After a long four years of hiatus in the flagship market, Xiaomi has again planned to enter the same with its new and popular Mi 10. The Mi 10 has been touted as one of the flagship smartphones in the world supporting 5G connectivity along with the use of the highly touted Snapdragon 865 SoC combined with a 108 MP camera, LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 storage.
However, with tough competition from brands such as One Plus, Apple and Samsung – it’s not quite easy for a company like Xiaomi to go head-to-head – both in terms of pricing and specifications. The Xiaomi Mi 10 is currently priced at a whopping 49,999 INR and even though it has all the bells & whistles that will cater to any avid smartphone user out there, Xiaomi
seriously dropped the ball on its pricing.
Therefore, in this article, we’ll be decoding why Xiaomi Mi 10 makes no sense in the current world of the smartphone flagship market.
The Low / Mid-End King
Xiaomi has always known to release feature-packed phones with competitive specs at attractive prices, especially in the low to the mid-end smartphone market. And that’s where the problem itself lies – as Xiaomi has never touted itself as a premium smartphone brand in India.
Even though some of Xiaomi’s smartphone models, such as the Redmi K20 Pro can be held as a ‘flagship killer’, they are still far from being ideal flagship smartphones. This is because smartphones like the Redmi K20 Pro compromises on certain factors such as the camera performance and haptics to achieve the intended low price.
Even when the K20 Pro was launched in India for 28,999 INR, it was similarly poorly received by the market – just like the Mi 10 currently.
The Budget Conception
The regular smartphone user in India has already gotten used to the value and features they receive through the Xiaomi smartphone models, which is why fans don’t resonate with the brand with the likes of One Plus, Apple and Samsung flagships.
The price of the Xiaomi Mi 10 has already created massive waves of negative opinions throughout multiple social media platforms and it’s difficult to expect any sane Indian smartphone user to shell that amount of money to a brand – that generally associates itself with providing value rather than the pride of ownership.
When a typical Indian spends close to half-a-lakh rupees on a smartphone, he or she expects to feel a sense of pride of acquiring something luxurious and costly – something which the Xiaomi Mi 10 is severely lacking. Xiaomi reasons that the price gouging is because of import duties and 18 per cent GST – but, those things mean nothing to the end consumer.
MIUI Is A Mess
Enough with the hardware specifications, but what about the software? Well, be prepared to get disappointed more because the phone will come with the same MIUI that users have been accustomed to see in Xiaomi’s lower and mid-end smartphone models.
A user-interface that has been riddled with advertisements, bugs along with a joke of privacy support – it’s simply not good enough to be put into a smartphone that costs so much. There’s no denying that the Mi 10 is a dead-on-arrival product in India and it’s better to wait for the upcoming Poco F2 Pro.