Xiaomi boss confirms Mi4 “Won’t have stainless steel body”


Hitting up Weibo today with an interesting piece of news is Xiaomi Co-founder Liwan Jiang who tell us the Xiaomi Mi4 won’t have a stainless steel rear after all.

After a teaser that featured a brushed steel background and even sending out July 22nd launch invites on sheet steel, the entire media (us included) were starting to think that a steel bodied Mi4 was a given!

With leaked specifications of the Mi4 pointing at a more subdued flagship, a stainless steel body seemed a good way to go and a great way to move Xiaomi from the cheap and cheerful segment of the phone market to the sleek and succulent.

But this is not going to happen, at least not this time around. Xiaomi boss Liwan Jiang has shot down such rumours as being false. What we are more likely to see is a phone based on a stainless steel chassis, rather than a HTC M8 style steel body.

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If this is true it would leave room in the Mi4’s price (believed to be 1999 Yuan, $320) for a real killer feature.

After teasing the use of 304 stainless steel recently, Meizu bit back with their own use of stainless steel spanning the last 7 years. What do you think of the lack of a stainless steel body on the Mi4? And what do you think Meizu’s reaction will be if any?

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8 Comments

  1. $2548414
    July 18, 2014

    This whole absession for all stainless steel body is hardly understandable. Steel is heavy guys..why not more modern and lighter Carbon fibre ! Many times stronger and lighter too.

  2. The Chosen One
    July 18, 2014

    He never said that it wouldn’t have some type of an alluminum alloy body!
    Forget heavy stainless steel. You can have an alluminum alloy body thats rigid and light enough for use with any smart phone today and you can even go so far as to have that alloy mimic the look of brushed stainless steel

  3. Guest
    July 18, 2014

    This whole absession for all stainless steel body is hardly understandable. Steel is heavy guys..why not more modern and lighter Carbon fibre ! Many times stronger and lighter too.

  4. The Chosen One
    July 18, 2014

    He never said that it wouldn’t have some type of an alluminum alloy body!
    Forget heavy stainless steel. You can have an alluminum alloy body thats rigid and light enough for use with any smart phone today and you can even go so far as to have that alloy mimic the look of brushed stainless steel

  5. Simon Hrovatin
    July 19, 2014

    titanium is light and strong. why don’t they use it?

  6. Simon Hrovatin
    July 19, 2014

    titanium is light and strong. why don’t they use it?

  7. Chico Migraña
    July 20, 2014

    i’d rather like a waterproof and dust phone instead, or kevlar body, that kill all the other phones

  8. Ricardo A.
    July 20, 2014

    i’d rather like a waterproof and dust phone instead, or kevlar body, that kill all the other phones