The Mi 4i is supposed to be the flagship for the masses but it didn’t live up to our expectations. We liked the compact design, its full HD display and 13MP camera. However its performance leave a lot to be desired.
Now it appears that Xiaomi is trying to fix this with a newer model that’s expected to be called the Mi 4c. As shown above in its TEENA certification, the Mi 4c is identical to the Mi 4i but it runs on a higher-spec Snapdragon 808 Hexa-Core processor.
The Mi 4i is only sold internationally outside of China and it was jokingly called “Mi 4 India” during its launch. Perhaps the Mi 4c could stand for Mi 4 China. If the TEENA certification isn’t convincing enough, the Mi 4c has also dropped by Geekbench and Antutu benchmarks, revealing some of its specs and some pre-release performance figures.
The front is still having a 5″ Full HD 1920×1080 display but underneath it runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 processor, which is the same processor powering the LG G4 flagship. The Mi 4c still gets 2GB of RAM and storage starts from 16GB just like the Mi 4i. For imaging, it retains the same 13MP + 5MP camera combination and the battery is said to be a similar 3,100mAh unit. As a new device, it should be running on MIUI 7 that’s based on top of Android 5.1 Lollipop.
Interestingly its TEENA certification reveals an Infrared Blaster and this allows you to use the device as a universal remote control. Their recently announced Redmi Note 2 also comes with one as well.
With a faster processor, hopefully the Mi 4c can solve the shortcomings of the Mi 4i. The price shouldn’t be far off from their current Mi 4i as anything higher is encroaching into the ASUS Zenfone 2 space that packs more RAM and storage. At the moment, the Mi 4i is priced at RM749 for 16GB and RM889 for the 32GB version.
