“Chinese budget smartphone maker Xiaomi unveiled on Thursday its first tablet, expanding its product lineup to directly challenge established rivals Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc.,” Paul Carsten reports for Reuters. “The MiPad, which comes in six colours, will have a 7.9 inch screen, the same size as an iPad Mini… It comes equipped with wireless internet, front and back cameras and a built-in memory capacity of 16 gigabytes or 64 gigabytes. But it is priced cheaper than comparable iPad Mini and Samsung Galaxy Tab models at 1,499 yuan ($240) for the smaller version. The company did not say anything about a 4G version… Xiaomi lists Sharp as a supplier and said it had provided the displays for the tablet.”
“‘We wanted the hardware to come close to, or even surpass Apple’s iPad,’ Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun said at the launch event in Beijing. Xiaomi’s flagship smartphones, which are among the fastest selling in China, resemble Apple’s iPhone,” Carsten reports. “Lei said an initial version of the tablet would be available for testing by the public in mid-June, but he declined to specify a launch date or sales targets. It was also not clear if the MiPad would be sold outside China.”
“Xiaomi said its MiPad will have a plastic case and run on its own Android-based operating system,” Carsten reports. “‘Xiaomi has a different business model than Apple or Samsung,’ said Ben Thompson, founder of Stratechery.com, a technology and strategy website. ‘Apple makes it profits on the hardware, while Xiaomi claims they will make their profits on services.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: More fake iPads – plastic fragmandroid garbage – destined for the world’s landfills.
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Has anyone used a product made by this company? I’d have to assume they are better quality than the standard cheap crap you get from china cause.., well, that aren’t that cheap. They’re cheap in comparison to brand names but not cheap enough to buy one to find out they aren’t higher quality. The TV they have just brought out is tempting but I’d rather read some reviews that aren’t 99% based on price
Low quality stuff, bought one just to try it out.. hyped sales though the sales number does not support the hype. For awhile when they did the first few product launch, Lei even dressed like Steve Jobs… I guess he thinks Steve Jobs success is the way Steve dress.. Clever sales tactic touting ‘First Chinese made mobile phone’ even though there are about few dozen China branded phone on the market already. Traditional copycat company from China, they’ve copied phone, TV device, online store and now tablet..
For me, this company crossed the line when they copied a Kickstarter project that sold for $19USD and sold it for $0.8 USD.. Cannot respect a company that talk about how innovative they are by ripping off other people’s IP.
Thought as much. It doesn’t take much to please android fans. Not having an Apple logo makes it awesome to the majority. I can’t believe samsung are the leading android manufacturer. Their products are the worst performing in each class
Don’t count these guys out, I can remember in the late fifties when Japanese electronics were considered “crap, cheap and junk.”
That changed.
No shame.
Everything is manufactured in China – both low and high quality products.
The quality of the devices being produced by Chinese companies are getting better and better. Apple needs to step up their game.
Your advice certainly doesn’t hurt.
But don’t confuse invention with manufacturing. The Chinese are almost entirely either:
A) Imitation
OR
B) Criminal robbery of IP.
Show my ANY invention here. There isn’t any. That’s specifically a product of their idiotic ‘communist’ government system that offers zero incentive to give a rat’s about inventing anything. The only product of communism is intimidated sheeple along side just another ruling class, typical of the dark ages feudalism. IOW: Retrograde.
The Junk, an apply named boat, that the Chinese circumnavigated the globe in, long before Columbus was born. They discovered India, Africa and both North and South America.
That was invention.
And what have they done lately? (And “circumnavigated” is more than bit hyperbolic, as they seem to have skipped the Atlantic, which is still a sizable pond.)
There was a brief outward-looking period in Chinese history, then they intentionally abandoned it and turned inward.
And you totally missed my point. Go read over what I wrote to botvinnik and learn.
When you say, “Criminal robbery of IP”, you mean the Steve job when visit Xerox Parc Lab and learnt of the window GUI.
You should fact check before presenting urban legends as truth. There was no IP theft involved. There were signed agreements in place, with Xerox buying 100,000 shares of Apple before letting them see the PARC. Xerox made a great deal of money from Jobs’ visit.
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
A. Lincoln
Oh no. Another one.
Go Read An Apple History Book Please.
You are entirely WRONG.
And I’m so sick of telling ignorant people the reality of the situation that I’d rather just type on and on with a bunch of jibberish than bother to tell you REALITY. So toddle along Apple newbie and read that book.
Is Samsung one of the main investors?
I’m asking because Xiaomi is so shameless it makes even Shamesung look ethical.
Let me guess: their smartphone is called “MiPhone”?! And what next… the MiMac?
Increasing fragmentation, more competition among the bottom feeders for devices with slimmer margins, Tizen ripping off Android, a fairly wicked slump in the price of GOOG+(L) and AMZN since Einhorn & Co. started letting the air out of those balloons…it’s a good day.
“Xiaomi unveiled on Thursday its first tablet … to directly challenge … Samsung … and Apple Inc.”
It is a stretch to say it will challenge Apple.
“Undercut” would be a more correct word than “challenge.”
Apple needs to step up their robotic manufacturing ability and do away with the Chinese manufacturers altogether. Maybe someday they can bring all their manufacturing back to the USA. Too bad they can’t bring their chip fab in-house too and screw the Chinese and Samsung altogether!
So, the robots do the work and the engineers drink coffee and make the odd repair while the uneducated sell illegal drugs.
Sounds like a better plan than letting Chinese workers earn a living wage.
Simply to minimize the blatant stealing of IP and to increase their lead time in bringing new products to market before they are robbed of their IP. Obviously the Chinese government could care less if their own companies steal others IP.
The name’s not a copyright violation. Judge Koh told me.
Plastic & Android- can’t ask for more crap then that- lol
Just another illustration of the fact that China can’t invent anything. Therefore, all they have left is crime.
Why anyone is a sucker to this cheap knockoff crap is beyond my comprehension.
What about paper, gunpowder, silk and the compass?
Excellent points! Study the culture of the era in which these fundamental inventions were created. ALL of that creative era was systematically, deliberately wiped out by Maoism. Gone.
true.
IOW: Never underestimate the critical importance of human culture. Oppressive culture, in whatever of various forms, leads directly to oppressed creativity. Culture literally makes people’s minds. It is the rare person who can successfully buck a negative culture and be creative in spite of that culture. This phenomenon explains vast swaths of human history.
We’re in such an oppressive culture right now, on a global basis. We here watch the oppression against Apple, the single most creative company on the planet, on a daily basis. Not good. We here know it goes directly along with the self-destruction of the US government.
also true, you’re preaching to the choir, Reverend.
Thanks for inspiring me this morning.
I sincerely hope that Apple will sue the H*ll out of them–but, if they sell only in China, there’s virtually no chance of a court hearing the case. And of course the anti-Apple crowd will say simply that Apple can’t innovate; con only litigate; that this obviously copied design is a “natural progression,” that Apple is trying to copyright colours… etc…
People who want iOS will buy genuine Apple, people who don’t care will buy Android. I don’t think that yet another Android tablet is going to have much impact outside the Android market.
Apple has critical mass with iPads and iPhones. It has the infrastructure to be the dominant business tool. It just needs to maintain that on all fronts. Ie: it has all the pieces in place.
Some people will buy inferior products for financial reasons or hatred of Apple. That is their loss…not mine.
Perhaps aiming at Apple, but hitting Samsung. Samsung should be furious. I love it.