Xiaomi is India’s biggest smartphone maker right now and one of the top 5 smartphone companies in terms of shipments globally. But where did it all start? How did it all begin? Did it start when the company was established back in 2010?

Actually, when Xiaomi was established back in 2010, the company didn’t immediately release its first smartphone. It waited for nearly a year to release the Xiaomi Mi 1, the company first-ever smartphone based on Android. It will be the eighth anniversary of the Xiaomi Mi 1 on August 16, 2019, so we thought this is a really good time to revisit the phone and see what it offered.

Xiaomi Mi1

The Xiaomi Mi 1 or simply called as the Xiaomi Phone was announced in August 2011 and went on pre-order on August 29. However, the sales began only by October of 2011, which meant there was quite a significant amount of waiting time.

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The phone featured a basic design made out of plastic. It isn’t surprising given that it was the first-ever smartphone manufactured by a company which had zero experience in this industry. The front had very thick bezels, which was common among other smartphones as well. The back came with a protruding camera inside a rectangular housing. There was the MI logo etched at the back. The power button was on top along with the headphone jack while the volume buttons were on the right. It was a simple design but back then phones didn’t look as premium as they do today.

Xiaomi Mi1 2

The main attraction of the Xiaomi Mi1 or the Xiaomi Phone was the 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor, making it the first Chinese phone to feature such a powerful chipset inside. For memory, the Mi 1 came with just 1GB RAM and 4GB of ROM. There was a small 4-inch display upfront. The battery was pretty decent for its time, a 1930mAh capacity one. The phone shipped with MIUI which Xiaomi had announced a year back.

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MIUI was also another highlight of the Xiaomi Mi 1 mainly because it offered great customization options to its users. There were a lot of features that you could tweak to personize your smartphone and it’s no surprise that the OS has got over 300 million activated users globally. In fact, do check out the video at the end of this article. It explains the features of the early MIUI OS and it’s really fun to see how things have evolved over the course of time.

Xiaomi Mi1

The Xiaomi Mi 1 was surprisingly popular right from the start. The main reason could have been its competitive 1999 Yuan (~$284 right now) price tag. In fact, despite being a first-generation smartphone, it received over 300,000 pre-orders in the first 34 hours!

So the Xiaomi Mi 1 is where it all began. The Mi series is still very much alive with the latest model being the Xiaomi Mi 9 launched earlier this year. We also have the Redmi brand now with extensions to the original lineup like the Mi Mix series, Mi A series and even a Mi Max series.

 

Interested in more throwback articles? Check them out below!

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