China iPhone: Xiaomi Mi 3 With Snapdragon 800 Launched in India at Rs. 13,999

Xiaomi has on Tuesday launched its first smartphone for the Indian market, the Mi 3. The smartphone, first announced for India last week, is available from July 22, 12pm IST, exclusively on Flipkart. Pre-registration opens on Tuesday and will last until July 21 midnight.

The company also announced the Redmi 1S and Redmi Note will be launching in India in August.

The Xiaomi Mi 3 runs a highly tweaked version of Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, called MIUI version 5. It comes with a 5-inch full-HD LCD display (1080x1920 pixels) offering a pixel density of 441ppi.

With the announcement of Mi 3, Xiaomi has become the first handset manufacturer to offer an Android smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset below the Rs. 15,000 mark. It is powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8274AB) processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The Mi 3 is listed with 16GB of inbuilt storage with no word on expandable storage support.

It sports a 13-megapixel rear camera featuring a f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash while the front houses a 2-megapixel camera. It is backed by a 3050mAh battery. The Mi 3 measures 144x73.6x8.1mm and weighs 145 grams. It will be available in Metallic Grey colour.

    Notably, earlier this week, Xiaomi, also referred to as 'China's Apple', teased its next flagship smartphone, expected to be called the Mi 4, with images of a 'steel invite' for the July 22 launch event.

    Xiaomi's Google+ page shared the images of the invitation letter made of steel for "The Journey of a Piece of Steel" launch event where the company is expected to reveal the Xiaomi Mi 4 with a metal chassis.

    The company said in a Google+ post, "Invitation letters for the 2014 Xiaomi Annual New Product Launch Event on July 22: The Journey of a Piece of Steel." The Google+ post further confirmed that the Xiaomi's invitation letter has been made of real steel.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7 available online at Rs 17,825

Samsung has started selling its 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 tablet (T231) in India through online retailers.

The 3G+Wi-Fi variant of the tablet is now available at e-commerce website, Flipkart at Rs 17,825. The listing was first spotted by AndroidOS.in.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7 comes with a an LCD display(1280x800p). It is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and 1.5GB of RAM, and comes with 8GB internal storage and a microSD card slot. The tablet weighs 281gram and measures 107.9x186.9x9mm.

The tablet sports a 3MP rear camera and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat and comes with a 4000mAh battery.

In terms of connectivity, Galaxy Tab 4 supports 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and Glonass.

Samsung had launched Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 and 8.0 in the Indian market, earlier this month. While Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 is priced at Rs 23,960, Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 costs Rs 30,498. Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 and 8.0 feature 10.1-inch and 8-inch screens respectively, both with 1280x800p resolution. They run a customized version of Android 4.4 (KitKat) and are powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor with 1.5GB RAM.

Samsung Galaxy S5’s price dips to Rs 35k

The price of Samsung Galaxy S5 in India has taken another hit, dropping to nearly Rs 35,000. This price drop comes nearly a month after its price dipped below Rs 40,000.

Online retailer Infibeam has listed Galaxy S5, which was launched in March this year, at Rs 35,649. However, the device is out of stock at this price.

On the other hand, the smartphone is still available for purchase at Flipkart and Amazon.in, which are selling it at Rs 36,500 and Rs 36,900, respectively.

This is a new low for the smartphone, whose price has been in a free fall since launch. The price of the device was Rs 47,000 just three days after it was launched in India.

In fact, less than a fortnight after the Galaxy S5 was launched, Samsung had issued a press release stating that the official price of the smartphone remained unchanged. This was done after its price had dropped on e-commerce sites by several thousand rupees.