The Xiaomi Mi 4 (Chinese: 小米手机4) is a

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

developed by the Chinese electronics manufacturer

Xiaomi Corporation (; ), commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items. Behind Samsung, it is the second largest m ...

for its

high-end In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast t ...

line, and was released in August 2014.

held an event to formally introduce the

phone, and its complementary smart-accessory, the

MiBand, during the Xiaomi New Product Launch Event 2014 on 22 July 2014. Similar to the principle of the Xiaomi Mi2, the Mi 4 is a highly revamped version of its predecessor, the Xiaomi Mi3. The phone is of a different design to its predecessor. It was also released slightly before the new

MIUI MIUI (pronunciation: ''Me You I'') is an Android -based mobile operating system developed and maintained by Xiaomi independently of Google exclusively for its smartphones. MIUI includes various features such as theme support. It is the basis f ...

6, which was introduced in August 2014. Reception towards the device was generally positive, though there were still a high amount of negative feedback from users of Apple's iPhone due to its similar design and quality. Some media companies hailed it to be one of the best smartphones available in the market due to its high-end hardware which is sold for a comparably at a lower price compared to competitor smartphones. However, others criticized it for being too similar to Apple's iPhone 5S.

History

Before its official unveiling, media speculation primarily focused on leaks; including photos of the early prototypes of the device and screenshots of

6, these leaks were later proven to be fake.

announced the Mi 4 and MiBand during a media event at the CNCC on 22 July 2014. While the device was announced in July 2014, it didn't become available until August 2014, shortly before unveiling

6. In August 2014, the Mi 4 was released in China and then to other countries.

operated in a limited, however expanding, list of countries and consumers outside of the countries it operates in have to buy it online.

Features

Operating system and software

The Xiaomi Mi 4 ships with

V5 (upgradable to MIUI V10),

's variant of the Android

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

. The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

of MIUI is based on the concept of

direct manipulation In computer science, human–computer interaction, and interaction design, direct manipulation is an approach to interfaces which involves continuous representation of objects of interest together with rapid, reversible, and incremental action ...

, using multi-touch gestures.

Interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Int ...

control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the Android

and its multi-touch interface. Internal

accelerometers An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acce ...

are used by some applications to respond to the movement of the device such as rotating it vertically (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode). The device includes an updater application which allows it to update its OS to the latest version of MIUI available for it.

Windows 10 ROM Port

In March 2015, it was announced that selected

registered users A registered user is a user of a website, program, or other systems who has previously ''registered.'' Registered users normally provide some sort of credentials (such as a username or e-mail address, and a password) to the system in order t ...

of Mi 4 devices in China would receive a ROM port of the

Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. First released in 2015, it is a successor to Windows Phone 8.1, but was marketed by Microsoft as being an edition of its PC operating system Windows 10. Wind ...

operating system as a trial partnership between Xiaomi and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

. The ROM flash download was released for these users in June 2015, who could then test the software on their devices and provide feedback to both Microsoft and Xiaomi.

Design

The device has a 5-inch (12.7 cm) Sharp/JDI OGS fully laminated touchscreen, with a screen resolution of 1080x1920 at a pixel density of 441 ppi. Its home button is similar to its predecessor and is mainly touch-based with adjustable haptic feedback. The phone itself weighs 149 grams (5.26 oz) and uses a stainless steel frame. The device is currently available in three color finishes, black, white and rose gold.

Hardware

The

Mi 4 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974-AC) chipset, which, at one point made it the fastest Android

to date according to the AnTuTu benchmark application. Its processor is a

quad-core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...

2.5 GHz Krait 400 and its graphics card is an Adreno 330. The phone includes a 3080 mAh battery, which provides 280 hours of standby time. It comes with a 13 megapixel primary camera and an 8 megapixel secondary camera. Xiaomi also released another model of Mi 4 with 64 GB of internal memory.

Accessories

The

Mi 4 was announced with a complementary US$12 smart-accessory known as the

Xiaomi Mi Band The Xiaomi Mi Band is a wearable activity tracker produced by Xiaomi, unveiled during a Xiaomi launch event on 22 July 2014. This article is mainly about the original Mi Band; later versions have separate articles. Design The ''Mi Band'' resemb ...

which is a waterproof sleep-cycle smart alarm, fitness monitor, sleep tracker and remote

unlocker. It comes in various exchangeable bands and has a 30-day battery capacity.

Compatibility with CyanogenMod and dual-boot

The phone is compatible with CM13, CM14.1 and supports true

dual-boot Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may ...

References

{{Xiaomi, people=yes, software=yes, phones=yes, tablets=yes, laptops=yes, video=yes, wireless=yes, smart=yes, scooter=yes, below=yes Android (operating system) devices Mobile phones introduced in 2014 Discontinued flagship smartphones Mobile phones with 4K video recording Mobile phones with infrared transmitter Windows 10 Mobile devices