Xiaomi seems to have yet delivered yet another winner in the form of the upgraded Redmi Note 4, launched in India today.
The phone, priced at Rs 12,999 for the 4GB + 64GB variant, is arguably the most value for money phone in the market today.
It also launched a Rs 10,999 variant with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, which should also see brisk sales.
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On a positive note, Xiaomi did not simply dump the old model introduced in China into the Indian market.
Instead, it changed the internals of the device and swapped the Helio X20 with a more battery-friendly Snapdragon 625 chipset.
The Note 4 is only the second phone to come with the 14 nm chipset in India. Besides having more advanced 4G LTE capabilities such as carrier aggregation, the chipset also is a big battery saver.
Despite coming with practically the same battery, the Note4 lasts 25% more per charge compared to with last year’s Redmi Note 3, the company claimed. Compared with the iPhone 7, it lasts 70% longer because of the more efficient chipset and the bigger, 4.1 Ah battery.
In addition, Xiaomi has installed a bigger sensor on its back camera — with 25% more area — that should deal with all the camera-related problems faced by Note buyers last year.
WILL STOCKS LAST?
So far, all this has played out according to the company’s rulebook — great build quality, excellent specs and a very affordable price tag.
But is that enough? Can the company now deliver the stocks? Or will it be like last year when it started flash sales of the Redmi Note 3 in early March, but stocks started coming in major quantities only towards the middle of April?
It remains to be seen.
For now, some fans are still angry for two reasons — 1 – they mistakenly assume that it’s the same model that was launched in China five months ago, and 2 – the company did not bring more premium models, such as Redmi Pro with an AMOLED display, into India despite it being launched back in August in China.
However, it should be noted that the Redmi Note 4 launched in India is not really the same model that was unveiled in China. The Indian variant is more battery efficient and runs cooler.
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As for the delay in launch, it helps in keeping the prices affordable. If the same phone is launched in India and China at the same time, the prices in India will have to be kept 15-20% higher to account for the higher taxes, shipping costs and other expenses. Moreover, doing so would also reduce stock availability, and Xiaomi is able to keep prices down because it manufactures at a lower rate compared to others like Samsung.
For now though, everything will depend on how efficient Xiaomi is in supplying the stocks for its upcoming flash sales. The phones will be sold via Flipkart via flash sales starting from 23 Monday.