Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, the most exciting phone from the Chinese brand in India after the Mi3 two years ago, is all set to go on its first flash sale on Amazon and Mi.com today at 2 PM.
While details about the phone have been revealed, what remains to be seen is how good the company is in terms of living up to its hype.
Specifically, we will see whether or not Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 will also go the way of Mi3 — an extremely attractive phone with superior and value-for-money features, but almost impossible to get due to very very small stocks.
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UPDATE: The first flash sale of the phone was quite a mystery, as our poll shows that only about 13% — or one in eight — persons who tried to buy the phone could do so. Given past trends, we can assume that about 1.5 lakh people may have tried to buy the device. 13% of that turns out to 19,500. It is, therefore, possible that the total number of device put out on sale was pretty low. Xiaomi has also not given any update on the number of devices sold, but instead tweeted: “Thanks for the support! If you didn’t get a RedmiNote3, registration for the next sale” opens soon. Normally, all companies — whether Lenovo or Yu Televentures or LeTV give out a statement saying how many units were sold in the flash sale.
Not surprisingly, the fans are not very pleased with the first sale.
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The Note offers everything that most people would want in their primary phone — except perhaps branded screen protection and a separate MicroSD card slot.
It has a 5.5-inch, 1080p full-HD display, a Snapdragon 650 chipset with decent power and advanced LTE, 32 GB of internal memory (though a 16 GB version is also available) and most of all, is priced at an affordable Rs 11,999.
The only real competitor to the phone is the LeTV Le 1s, which offers Gorilla Glass protection on its screen, has an overall more-powerful processor and is cheaper by Rs 1,000. However, it does not come with advanced LTE or 4G voice, and has a slightly inferior main camera compared to the Xiaomi model.
If at the end of today’s flash sale, Xiaomi does not come out and say how many handsets it sold, more and more people will start looking at alternative models instead. We expect the company to clarify how many units were sold unless the number is very small.
On the other hand, LeTV has delivered on the most important factor required for purchasing a great smartphone — availability of stocks. The company has sold over 2 lakh devices in its first month of sales in India — a record for any phone in this country.
And it has made available tens of thousands of phones on Flipkart even now for purchase on demand.
What remains to be seen is how good Xiaomi turns out to be on this aspect, and the first sale number should give a good indication of whether or not the company intends to deliver the stocks or whether this will be more like the infamous Mi3 situation when people were taking advantage of the scarcity by selling units on eBay at big markups.
To prevent mischief, today’s flash sale will not allow you to change your delivery address once you’ve entered it. And you’ll get only 2 hours to complete the order are the initial booking.
ALSO READ: The phone is being sold on classified websites like OLX and Quikr even after the flash sale.
To register for the sale, go to the Amazon page or to Mi.com
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