Mi 5 review: This is Xiaomi’s real test

Xiaomi's latest flagship smartphone Mi 5 is its most expensive smartphone ever launched in India. While it's an one-of-a-kind smartphone, the price tag of Rs 24,999 will test Xiaomi's real traction in the country. The Chinese startup has carved its niche for itself in the price range of between Rs 6000 and Rs 13,000. The budget Redmi series along with the MI4i has found enough takers. But will the mid-premium market respond similarly to the Mi 5? 

Looking back to its previous flagship Mi 4, Xiaomi had initially launched it for Rs 19,999. Within five months of its launch, the price dropped to Rs 14,999. Xiaomi was also quick to respond to the initial Mi 4 growth stall with another India exclusive flagship -- Mi 4i for Rs 12,999, thus returning to its comfortable playground. 
With the Mi 5 this time, Xiaomi is taking brands like Motorola, Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei Honor, Google Nexus and Sony head on. 

Xiaomi Mi 5 offers a unique design backed by good hardware and software. But is it enough to ensure good sales? Here is our review. 
Design and display 

The Mi 5 has a unique design to offer. The smartphone has enough to attract eyeballs. Unlike other companies, which believe in maintaining a similar design philosophy for their consecutive flagships, Xiaomi has bettered with each of its hero offerings. All flagships- Mi 3, Mi 4, Mi 4i and Mi 5- have an individuality of their own and stand apart from the crowd. 

The device is lightweight and easy to grip in one hand, thanks to the curved sides. It feels solid in the hands. Despite the glass back, it is not slippery. 

The fingerprint scanner is integrated with the oval home button. It is fast and accurate. The button can also recognize a light tap and users do not need to actually press it to go back to the home screen. 
This is also the first Xiaomi smartphone in the country to feature a USB Type-C port instead of the regular micro USB. This means, users will have to carry the Type-C cable with them always for charging and data transfer requirements. For a smartphone costing Rs 25,000, Xiaomi should have included its USB Type-C/micro USB adapter which costs around 6 RMB in China or approximately Rs 60. 

Two vents at the bottom doesn't mean the Mi 5 has dual speakers. The other one is just to maintain symmetry in the design. Also, the output sound is not loud enough. 
Coming to the display quality, it offers 5.15-inch Full HD 1080p IPS LCD display with massive pixel density of 428 ppi along with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. Colours appear bright with good contrast and viewing angles. Sunlight display has to be one of the best features of the display. This makes the display legible outdoors. Overall, the quality is at par with high-end Android flagship phones. Another important feature is Night Mode. It makes a lot of difference while using the phone in darkness. 
Camera and performance
There is a 16 MP f/2.0, Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF), 4-axis OIS camera unit with a dual tone LED Flash. For newbies, PDAF boosts the speed of Auto Focus while 4-axis OIS offers more stability to images. This combo means if you are trying to capture a moving object from a moving car or have shaky hands, you will get the best possible stable image.
The rear camera has enough potential to click some stunning images. Overall, the camera quality will woo any user. However, it can sometimes disappoint in some random shots with low detailing and grainy images. The device can record 4K videos without any stutter. 

The front camera is good for selfie lovers. The software customization brings out the best in each selfie. Xiaomi has missed out on adding front Flash. 
The Mi 5 is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with 3GB RAM and 32GB onboard storage. There is no microSD card slot and users will have to rely on around 25GB storage. As it comes with a USB Type-C port, users will have to buy an adapter to plug in external flash drives to play content.
The device is smooth and users will face no hiccups while running games or multitasking. It is fast and one of most powerful phones in the price range. It does heats up occasionally but it never slows down. 
Xiaomi has included good quality antennas in the Mi 5. The signal reception is better than other smartphones. It is capable of holding onto calls in basement areas where other smartphones simply give away. 

It is backed by a 3,000mAh battery. It can easily last around 36 hours when fully charged under normal usage. 

Verdict
Xiaomi Mi 5 is no doubt a good buy for the price of Rs 24,999. It offers the right value. However, there is some serious competition from Nexus 5X, Huawei Honor 7, Samsung Galaxy A8 along with phones from Motorola, Lenovo and others. In the mid-premium range, just having a good product is not always enough. Consumers tend to prefer bigger brands with the belief that branded smartphones last longer.

While the Mi 5 is a perfect smartphone, the bigger question is- will buyers opt for a Xiaomi phone for Rs 25,000? And this is where Xiaomi's real test begins.

Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Cisco betting big on India’s ‘smart cities’

NEW DELHI: Global majors such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Cisco are betting big on India's 'smart cities' project, which is estimated to be an up to $50 billion (Rs 340,000 crore) business opportunity over five years.

Players like Ericsson and Huawei have started working on some of the projects in the country, while Nokia could soon bid for some projects. Cisco, on the other hand, is involved in more than 25 cities, including the government's 20 official smart cities shortlist.

The government has defined a smart city in the Indian context as one that provides a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment, and supports the application of smart solutions.

It has shortlisted 20 cities, including Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Kochi, Ahmedbad, New Delhi, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Ludhiana and Bhopal, which will be developed as smart cities. The smart city market opportunity in India will be $45-50 billion over the next five years, according to a report by Sustainability Outlook.
The electronic equipment business, just for the first phase, will be a $220-250 million opportunity for these vendors. For companies like Cisco, which are largely looking at IT solutions, the opportunity is pegged at around $25 million per city, according to industry estimates. "The Indian government's vision of a Smart Digital India is creating enormous opportunities," said Orvar Hurtig, global head of industry and society at Ericsson. The company has identified three key industry segments—public safety, utilities and transport—as its focus areas in the country.

The Swedish company has just won its first deal in India in the utilities space—to install 15,000 smart meters in Assam over the next three years for a public sector power company.

Ericsson, which earlier created a separate vertical called 'industry & society' to tap 'Smart City' and 'Digital India' opportunities, expects up to 20% of its India sales to come from this segment by 2020. Sales from this segment are negligible now.

Sandeep Girotra, Nokia's head of India market, said the company is in talks with various state governments and the Centre and may soon bid for some projects. "We believe that there is no single approach that fits all cities and each city can have multiple drivers, therefore, it is absolutely vital to engage with state government, city administration and planners to understand their objectives and KPIs," Girotra added.

Cisco, which has worked on more than 120 smart cities globally, is working in 12-13 cities out of the list of 20. Besides, the company has been working in another 14-15 cities, according to Purushottam Kaushik, managing director-sales at Cisco India & Saarc.

"We are not just providing its solutions to the authorities, but also providing consultancy services," Kaushik said.

Google Doodle Celebrates Earth Day 2016

Every year, April 22 marks the Earth Day. Google has commemorated the day with a beautiful doodle showing five of our planet's different biomes.

In the doodle, the Google logo turns into a polar bear in the tundra, a red fox in the forest, an elephant in the grasslands, a tortoise in the desert and an coral reef and octopus in the ocean. A different one greets you each time you open the website.

Explaining the doodle, Google's Sophie Diao, says, "The vastness of Earth's diversity makes it an intimidating topic, but in the end I chose to highlight Earth's five major biomes: the tundra, forest, grasslands, desert, and coral reefs. In each illustration, you'll find one animal who's been singled out for their 15 minutes of fame. Each time you visit Google.com, you'll randomly receive one of the five doodles. Keep refreshing to admire a different side of Earth's immense beauty."

Earth Day was first celebrated in the year 1970, and was originally conceived by peace activist John McConnell in 1969. The day aims to to raise public awareness about environmental issues and related events are held across the world. Google Doodle Celebrates Earth Day 2016.

ClearTax hires three senior executives from Flipkart

NEW DELHI: Financial technology startup ClearTax has hired a former director-engineering and two senior engineers from e-commerce company Flipkart. The Bengaluru-based company, which runs an income tax returns e-filing website, is also in the process of recruiting another director level executive from Flipkart.

"We are scaling up our engineering team and are currently scouting for the cream in technology to be part of this," ClearTax CEO Archit Gupta told ET.

Gupta said that Prasanth Nair, a former director at Flipkart, has joined ClearTax as vice president-engineering. Jai Santosh, who led Flipkart Lite team, and Aakash Bapna, who worked at Flipkart from 2011to 2014, are joining too, he said.

ClearTax is looking to increase the number of engineers in its technology team fourfold to 100 in the next six months or so. Its total manpower at present is 100.

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Gupta said the company wants to expand its business. "We are adding products and services, which would make us a one-stop shop for all financial needs of customers (both retail and business)," he said. He further said, "The company is focusing on building products and markets for our new offerings to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and businesses, and expansion of our current customer base by entering new geographies."

Nair will lead the product and technology group at ClearTax. At Flipkart, he was instrumental in scaling up the fulfilment platform. Besides Flipkart, in the past 16 years he worked with companies including Yahoo!, Travelocity and Amazon.

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Bapna was instrumental in building and scaling up Flipkart's front-end systems and teams from scratch. In 2014, he moved on to start his own venture, pecfly, a consumerto-consumer marketplace.

Santosh was with Flipkart since 2014, as part of the core part and led the team which built Flipkart Lite, a progressive web app. Gupta did not disclose the name of the other director being hired from Flipkart. "It is a little premature," he said.

Tesla Motors at the moment as the company revealed its latest product

The world of hashtags and social trends are flattering Tesla Motors at the moment as the company revealed its latest product — the Model 3. Tesla’s co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, during the reveal event at the company’s design studio in Hawthorne, California, said that the car will have a driving range of about 215 miles — that’s just shy of 350 kilometres; and a 350 kilometre-range from an all-electric vehicle is marvelous, if nothing more. The Model 3 will be ready for delivery by the end of 2017, according to Musk, and it’s coming to India, too. Bookings for global deliveries have started and Tesla had 1.15 lakh pre-orders for the car already. So, an electric-only vehicle manufacturer readying operations in India sounds like another one going down the rabbit hole? It’s not quite as simple as you’d imagine.

In the last quarter of the previous year, Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited the headquarters of Tesla Motors but that wasn’t to express interest in Tesla Motors’ fancy wheeled examples, but to discuss and understand Powerwall — a compact battery system with an energy storage capacity of 6.4kWh that feeds off solar power and, if implemented on a large enough scale, has the potential to change the electricity consumption dynamic of the world. In fact, going beyond this, Elon Musk had indicated in one of his tweets that building a Gigafactory in India will be favourable — but this is a topic of discussion for another time.