Following up from rumours that the Xiaomi Mi5s will not have a physical home button, a new spy photo has been released showing an alternate design and possible legal issues to Xiaomi.
Cast your minds back a few years and you may remember that Meizu was in a spot of bother with the design of their Halo home ring on the chin of their then phones. Meizu had been using the Halo for a few years, but ZTE’s Nubia brand wasn’t to happy about it as they had been using the same design too.
Nubia came out on top in that battle which lead to Meizu moving back to physical home buttons.
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So with that in mind it is safe to assume that the halo or ring design for a home navigation key is off bounds right? Well has nobody bothered to tell the designers at Xiaomi?
Above is a purported spy photo of the Xiaomi Mi5S which features a similar ring on the chin of the phone, where it is highly likely an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner will be embedded.
Xiaomi are quite a smart bunch so we assume that this is just an internal version of the phone (or a fake) and that the final production model will have another icon in its place.
The Xiaomi Mi5S is set to launch later this year with Snapdragon 821 chipset, 5.15-inch display, and 16 mega-pixel rear camera.
Theres two possible scenarios:
1. It’s a fake.
2. Xiaomi worked out a deal with ZTE to use that patent.
Given Xiaomi’s stubbornness to work with patent holders, especially Ericsson, I am 99% confident in saying it is option 1.
Logical logic is logical ?
After what happened to them with ericsson, and the legal issues meizu had with zte, I highly doubt they’re willing to do something that could cause troubles in a moment when all they need is to sell!
Hugo Barra wouldn’t allow them too, Chinese patent law can be very shaky and/or non existent except when it involves two Chinese companies. ZTE would have the lawsuit filed before this thing even launches.
Yeah, Hugo comes from a world where apple could sue you for the air you’re breathing, he should be super careful about patents ?
But then again, there are several smaller manufacturers that use the ring button, most recently Umi.
Have you actually seen the prices of the Nubia Z11 borderless 64gb? 2499 Chinese RenMinBi.. Dirt Cheap. They changed their price strategy after the Z9 series, which definitely works for me. 🙂
Bought a Nubia Z11 max (4g + 64g combo with SD652) and I have to say they did really well with their pricing ($300). The phone is simply awesome with a 6 inch display that at times feels and looks like a 5.5 with an ultra slim (7.5mm) frame and bezel.
The moment I was able to flash in GAPPS made me realised it was the best SD652 powered device in the market. Finally, the most amazing part (wasn’t camera) the battery life really wowed me. On a normal/heavy usage which included a few hours of watching HD movies, more than 4 hours of heavy gaming (NOVA, Asphalt 8, and Gangster Vegas), less than an hour on social media, lots of internet surfing with chrome, a few downloads (mostly animes) on UC while connected to wifi for about 90% of the time. I averaged over 8hrs SOT while having 15-17% battery left. By the time it was down to 5%, I was almost hitting 10 hrs SOT. It was magnificent. Never new a 4000mah battery could achieve this