China's Xiaomi Unveils New Smart TV, Mi-3 Phone - PC Magazine

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• September 5, 2013 03:33pm EST

While tech companies descend on Berlin to announce their latest and greatest wares at IFA, Xiaomi is making waves of its own in China.
The smartphone maker, which recently poached Android executive Hugo Barra from Google, on Thursday held a press conference in Beijing to unveil a new flagship Android handset dubbed the MiPhone 3. In a more surprising move, Xiaomi also introduced a new 47-inch, Android-powered 3D smart TV, which will go on sale next month in China for 2,999 yuan ($490).
The Xiaomi TV is described as super-thin, measuring in at just 4.8 centimeters at its thickest point, and will come in six colors. It features a 3D high-definition LCD screen from LG or Samsung, and runs on a 1.7GHz, quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor.

Other specs include 2GB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage, as well as support for dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The set comes with an "easy to use" remote with just 11 buttons, Xiaomi said.
Xiaomi's move to enter the TV market comes after Chinese Internet companies Baidu and Alibaba recently announced similar offerings. Rival smartphone maker Apple is also widely rumored to be working on a smart TV.

Meanwhile, the new MiPhone 3, which Xiaomi touted as the world's fastest smartphone, is powered by either a 1.8GHz, quad-core Nvidia Tegra 4 processor or Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 chip. It sports a 5-inch 1080p IPS LCD display built by Sharp or LG with "ultra-sensitive touch" that works with wet or gloved hands, Xiaomi said.
The MiPhone 3 measures in at just 8.1mm thick, and includes a 3,050mAh battery as well as 2GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage. It sports a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera from Sony with an "intelligent beauty corrector" feature that can estimate age and gender, in addition to a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter. As for price, the 16GB variant will retail for 1,999 yuan ($327) while the 32GB flavor will cost 2,499 yuan ($408).