Xiaomi Arrives In The Philippines, Sells Out MI3 Smartphone In Less Than An Hour
Not too long ago, you could have been forgiven for not knowing who or what Xiaomi was, never mind how to pronounce it. Last week, this fast rising mobile device brand from China held its first official sale in the Philippines, and while the local smartphone market is already quite crowded, Xiaomi is definitely a brand to get excited about.
The company put 3000 of its flagship MI3 devices for sale online at 12 noon on the 26th of June, and all of them had gone within an hour. The creation of this kind of sales frenzy is part of Xiaomi’s famous low-cost marketing approach that largely relies on social media and word of mouth. It certainly seems to work and I freely admit to being rather happy when my order was accepted and I became one of the 3000 customers to receive a Xiaomi MI3 Android smartphone.
Xiaomi Arrives In The Philippines
The device retails at P10599 and sports a 5-inch Full HD IPS Retina Display that produces crisp colours and makes the very intuitive MIUI interface look beautiful. Underneath the polycarbonate shell, the MI3 sports a Snapdragon Quad Core 2.3GHz powerplant, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. While the Li-Ion battery is non-removable, its 3,050 mAh capacity should be enough for 21 hours of mobile data use and up to 500 hours of standby, according to the company.
The underlying OS is Android 4.4.2 Kitkat, onto which Xiaomi plants its very nicely designed MIUI interface. This means you can use all the usual Google products and install apps via Google Play, but it also gives you Xiaomi specific features, such as thousands of different themes to customize your phone with. There’s even a Philippines theme and most of these are free to download and use. The option to personalize your phone quickly and easily in this way is a real highlight of the MI3.
The phone weighs a mere 145 grams, which is surprisingly light for a device of this size, but despite the low weight, it feels well made and the build quality seems excellent. Don’t be fooled by the low price. This phone may cost a lot less than most comparable Samsung, HTC or Sony phones, but it certainly doesn’t have to hide behind any of them. The mix of sleek design, solid build quality, good performance and low price point has helped Xiaomi to rise quickly from the competition and it is quite easy to see why the company is now outselling Apple in China. Â
On the camera front, the MI3 sports a 13MP rear camera with the usual set of filters and HDR mode, a panorama function , dual led flash, touch focus and image stabilization. It produced reasonable results when I tried it out on my balcony (see the test shot below), and seeing as 90% of all mobile images end up on Instagram and Facebook anyway, should be plenty good enough for the average user. The front camera has 2MP and should be plenty enough for all the selfies you’ll ever need.
In summary, Xiaomi is on to a winner with the MI3 and the company’s first foray into the Philippine smartphone market is already creating waves that the company will no doubt try and use to surf ahead of the competition. For less than P11k, you can get a solid quad core phone that functions and feels like it should cost much more. Crucially, Xiaomi has also managed to get its image right. Hiring Hugo Barra to head up the company probably helped with this as well. In case you’ve never heard of him: he used to head up a little known operating system called Google Android, before heading over to China to help with Xiaomi’s rocket paced rise into the global top 10 of smartphone manufacturers.
So the MI3 is affordable, delivers the goods, and you can feel proud placing it next to your friend’s Galaxys and iPhones on the table at the restaurant. The only down point right now is that it’s sold out, but Xiaomi is already preparing the next sale. Just keep an eye on their website!
Xiaomi
Xiaomi Arrives In The Philippines, Sells Out MI3 Smartphone In Less Than An Hour
