However, the Mix 1 was stuck in the stage of being a concept phone due to the difficulties in production. It wasn’t mass-produced, so there was no way to salvage the decline in sales in 2016. In these two years, Xiaomi suffered its first setback. 

Xiaomi Mi 6

Then came April of 2017, when the phone with the best reputation ever in Xiaomi history, the Mi 6 debuted. It came with a new home button integrated with a fingerprint reader without opening a hole, and also added a telephoto camera. Besides the commendable design and the excellent build quality, the debut of Snapdragon 835 SoC also made it almost impeccable at that time.

The Snapdragon 835 was the best Android chipset in recent years with its excellent power and cooling performance. With almost no shortcomings, it was no longer priced at that familiar 1999RMB, and became the first model in the Mi series to start at more than 1999RMB. However, the 2299RMB starting price didn’t stop fans from purchasing the device. The success of the Mi 6 finally broke the price barrier of its flagships and further verified the importance of the product quality and performance. And so far, the Mi 6 is still the only Xiaomi phone that has never dropped in price from launch to exit. 

Xiaomi Mi 8

In 2018, Xiaomi skipped the Mi 7 and released the Mi 8. The Mi 8 has been controversial since its release. It did look like the iPhone. And the Xiaomi Mi 8 became the least distinctive model of the whole series. Even the infrared emitter, a standard feature that Mi series pride themselves on, was removed. Despite this, sales of the Mi 8 continued to rise because of its excellent value for money. At that time, you only needed to pay 2699RMB to get a flagship having a snapdragon 845 Soc, dual-band GPS, and infrared facial recognition for unlocking even in the dark. And more importantly, this was also the first time that Xiaomi started paying attention to the phone’s camera. Meanwhile, the camera department started to run independently to serve all the Xiaomi phones. 

Xiaomi Mi 9

In 2019, the Xiaomi Mi 9, codenamed ‘battle angel’, was launched. It featured three rear cameras, a Primary camera, a wide-angle camera and another telephoto camera, first time achieving three stages of focal length coverage. The Mi 9 scored 107 in the DXOMark test at that time, placing itself in third place. It’s also the first time that we really saw Xiaomi being praised for its camera system. Another selling point of the Mi9 was the thinness of 7.61mm and the lightweight body of 173g. With a curved glass cover, the phone did feel pretty impressive when holding in hands.

But the compromise of the Mi 9 was that the battery capacity had to be cut down to 3300mAh. The limited battery life also became the main complaint for the Mi 9, which, to some extent, affected the overall sales of the model. 

At the same time, the Xiaomi founder, Lei Jun said at the launch that the Mi 9 selling for 2999RMB was the last phone to be priced at under 3000RMB. 

Over the years, Xiaomi prepared well for the transition to the high-end market. 

Xiaomi Mi 10

As expected, the Mi 10 powered by Snapdragon 865, which started at 3999RMB, was released this spring. The Mi 10 comes with a 100MP main camera, a 90Hz curved hole-punch display, LPDDR5 RAM plus UFS 3 ROM, and, most importantly, 5G network support. However, although the price was almost twice the initial price of 1999RMB, there were fewer complaints about the Mi 10’s pricing strategy. Compared to other brand flagships, Mi 10 is still one of the most competitive models in the market in its price segment. And besides the Mi 10 itself, Xiaomi offered several models of the Mi 10 series which were developed for different market segments and regions, such as Mi 10 Pro, 10 Lite, 10T, and so on. No doubt the most famous model is the Mi 10 Ultra specially made to commemorate Xiaomi’s 10TH Anniversary. It’s almost the first Mi flagship that took an all-around lead among Android phones and had such high pricing. 

Xiaomi has been recognized as a special brand to make phones with great value for money. Although the flagship Mi series will no longer come with a mid-range price tag, the sub-brand Redmi has taken up the market of budget cost-effective phones. For the past ten years, Xiaomi’s pattern has been imitated by a number of phone brands. However, most of them failed and didn’t survive in this highly competitive industry. 

On the other hand, we do have to add that Xiaomi is not perfect. At least it’s still facing the dilemma between pursuing higher brand value and maintaining its existing user base. And no doubt the success of the Mi 10 Ultra has encouraged Xiaomi to break the dilemma. 

The Mi 11 is about to be released. And we’re really looking forward to Xiaomi bringing us a surprise. 

The post Mi 11 Preview: Here’s how Xiaomi flagships have EVOLVED – from Mi 1 to Mi 10! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Xiaomi is India’s biggest smartphone maker right now and one of the top 5 smartphone companies in terms of shipments globally. But where did it all start? How did it all begin? Did it start when the company was established back in 2010?

Actually, when Xiaomi was established back in 2010, the company didn’t immediately release its first smartphone. It waited for nearly a year to release the Xiaomi Mi 1, the company first-ever smartphone based on Android. It will be the eighth anniversary of the Xiaomi Mi 1 on August 16, 2019, so we thought this is a really good time to revisit the phone and see what it offered.

The Xiaomi Mi 1 or simply called as the Xiaomi Phone was announced in August 2011 and went on pre-order on August 29. However, the sales began only by October of 2011, which meant there was quite a significant amount of waiting time.

RELATED: Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit Nokia 9210 Communicator, the phone that could send & receive FAX

The phone featured a basic design made out of plastic. It isn’t surprising given that it was the first-ever smartphone manufactured by a company which had zero experience in this industry. The front had very thick bezels, which was common among other smartphones as well. The back came with a protruding camera inside a rectangular housing. There was the MI logo etched at the back. The power button was on top along with the headphone jack while the volume buttons were on the right. It was a simple design but back then phones didn’t look as premium as they do today.

The main attraction of the Xiaomi Mi1 or the Xiaomi Phone was the 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor, making it the first Chinese phone to feature such a powerful chipset inside. For memory, the Mi 1 came with just 1GB RAM and 4GB of ROM. There was a small 4-inch display upfront. The battery was pretty decent for its time, a 1930mAh capacity one. The phone shipped with MIUI which Xiaomi had announced a year back.

Editor’s Pick: Xiaomi Mi 9S 5G could soon debut as Xiaomi’s second 5G flagship phone

MIUI was also another highlight of the Xiaomi Mi 1 mainly because it offered great customization options to its users. There were a lot of features that you could tweak to personize your smartphone and it’s no surprise that the OS has got over 300 million activated users globally. In fact, do check out the video at the end of this article. It explains the features of the early MIUI OS and it’s really fun to see how things have evolved over the course of time.

The Xiaomi Mi 1 was surprisingly popular right from the start. The main reason could have been its competitive 1999 Yuan (~$284 right now) price tag. In fact, despite being a first-generation smartphone, it received over 300,000 pre-orders in the first 34 hours!

So the Xiaomi Mi 1 is where it all began. The Mi series is still very much alive with the latest model being the Xiaomi Mi 9 launched earlier this year. We also have the Redmi brand now with extensions to the original lineup like the Mi Mix series, Mi A series and even a Mi Max series.

Interested in more throwback articles? Check them out below!

• Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit the Best Selling BlackBerry Curve Series
• Throwback Tech Thursday: Engaging the Legendary Nokia N-Gage!
• Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit Samsung’s Crazy 10X Optical Zoom Smartphone
• Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit Nokia’s Crazy Lipstick Phone (7280)
• Throwback Tech Thursday: Nokia N9’s Weird Selfie Camera Revisited
• Throwback Tech Thursday: World’s First Android Phone Revisited
• Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit the World’s First Camera Phone & Its Selfie Camera

The post Throwback Tech Thursday: We Revisit Xiaomi’s First Smartphone Launched 8 Years Ago, the Xiaomi Mi 1 appeared first on Gizmochina.

This week, everyone is at home watching the World Cup Series. Weibo is filled with World Cup tags. But Xiaomi has been unwilling to stay out of the limelight. They lowered the price of the Mi 3 from 1699 RMB (273 USD) by two 200 RMB (32.14 USD) in a promotional sale and there’s no need for anyone to rush into stores.

Why would Xiaomi avoid the attention given to the World Cup and choose this moment for their sale? Here is our analysis.

I.                   Behind Xiaomi’s price drop

Xiaomi usually releases a new device about every August, but the device they’re releasing this time is just the beginning. For some devices being developed, we can only wait for about a month before they can start small-scale tests, and wait until the end of the year for large-scale ones. The reason for the delay of the Mi 3 China Unicom version is because of Qualcomm’s supply of goods.

Around every April is Xiaomi’s golden week. There are no problems with supply and production at this time. Costs for hardware are relatively much lower than the rest of the year. Sales are high and so is the profit made.

It was usually at this time when the competition heated up. Back then, the Mi 1 was challenged by 360 warships. Timid and nervous, the Mi 1 did everything it could to fight.

Xiaomi also lowered the price of the Mi 2, releasing the Mi 2A and Mi 2S.

In June, just two months before they release their new devices, Xiaomi lowered the price of all their devices in stock. So, it should not be surprising that they lowered the price of the Mi 3 from 1699 RMB to 1499 RMB (240.78 USD) at this time.

II.                The competition behind Xiaomi’s promotional sale

It should be said that unlike before, the 1499 RMB price is the Mi 3’s price in Xiaomi’s official online store which has an unlimited number of them. Before, whether they cost 1799 RMB or 1299 RMB, people had to rush to buy them.

Not letting customers fight each other for Mi’s phones meant that competition was fierce and that they had a lot in stock. Xiaomi can no longer practice double pricing to make a bigger profit.

Actually, ever since the Mi 1, there has always been competition. First, there was the arrival of Zhong Hongyi. When Xiaomi released the Mi 2, they had to compete with Huawei’s Honor 2 and Lenovo’s K860.

Xiaomi’s true challenge came when they released the Mi 3. The Nubia z5s beat Xiaomi by installing the Qualcomm 800. More rivals have appeared non-stop. The seriousness of the problem is due to the fact that their rivals studied Xiaomi’s policies in double pricing and letting buyers compete with each other.

The ZTE Grand S II costs 1699 RMB (272.64 USD) while the Oneplus costs 1999 RMB (321.21 USD). The Xiaomi’s so-called advantage in price advantage is no longer obvious.

Actually, the Mi 1 was really powerful. It had great hardware and UI. Other than the way it looked and the camera, there was no competition．

By the time the Mi 3 came out, its rivals were already very powerful. For example, there was no way Xiaomi could compete with the Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 801, their 2 GB or 3 GB memory, 16 GB to 64 GB flash memory, 13mP IMX214, and 1080P display screens.

At the same time, Gionee, Vivo, and Oppo’s had customized cameras, HiFi, and HTC, which Xiaomi did not have.

As for software, the miui is still in progress but its rivals are already being developed at a faster rate. OPPO’s Color OS and its features are amazing. I won’t review ZTE’s Shenmei but ZTE has very careful with its performance. Vivo, Gionee, Huawei, and Coolpad all have perfect UIs.

When it comes appearance and workmanship, Xiaomi always believed that the best way to design is to have no design. Later, it will be changed to “the best designs are other people’s designs.” This is will happen when their weaknesses appear in their hardware and software.

III.             Xiaomi’s future

The number of phones created by Xiaomi has grown rapidly over the last several years. It has become a king in the smart phone industry. However, the smart phone industry is starting to come of age.

It’s the beginning of homogenization for smart phones. Other than its first two years, Xiaomi has not had great competitive strength.

Xiaomi will probably make cell phones at a slower rate. If they don’t release a winner into the market, then they will have to find another way to grow. They could try selling their products in the international market.

The post The reasons why Xiaomi lowered the price of the Mi 3 from 1699 RMB (273 USD) to 1499 RMB (240.78 USD) appeared first on Gizmochina.