Xiaomi Announces MIUI Phone Mi-Two with Quad Core Krait APQ8064 inside
by Brian Klug on August 16, 2012 4:37 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Xiaomi
- APQ8064
- mi-two
About a year ago, I had the chance to play with a Xiaomi MIUI Mi-One handset while working on our Vellamo introduction and benchmarking story. The phone was based on a dual core 1.5 GHz MSM8260, and shocked me with its fit and finish, considering this was Xiaomi's first handset.
Today Xiaomi announced its Mi-Two handset, which includes a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 SoC and 2 GB of LPDDR2 RAM. Though there have been leaks and rumors about other phones in develoment based around APQ8064, this is to my knowledge the first handset officially announced with the quad core Krait (and Adreno 320) SoC inside. Xiaomi has priced the Mi-Two at 1999HKD which works out to 315USD for comparison.
This is the same APQ8064 we've already done some performance analysis with on a mobile development platform. Xiaomi has been a pretty strong Qualcomm partner thus far, so it isn't surprising to see them announce an APQ8064 phone. I've put together a spec table with what I've gathered from Xiaomi's twitter and microblogging feeds from their announcement today.
Xiaomi Mi-One and Mi-Two Comparison | |||||
Device | Mi-One | Mi-Two | |||
SoC | 1.5 GHz MSM8x60 (Dual core Scorpion + Adreno 220) | 1.5 GHz APQ8064 (Quad core Krait + Adreno 320) | |||
RAM/NAND/Expansion | 1 GB LPDDR2, 4 GB NAND, microSD | 2 GB LPDDR2, 16 GB NAND, microSD | |||
Display | 4.0" 854x480 | 4.3" IPS 1280x720 | |||
Network | WCDMA (14.4) / GPRS / EDGE / (1x+EVDO if MSM8660) | DC-HSPA+ (42.2) / GPRS / EDGE | |||
Dimensions | 125mm x 63mm x 11.9mm | 126mm x 62mm x 10.2mm | |||
Camera | 8 MP | 8 MP 5P F/2.0 |
What's interesting is the inclusion of DC-HSPA+ as well. I've been pretty public about how APQ8064+MDM9615 will become a very popular platform for handsets this next cycle, and I believe it's a safe bet that that the Mi-Two uses exactly this combination. I've reached out for confirmation and will update if I get it. The Mi-Two of course runs the MIUI skin and Android 4.1.
Xiaomi doesn't pull any punches and directly compares the Mi-Two to the competition from HTC and Samsung in their slides. I've gathered almost all of them up into a gallery for your perusal. It's great to see Xiaomi going into this level of detail about their handset.
Update: The Xiaomi Mi-Two page is now live and includes a bit more detail, including band support, which is WCDMA 850, 1900, 2100 alongside quad band GSM. There's also a small note about the Mi-Two having antenna diversity. The pages also note that the Mi-Two will go on sale in October for 1999HKD.
Xiaomi also made their slide deck from the presentation live after some time, I've exported the slide deck pages to a gallery as well.
Sources: Xiaomi (microblogging), Twitter, Xiaomi (Mi-Two Page)
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pikahatonjon - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Hey brian!thanks for being one of the first/only (as far as i can tell) tech sites to cover the unveiling of the Mi-TWO. Even though i followed the whole liveblog thingy on FB its always nice to read about professional opinion on the whole shebang props!
-j
LaMpiR - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
NIce article. This phone looks amazing. But is it even possible to order it in Europe?vectorm12 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Why do all of them insist on using skins on Android? Sure it does make it easier for them to differentiate from all of the others by having a unique look and feel but in the end all it does is paint users into a corner. I'd love to see more Google Experience-phones as it would be awesome to have some real alternatives to the Google reference models.For instance I'd love to swap out my current Nexus S for a Galaxy S III but in the end I'd rather wait for the next Nexus as I'll at least get a few major updates instead of just one as with the Galaxy S.
In other words distribute this with Stock Android and make sure drivers are ready for Android 5.x and you've just sold me a phone. Skin it and I'll hold off for the next Nexus.
OCedHrt - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Because Xiaomi is promoting MIUI, obviously.But of all the popular ROMs that people make, you either have AOSP or MIUI. Worth giving it a try.
niva - Monday, August 20, 2012 - link
Right on, I refuse to buy anything that's not pure android and guarantees updates as soon as they become available. I've had Jelly Bean running on my Nexus since the beginning of July, by the time SG3 gets it there will probably be another major software revision out. I had hope that now that Google has bought out Motorolla they would release vanilla android phones across their line, so far my hope is dwindling...Death666Angel - Saturday, August 25, 2012 - link
If only Nexus devices had SD card slots and better SoCs. I bought an SGS2 when it came out and am still happy with it. Better than the Nexus S at the time which was already showing its age in mid 2011 and the upcoming Galaxy Nexus was too far off.But so far, because of its popularity, the modding community has been great with providing ROM updates to it. Unless Nexus devices get discreet SD card slots in the future or the NAND storage gets drastically improved with little extra cost, the faster software updates will not sway me towards buying them.
piroroadkill - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Holy shit, do we really need 2GB of RAM in our PHONES. Shit, son.I'd be happy with the Mi-One specs in my handset.. Doesn't mention the most important part, though, the battery.
deepb84 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
The Battery is quoted in one of the images as a 3000mAh!!!piroroadkill - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
Oh damn, now THAT'S how you spec out a phone.ebolamonkey3 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
It's definitely 2000mAH on the slide.