The Xioami Hongmi is the hottest selling smartphone in China, and with the recent launch of the WCDMA model customers globally have been looking at the entry-level Xiaomi as a possible next phone.
The Hongmi launched earlier this year and quickly became the hottest selling smartphone for Xiaomi. At just 799 Yuan and with hardware which includes a large HD display, quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8 mega-pixel Sony rear camera, dual SIM, and Xiaomi’s excellent MIUI V5!
Although great international customers have had to hold of purchasing the Hongmi until just recently when the WCDMA version of the phone finally went on sale. Phone resellers have been quick to get stock of the low-cost Xiaomi and are offering GizChina readers a special introductory price!
Gizchina News of the week
The offer will only run until 30th November with 3 packages to choose from:
Option A: Hongmi(red rice)+ standard accessories Original Price: 206.99USD Coupon 5USD Final price: 201.99USD Coupon: spemallgizA
Option B: A + Screen Protector + Silicon Case + Stylus Original Price: 228.87USD Coupon 20USD Final price: 208.87USD Coupon: spemallgizB
Option C: B + Flip Hard Cover + Folding Stand Original Price: 247.67USD Coupon 30USD Final price: 217.67USD Coupon: spemallgizC
SpeMall are the store running the offer, you can head over to the product information page for more details.
202USD for phone which cost in China 131USD, what a great deal, especially compared to Motorola Moto G for 180-200USD one would need to be extremely dumb to buy this (basically same specs) without warranty with questionable updates for same price through some shady Chinese company, the new Moto G and Nexus 5 are Xiaomi killers
does it have vanilla android like nexus/google phones? I doubt so… I ain’t interested in some iOS meow clone crap
Actually there is a stock Android option for Xiaomi phones as well. And you should do a little research before writing MIUI or custom ROMs off. Or maybe you are the iOS target audience…
I am not denying that, just saying that Nexus/Moto X/G is much more likely to get updates to new Android in future straight from Google than some Chinese Xiaomi which doesn’t event want Google services in their devices, so it’s questonable when will Xiaomi/developers stop porting new Android for some particular models, while you don’t need to be afraid of this with official Google/Motorola phones.
There are more than one kind of update. Sure, you get the newest main version of Android from Google, a new version every 6 months or so. But with Xiaomi you get weekly updates as well. These updates bring new functions as well as bugfixes and optimizations. Most phone manufacturers do that too just not that often. With a Nexus/Moto/Sony/Whatever phone you’ll have to live with your bugs and hope they get fixed in the next update, which might come next month or next quarter, or not at all if your phone is more than a year old. So why would you need the newest Android ASAP? Bugfixes? Nope, you already have that. New functions? MIUI for one does more out of the box than the updates in KitKat. Compatibility? Please! You can use almost everything with Gingerbread even today. And if you are missing Google services know that, it’s not Xiaomi at a fault here but Google. And that you can have it after installing a simple APK.
“Moto G and Nexus 5 are Xiaomi killers”… Realy? 576$ is the lowest price for Nexus 5 in Bulgaria
yeah? and what is official price of Xiaomi? I guess it doesn’t even has price since it’s not officially sold outside China, only through some shady resellers where you can pray if something will break
nobody is stopping you from ordering nexus from US ebay through same resellers as you do with xiaomi from China and I can guarantee you they will be more reliable than these chinese shops
I don’t see Ebay sellers being trustworthy at all… And last time I went through ebay, the prices for Moto G and Nexus 5 were much much higher than 202 bucks… unless you buy the phone alongside with some sort of verizon data plan… So no, nexus 5 and Moto G are not quite that “Xiaomi killers”.
What questionable updates? Xiaomi is one of the few companies that actively supplies weekly or monthly ROM updates. Let see Motorola or Google do that in their Android versions with 18 months support. Also Xiaomi is currently not selling internationally, this WCDMA version is also intended for China. You can’t blame Xiaomi if other companies sell them overseas.
Ahum also what same specs. The Moto G is not dual sim, has a cheaper camera and smaller display.
Strangely enough on Spermall forum there is an article about fake Hongmi http://www.spemall.com/forum/topic/719-xiaomi-hongmi-red-rice-replicas-rapid-identification-guide/. The photos of the Hongmi they sell have the Sim slot waterproof mark and the antenna sticker of the fake version.
i agree. i got the Cubot GT99 for $149 (clear case + screen film included) and it has a better camera
Xiaomi should understand that they are a brand in China but for outer world, it is not a brand name and many even don’t know. I think they can command more prices from countries, where they are a known name and for other countries where they are not a brand, they should give more aggressive prices. But the Xiaomi pricing trend is different. Well said Markoff, who will buy this product w/o warranty and no brand name in their country for this price.
Guys let’s nit forget that pricing here is not made by xiaomi but by resellers…
Xiaomi is not exerting an effort to sell globally simply because there’s no incentive for them to do so. They sell hardware almost at cost. They said it themzelvez, theyre not like apple, they’re like amazon. They earn through their online xiaomi market, where in order to buy, you have to get credits that are only sold in… China. In other words, even if they sold a billion units world wide, they can only earn from people located in china.
Hugo is preparing xiaomi to be a global force but based on his comments, y may not be prepared until after 2-3 years more.
Peace
Neither Apple nor amazon sell any products w/o margins. They keep their margin low and go for quantities in lowest possible time and in Xiaomi’s case they get money before delivering, so there is not investment whatsoever [ customer invest] , no stocking done [ direct from factory to customer ] , no dealer or distributor [ so no more margin sharing, helps in keep low price] . So customer invest and waits and in return they get at prices which dealers/ distributor gets. But both ways Xiaomi gets full margin, either selling directly or through distributors.
The best way is take money first, then manufacture, don’t stock, sell directly to customer.