In a surprise turn of events, Xiaomi has unveiled the Qin range of feature phones in China, powered by Android with 4G, WiFi and some AI capabilities. Started as a crowdsourced product, the Qin series has been designed by Xiaomi and has two devices under its belt, available in either Black or White, for an asking price of 199 yuan (approx. Rs 2,000).
The Qin 1 and the Qin 1S as they’re called will both pack in a 2.8-inch screen with a Resolution of 240 x 320 pixels below which there’s a T9 keypad. Measuring in at 132 x 53.8 x 8.5 mm, the Qin phones come with dual SIM slots and look a lot similar as well with a plain back panel, which looks odd if you’ve using smartphones too much. While there’s a speaker grill at the bottom, there’s also no cameras whatsoever on either of the feature phones.
The modest of the lot is the Qin 1 which is powered by a MediaTek MT6260A Chipset with a single ARM A7 core, 8MB of RAM and 16MP of onboard storage. The device doesn’t support 4G, so users have to suffice with 2G connectivity, WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2. There’s a 1,480mAh battery that Xiaomi says would deliver 15 hours of talktime and 420 hours of standby and charging is possible through a USB-C port. The device runs on Android-based Nucleus OS.
The Qin 1S, on the other hand, is a 4G VoLTE-enabled feature phone just like the JioPhone and comes powered by the Spreadtrum SC9820 chipset clocking in at 1.2 GHz with a slightly larger 256MB RAM and 512MB of internal storage. In addition to 4G capabilities, the device comes with GPS, Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi and USB Type-C for connectivity. There’s a forked version of Android which XIoami calls Mocor 5 that will also be able to perform AI functions like real-time voice translation in 17 different languages and answer several queries.
Xiaomi’s Qin 1 and Qin 1S will be available in Iron Gray and Porcelain White in China for an asking price of 199 yuan (approx. Rs 2,000). There’s no information on whether the device will be launched in other regions like India.