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Leading Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is to set up an independent e-commerce channel in India and may partner with Foxconn to launch an Android One smartphone, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Commercial Times.

Though Flipkart also cooperated with other handset makers such as Motorola and Huawei, Indian users have to register in Xiaomi's official website before buying Xiaomi smartphones from Flipkart. It shows that Xiaomi has certain control over users in India, the report said.

Besides selling its Hongmi 1S for about US$100 and Hongmi Note for US$145 in India, Xiaomi will join the Android One project initiated by Google and launch more models in the near future, said Hugo Barra, Xiaomi's vice president of international.

To solve capacity problems, Xiaomi said they were in talks with manufacturers there who are said to be Foxconn.

India with its population of 1.2 billion people is the third-largest smartphone market in the world with a smartphone penetration rate as high as 32%. The country is forecast to see 100 million smartphone shipments in 2015. As the Chinese market is getting more saturated, India has emerged as a promising market for handset makers including Huawei, Lenovo, Asustek and Xiaomi.

Xiaomi ranked in the top six in market share in the third quarter this year while Taiwan-based Asustek sold monthly 200,000 ZenFones and is expected to enter top ten in the Indian market before 2015.

Market analysts said Xiaomi's major moves in sales channel, product and manufacturing will impact Asustek, which has ambitions to break he top five in the Indian market next year.

source: wantchinatimes

After a no-show during Diwali, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note will finally be up for grabs today in the usual flash sale on Flipkart. The Redmi Note, if you recall, is something of a record breaker in terms of sales, with Xiaomi having sold 10,000 units in just a second in Taiwan.

Just like other Xiaomi devices, the Redmi Note is an attempt at bridging the gap between superior specs and affordable price. The Redmi Note recently reached our labs, and though we are yet to pen down an in-depth review, the first look at the device is quite impressive. Here’s why we think you should get a Xiaomi Redmi Note.

The Note isn’t really a head-turner when it comes to looks, but its enlarged Redmi 1s design and polished looks are good enough to grab the device. In terms of weight, it isn’t anywhere close to your Note 4 or iPhone 6, but still manageable at 199 grams. It comes with a removable cover that can be swapped with other designs, but it is still unclear whether these covers will be made available in India. The company did showcase some covers customised for Indian audiences at an event recently.

With the Redmi Note, Xiaomi plans to bring large screen experience on a budget for audiences. It sports a large 5.5-inch HD display with 720 x 1280 pixels of resolution, and a pixel density that goes all the way up to 267 ppi. The IPS display also gets a later of Corning Gorilla Glass 3. At the look of it, the display seems to be good for web browsing and reading.

The Redmi Note runs the company’s proprietary MIUI, which is based on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. It comes with drawerless home screens similar to iOS. You will also find several themes and the Lite mode that makes it super-easy for people with visual impairments or even for the tech challenged users. It is fairly neat, and quite simple to navigate, once you get the hang of it. The company has also released the new MIUI 6 that is based on Android KitKat, but heavily inspired by iOS 7. It is highly speculated that the latest version of MIUI will be rolled out for the Note.

In terms of performance, we don’t expect too many hiccups, considering the octa-core MTK processor the device is fitted with. Xiaomi promises ‘true’ octa-core Mediatek MT6592  processor that uses all eight cores at the same time. The processor is clocked at 1.6GHz and coupled with 2GB RAM. The amount of RAM is good enough to handle multiple apps.

On the camera front, don’t expect anything less than a 13MP snapper. It is quite rarely that you find a phablet priced under Rs 10,000 packed witha 13MP camera module. It also includes an LED flash and auto focus and the camera supports 1080p recording at 30fps. For selfies and video conferencing, one will also find a 5MP front-facing camera. It also comes with camera features like geo-tagging, touch focus, face/smile detection and HDR.

With the slow yet steady 4G rollout in India, we’ve seen several manufacturers churning out devices with 4G support. Xioami is no different. The company has launched two variants of the Redmi Note – dual SIM 3G and 4G. The other connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS and GLONASS.

The Redmi Note comes with 8GB onboard storage. It is further expandable up to 32GB via microSd card slot.

One can expect all the usual suspects like accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass.

The bottom line
The most crucial factor is the pricing of the Redmi Note – the 3G variant is priced at Rs 8,999 and 4G at Rs 9,999. If you look back, the specs are quite lucrative for a sub-Rs 10,000 phablet. The large screen display, decent build, octa-core processor, 2GB RAM, expandable memory and so on make it worth buying. If you have Rs 10,000 to spare and are ready to put your faith in a relatively newer Chinese brand in India, then the Redmi Note is a complete ‘value for money’ device.

The device will be up for grabs today via flash sale. However, it also depends on how easily one can buy the Redmi Note. The Mi 3 was a huge hit, but left many users disappointed with its unavailability. Flipkart and Xiaomi received flak for its inefficiency at meeting users demands.

Source:firstpost.com