Xiaomi unveils ceramic-backed Mi5 smartphone

Chinese company Xiaomi has unveiled a ceramic cased Mi5 android smartphone, by highlighting a top end version of the handset is a fraction of the price of its rival’s flagships. The company held a big press conferences for the launch of the product in Beijing & at Barcelona’s MWC.

The European press conference has fuelled speculation Xiaomi is preparing to extend the sales beyond Asia & Brazil. However, the company made no mention of any such plan during the presentations. In fact, its representatives said that MWC attendees the event was a preview but not a launch.

It suggests that Xiaomi still has not resolved issues over the intellectual property & patent rights which it requires to do to put the handsets on sale in Europe & North America. Ben Wood, from a tech consultancy CCS Insight said that doing that will come with a price tag.

But coming to MWC offers Xiaomi an access to hundreds of the top analysts, journalists & other industry commentators to help raise the awareness of Mi brand before any such launch is made. Other analyst agreed that the company required to extend further. Ian Fogg, from IHS Technology has said that Xiaomi missed its 2015 smartphone shipment target by seven million, because it is too exposed to the Chinese market, where fast growing iPhone sales hurt it.

They see an enhancing numbers of Xiaomi smartphones appearing in use around the world, in many countries where Xiaomi smartphones are not officially on sale. So other smartphone creators will continue to look over their shoulder, even if Mi5’s official availability remains very limited to a handful of countries. Xiaomi has described itself as the world’s fifth bestselling smartphone company.

Its handset shipments have risen by 23 percent last year, giving it about 5 percent of the global smartphone market, according to a market research company IDC. Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra has told the MWC audience that its ceramic body was added to the Mi5’s manufacturing prices but has made it much more durable.

Nokia utilized these materials to make phones, but most of the rivals currently use the glass, metallic and plastic cases. Mr Barra said that the 5.1 inch screened Mi5 at 6.95mm & 129g is thinner & lighter than Apple’s iPhone 6S & Samsung’s Galaxy S7 but its Chinese rival Huawei’s P8 phone is nearly 0.5mm thinner than this.

In order to deliver more realistic colours, it will also utilize a new Sony camera sensor to cease light leaking from one pixel to another and the 16 MP camera also had a new four axis optical stabilisation feature to protect blurry pictures in dim lit surroundings. Xiaomi had also protected twenty one patents of its own for its viewing technologies.