Gadgets
Mi 11 Ultra Price in India Tipped to Start at Over Rs. 70,000
A person familiar with the development told Gadgets 360 that the Mi 11 Ultra will be available for purchase in the Indian market with an initial price tag of over Rs. 70,000. This will be the most expensive price tag that Xiaomi has put on a smartphone since its arrival in the country back in July 2014.
The Chinese company has already started promoting the launch of the Mi 11 Ultra as a ‘Superphone’ debut to set the pitch ahead of its official announcement.
Gadgets 360 has learnt that similar to other flagship phones under its Mi series, Xiaomi will not locally produce the Mi 11 Ultra initially and will import its early units from China. This would result in some import duty burden on the pricing of the smartphone.
To give some perspective, the Mi 11 Ultra was launched in China with a starting price of CNY 5,999 (roughly Rs. 67,000) for the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage configuration. It also comes in 12GB RAM + 256GB storage option at CNY 6,499 (roughly Rs. 72,600) and the top-end 12GB RAM + 512GB storage model at CNY 6,999 (roughly Rs. 78,200). The Mi 11 Ultra is also making its way to Europe with a price tag of EUR 1,199 (roughly Rs. 1,03,400) for the 12GB RAM + 256GB storage option.
Xiaomi has offered high-end specifications including a 6.81-inch 2K WQHD+ E4 AMOLED quad-curved primary display, Snapdragon 888 SoC, and a triple rear camera setup with the 50-megapixel Samsung GN2 primary sensor. The phone also has a 1.1-inch AMOLED display at the back to easily capture selfies from the rear cameras. Further, there are features such as 5G support, 67W wired and wireless charging, and an IP68-certified build to attract customers.
The Mi 11 Ultra could be projected as a strong competitor against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S21 and the OnePlus 9 Pro. At the same time, it will also help Xiaomi get an understanding of the premium segment that it did try to reach in the past with the Mi 10 that was launched at a starting price of Rs. 49,999. It, however, failed to mark any major success with that model.
Prabhu Ram, Head of Industry Intelligence Group at market research firm CyberMedia Research (CMR) said that Xiaomi would need to ramp-up its brand awareness and leverage its value-for-money appeal in the hyper-competitive premium smartphone segment to move ahead with a model like the Mi 11 Ultra.
“Xiaomi has packed all the attractive top-of-the-line flagship specs, including the camera, in its upcoming Mi 11 Ultra,” he told Gadgets 360. “While It is a strong premium product offering, Xiaomi needs to back it with attractive pricing, coupled with strong go-to-market and channel strategy.”
Xiaomi has partnered with Amazon for selling the Mi 11 Ultra online — alongside its own Mi.com site — shortly after its official India launch, which is planned for April 23. The company is also expected to soon kick off some offline and online campaigns to create some hype for the new smartphone.
Although Xiaomi has continued to lead the smartphone market in India for the last few quarters, the company has so far gained popularity for its affordable smartphones.
The data shared with Gadgets 360 by analyst firm Counterpoint Research shows that in the fourth quarter of 2020, Xiaomi was at three percent share in the premium segment that comprises phones between Rs. 30,000–Rs. 45,000. In contrast, Apple led the segment with 49 percent share followed by OnePlus at around 21 percent.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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