With a new phone, Xiaomi looks for a boost from Samsung’s exploding Note 7

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

With Samsung’s exploding phone crisis resulting in the Note 7 being scrapped, now’s a good time for rival brands to show off similarly big-screened smartphones. And that’s precisely what China’s Xiaomi did today.

Xiaomi founder Lei Jun unveiled the Note 2 at an event this afternoon in Beijing. It comes with a 5.7-inch curved screen exactly like the one on the discontinued Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

As is usually the case with Xiaomi, the new Note 2 will launch very soon in China – on November 1 – followed by rollouts to some of its handful of other markets. Available in either silver or black, it costs from US$410 to $515.

Xiaomi’s Note 2 looks very different from Samsung’s at the rear, with a classy housing for the monster 22MP camera.

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

It comes with NFC as the company pushes Xiaomi Pay across stores in China.

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

The Note 2 screen is curved thanks to a bendable OLED screen.

But the screen itself is not flexible as it sits behind protective glass, just like on any other phone.

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

As Chinese consumers move upmarket and gradually spend more and more on their phones, Xiaomi is moving away from its usually budget offerings by making the Note 2 look premium.

Photo credit: Xiaomi.

Xiaomi has been having a rough year, being shoved from first to fourth in China’s smartphone market. And the brand hasn’t gained traction in India quite as fast as it might’ve expected – though Lei Jun last week vowed it’ll top the Indian market by the end of the decade.

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from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/xiaomi-note2-launch
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