The Xiaomi Mi3 brings a gun to a knife fight

Earlier in the year Motorola with the Moto G redefined the low-end and mid-range smartphone market in India. It brought a sense of quality, and an experience to the user. Many OEMs followed and things have never been better for the Indian smartphone consumer. Today, Xiaomi, which is also known as the Apple of China, launched its first smartphone in India.

It launched its flagship, the Mi3, for just Rs.14,999, which just Rs.1,000 more expensive than the 16GB version of the Moto G. In every conceivable way, the Mi3, hardware wise is miles ahead of the Moto G. Essentially it brings a gun to a knife fight. And lets be a little more frank, it's not your standard issue revolver, it's a full-blown RPG.  

Granted, the Mi3 is at the end of its life-cycle as a flagship smartphone, but the internal components it contains are found in luminary smartphones like the Google Nexus 5, LG G2, Sony Xperia Z1, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, to name a few.  

If one looks at the prices of these devices then the Google Nexus 5 16GB version costs Rs.28,999, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 costs Rs.37,999, the Sony Xperia Z1 costs Rs.35,799, and the LG G2 costs Rs.31,590.  

The Xiaomi Mi3 handily outclasses the likes of the Moto G in terms of hardware.

Things get crazier when one accounts for devices like the Nokia Lumia 1520, which costs as much as Rs.43,000 in some cases.  

In terms of hardware, the Xiaomi Mi3 competes with likes of the aforementioned devices, but in terms of pricing it's competing with the Moto G, the soon to be launched Asus ZenFone, and the Nokia Lumia 630.  

And if this is just of a glimpse of the future, one wonders what will happen when Xiaomi decides to launch its cheaper phones. It has two really compelling devices in the form of the RedMi and the RedMi Note.

These two devices are powered by MediaTek's quad-core and octa-core chipsets, which are cheaper to produce than the Qualcomm Snapdragon powered Mi3.

Think about it, already there is the Intex Aqua Octa, which is a MediaTek octa-core chipset based phablet and costs around Rs.15,000. If Xiaomi launches the RedMi Note, it's likely that it will adopt a similar strategy to the Mi3 launch, and in that case it would not be foolhardy to imagine it costing less than Rs.10,000.

Imagine a phablet with a 5.5-inch 720p display and an octa-core chipset for less than Rs.10,000. And if the train of thought is transferred to the RedMi then onecould end up with a situation where a phone with a 4.7-inch 720p screen and a quad-core Cortex A7 CPU could cost as low as Rs.5,000.  

Of course, all this is speculative, but still quite plausible. Also, there is the case of Xiaomi's sales strategy where it launches the product in small batches, which get sold out very quickly. This strategy has proven to be very successful in China, but consumers in India will need to be aware of this strategy.  

That said, the Indian consumer is getting well versed with this ploy as Motorola's Moto E and Moto G have been sold out quite often on FlipKart.  

The pace at which companies like Xiaomi are reducing the entry point to high quality Android hardware is impressive. Interestingly, this is also in alignment with Google's Android One program which intends to offer quad-core smartphones with 720p displays for less than $100. More so, it will be a blow to Windows Phone, which is struggling to gain traction in the high-end and only recently attained some success with sub Rs.10,000 devices the Nokia Lumia 520 and Lumia 525. Cheap Windows Phones start to struggle as companies like Xiaomi drastically reduce the entry point to high quality Android hardware. 

But if one comes back to the Mi3, there is simply no smartphone that costs less than Rs.20,000 that competes with it on specs. In fact, the closest that comes in this regard is a phone by another Chinese firm. It's the Gionee Elife E7, which is a 5.5-inch phablet and it costs Rs.24,440. The Elife E7 has very similar specs to Xiaomi Mi3, but even it can't compete with it head on.

The Moto G may not have the pure horsepower of the Mi3, but offers the advantage of pure Android and relatively faster updates. The Mi3 is still straddled on Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, but its main lure is its iOS like MiUI, which has achieved a lot of critical acclaim.  

In the current smartphone market scenario, people deeply care about specs, hardware specs. To an extent they care about the software, but the hardwarespeaks volumes and Xiaomi is listening to the market.  

It may not have the brand equity of tier 1 brands, but it goes to lengths to point out the quality of components it uses in the Mi3. For instance, it's display comes from Sharp, the processor comes from Qualcomm, the camera comes from Sony, the flash module comes from Philips.  

If compared to the Moto G, in every sense, the Mi3 brings a gun to a knife fight, and that's despite the Moto G being a fantastic smartphone. In the meanwhile, wait on till July 15, when the phone goes on sale and be prepared to stay glued to the Xiaomi website or FlipKart, through which the company is widely expected to sell the phone as in all probability there will not be many units up for grabs. 

Features	Xiaomi Mi3	Moto G	Google Nexus 5	LG G2	Sony Xperia Z1	Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, quad-core clocked @2.3GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, quad-core clocked @1.2GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, quad-core clocked @2.3GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, quad-core clocked @2.3GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, quad-core clocked @2.3GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, quad-core clocked @2.3GHz (International version)
Display	5-inch IPS, 1080p	4.5-inch LCD, 720p	5-inch IPS, 1080p	5.2-inch IPS, 1080p	5-inch LCD, 1080p	5.7-inch Super AMOLED, 1080p
RAM	2GB	1GB	2GB	2GB	2GB	3GB
Memory	16GB	16GB	16GB	32GB	16GB, microSD card slot	32GB, microSD card slot
Camera	13-megapixel rear, 2-megapixel front	5-megapixel rear, 1.3-megapixel front	8-megapixel rear, 1.3-megapixel front	13-megapixel rear, 2.1-megapixel front	20.7-megapixel rear, 2-megapixel front	13-megapixel rear, 2.1-megapixel front
Battery	3,050mAh	2,070mAh	2,300mAh	3,000mAh	3,000mAh	3,200mAh
Platform	Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean, MiUI	Android 4.4.4 KitKat	Android 4.4.4 KitKat	Android 4.4.2 KitKat, Optimus UI	Android 4.4.2 KitKat	Android 4.4.2 KitKat, TouchWiz UI
Connectivity	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, dual-SIM	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G
Price	Rs.14,999	Rs.13,999	Rs.28,999	Rs.31,590	Rs.35,799	Rs.37,999

Disclaimer: The prices for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Sony Xperia Z1 and the LG G2 have been sourced from FlipKart. Also, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the LG G2 are only offered in 32GB variants, while the Moto G also has a cheaper 8GB model.