Xiaomi teases its take on the foldable smartphone

The race to release foldable smartphones is on. Xiaomi just teased its take on the technology through a teaser video uploaded on Weibo (the Chinese equivalent to Twitter). It shows Xiaomi’s co-founder and President Lin Bin tinkering around with a double-folding phone. It’s a unique interpretation of the trend, with the sides of the phone folding in and out to switch from a tablet to a more compact smartphone. We don’t have details beyond what’s in the video. The phone, which is an engineering mode, is said to have overcome “a series of technical problems such as flexible folding screen technology, four-wheel drive folding shaft technology, flexible cover technology, and MIUI adaptation.”

There are, of course, obvious weak points to the device. Having it fold on two ends means there are more moving parts that can be damaged. Availability is also an issue, beyond the market Xiaomi caters to. We’re also curious to see if the ends when folded to the back of the device are usable. Xiaomi is known to undercut its competition while offering good value for its devices, so we’re also curious how much this device will cost. Samsung is rumoured to be revealing its foldable phone next month, ahead of Mobile World Congress. Now, we want to see if Xiaomi will try and catch up and release any news at MWC about this phone.

Source: The Verge

Report claims Xiaomi is in interested in buying GoPro

GoPro has been scaling down its business due to financial issues. The company announced back in January that it was leaving the drone business because of this. GoPro’s CEO Nick Woodman has said in an interview with CNN before that he was open to selling the company. He said, “If there was an opportunity to merge GoPro with a larger parent company that could help us scale our business and provide a better return on investment… we would welcome the opportunity…”

Now there seems to be someone interested in buying GoPro. Bloomberg reports Chinese tech company Xiaomi is looking to purchase the action sports camera company. Xiaomi is known in Asia for its affordable, feature-packed phones but it has also delved into everything from robot vacuums, laptops, electric scooters, power banks, routers, and many more. Perhaps, it wants to boost its action camera segment or possibly get into drones. Not much is known about this potential deal at the moment but GoPro is being valued at around a billion dollars, according to the report from The Information.

OnePlus copies Xiaomi and pits OxygenOS against pure Android in Twitter poll, loses gracefully

Nothing beats pure Android experience, at least for a lot of users. Chinese company Xiaomi set to find out if its own MIUI 9 interface can beat out the pure Android One UI. Android One beat out MIUI 9 with the final result at 57% for Android One and the MIUI 9 getting 43%. While the results were expected, especially with Android fans wanting to get as close to stock Android as they can get, Xiaomi’s response was curious. The company deleted the poll three days after it put it up on February 7, perhaps out of shame for losing.

A couple of days after Xiaomi took down the poll, OnePlus seemed to have wanted to try the same thing out. The results were almost similar to Xiaomi’s with 58% leaning towards pure Android and 42% for OxygenOS. But OnePlus was a more gracious loser as evidenced by what happened after. The company’s CEO Carl Pei tweeted “Don’t delete this poll,” taking a jab perhaps at Xiaomi’s response to its results. The OnePlus employee who put up the poll even said they appreciated the response and that it “motivates” them to work on OxygenOS more.

Thanks for an overwhelming amount of responses. I've read all your comments. Appreciate the positive and, especially, negative ones. It motivates us for further work on OxygenOS and helps improving the product. Cheers!

— Szymon Kopeć 📱🇵🇱 (@szymonkopec) February 14, 2018

 

Source: Android Authority

Xiaomi outs large 6.4-inch Mi Max

Xiaomi is going big with its newest smartphone, the Mi Max. This 6.4-inch phablet is one of the biggest devices released this year. Even with its gigantic screen, the Mi Max promises to have a svelte form with a 7.5mm thickness and weighs 203 grams, which is 26 grams lighter than the 6.8-inch Lenovo Phab Plus. It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650/652 processor, has 3GB/4GB of RAM, 32GB/64GB/128GB of storage, a 16-megapixel rear camera with 5-megapixel front shooter, fingerprint sensor, and 4,850mAh battery that promises up to 14 hours of streaming video via Wi-Fi.

The Mi Max will be running on Xiaomi’s Android based MIUI 8. One of the features Xiaomi is boasting for the Mi Max is it can clone apps, so it’ll be easier for you to, let’s say, have to Snapchat accounts open at once. MIUI basically “splits” the phone into two different accounts so you can have them running side by side. It comes in silver, gold, or dark gray, and will be going on sale in China by next week. Prices start at 1,499 RMB (around CA$290) for the Snapdragon 650, 3GB RAM, and 32GB internal storage version; to 1,699 RMB (around CA$330) for the Snapdragon 652 with 64GB storage; and then to 1,999 RMB (around CA$390) for 4GB of RAM with 128GB internal storage.

Source: Engadget