The Mi 8 SE happens to be the first phone to be powered by the new Snapdragon 710 SoC and comes with a notched display.
Xiaomi held a mega event in China last month to launch the flagship Mi 8, the Mi 8 Explorer Edition and the Mi 8 SE along with the Mi Band 3. Now, reports claim that the Mi 8 SE will come to India in the name of Mi 8i sometime next month. According to Beebom, sources in the retail network have stated that the Mi 8 SE will make its way to India next month alongside the Mi Band 3. The phone will be rebranded as the Mi 8i. In fact, the landing page of the phone in the company’s website in China has the name Mi 8i in the URL.
The report states that the ‘i’ in Mi 8i stands for India and it could be priced between Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 which coincides with the price of the phone in China. In China, the Mi 8 SE launched for RMB 1,799 which roughly converts to Rs 19,000. If China pricing is anything to go by, the Mi Band 3 will be priced around Rs 1,800 (coinciding with RMB 169 price tag for the base variant) while the NFC-enabled variant will retail for around Rs 2,100 priced at RNB 199 in China.
We reached out to Xiaomi to confirm whether the phone and the band are indeed launching but Xiaomi said they don’t comment on stories that cite sources outside its official communication channels. For now, there are no press invites for the launch event doing the rounds as well. The company recently launched the selfie-centric Redmi Y2 in India starting Rs 9,999. You can read our first impressions of the phone here.
The Mi 8 SE happens to be one of the first smartphones to be powered by the new Qualcomm 710 SoC. The chipset was announced recently as a means to bridge the gap between premium and mid-range phones. The chipset is coupled with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM along with 64GB of onboard storage. On top is a 5.88-inch full HD+ AMOLED panel with a display notch and a 3,120mAh battery underneath. It runs on Android 8.1 with MIUI 10 on top.
There are dual cameras at the back with a 12-meXiaomi Mi Band 3 fitness tracker launched in two variants with heart-rate sensor and OLED screen megapixel primary sensor and a 5-megapixel secondary sensor for depth sensing. Up front is a 20-megapixel shooter for selfies. The phone launched in four colour variants in China (blue, red, gold and black) and goes on sale in Mainland China today.
The Mi Band 3 gets a big upgrade from its predecessor. It now has a 0.78-inch OLED panel with rounded edges and is water resistant up to 50m. It even sports a heart-rate sensor. There’s of course the usual suite of fitness-centric features and activity tracking that now includes deep counting, sleep monitoring and more. The Mi Band 3 has a higher variant as well that comes with an NFC chip inside.
In case you’ve been following Xiaomi’s activities in India, the company had launched an ‘i’ variant of its flagship Mi 4 back in 2015. The Mi 4i also had watered-down hardware as compared to the flagship and was marketed as a "made for India" smartphone. Could it be that Xiaomi is planning to renew the series once again?
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