Why the Xiaomi Mi 4i premier in India is a big deal

India rarely sees a global unveil for mass market smartphone. In recent memory, it has not happened, but it had to considering India is the second fastest growing smartphone market in the world. Logic would have dictated that a local brand like Micromax with global ambitions would do this, however, it was Chinese smartphone sensation, Xiaomi, which also happens to be the world’s most highly valued start-up worth $45 billion, that took the plunge.

On April 23, New Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium witnessed something different amidst a sea of tech launches in the city — including the launch of the highly anticipated Asus ZenFone 2. Xiaomi, came in all guns blazing with its co-founder and CEO Lei Jun, co-founder Bin Lin and rockstar executive Hugo Barra, who is their vice president for global operations, and was notably a former Google executive in-charge of Android. The company has, for the first time, unveiled a product outside its home country — the Mi 4i.

According to the company, the "i" in Mi 4i stands for India and the phone will be launched in India on April 30, before it hits any other market. After 18 months of conceptualisation, the product came alive in front of 2,000 odd spectators, comprising partners, media and Mi fans.

The Mi 4i may share its nomenclature with Xiaomi's current flagship smartphone "Mi 4", but it's a new product from ground up. Built out of polycarbonate, like Microsoft's smartphones, it's also being offered in an array of fruity colours.

But that's not the end of it. The Mi 4i is a power packed phone, offering the second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB RAM, 4G connectivity, with a 13-megapixel camera on the back and a five-megapixel camera on the front.

In almost the same surface area as the iPhone 6, Mi 4i manages a slightly larger and wildly sharper five-inch full high definition screen. At the same time, it packs a massive 3,120mAh battery with new battery technology that lasts longer and charges faster.

Even at the software end, Xiaomi offers the latest version of Android — Lollipop — and has customised functions for India, including language support for Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayali and Tamil and a visual interactive voice response (IVR) system, which promises to rid users from automated calls routed through various service vendors like credit card companies, banks and even the Indian Railways.

The kicker is the pricing — Rs 12,999 for a phone that packs so much. However, the company had more in store as it launched its fitness band — Mi Band, for an incredible Rs 999.

As always, the hype was big around the products, and at first impression, the products also live up to the hype. Now, it's time to gauge the sales, but if the fan following at the event is anything to go by, that should not be a problem.