When you build a global product, you have a lot to consider before truly calling it global – the product name, design, user experience, language, color scheme and etc. just to name a few of them. If we apply this in the automotive world, a global car will need to have the highest safety standards and a design language in both interior and exterior that appeals to most nations. Xiaomi has been teasing a lot on its social media ahead on its first ever global phone and yesterday, the phone is finally unveiled to the world – the Mi4i, its an impressive phone nonetheless with great hardware build and performance internals but despite of that, the Mi4i is still far from being a global smartphone, and I shall explain why.
MIUI v6 isn’t a global software
While some may disagree with me on this, I have to admit that MIUI is a great custom operating system based on Android which aims to deliver the best user experience to Mi Fans by implementing features based on useful feedbacks from the community itself.
In my recent Redmi 2 review, I’ve ranted about how bad the software is in both memory optimization and reliability on apps, MIUI is problematic in every way and it doesn’t feel unique of its own and with that alone, it is sufficient enough to suggest that Xiaomi isn’t creating a solid world class user experience on its products.
Sorry Xiaomi, merely having Google services installed on top of your iOS inspired software isn’t going to make your product ‘global’, I’d rather you provide users the option to buy a Stock Android software on your smartphone to make a global difference.
Mi4 ‘i’, does it stand for India? International? Improved? I’m Confused.
Alright, I’m now putting myself in an Asian mindset consumer’s shoe, Xiaomi is calling its new ‘global’ phone the Mi4i, while everybody knows that the Mi4 was once the company’s heroic flagship phone and which I truly praise the device for its great build quality and early MIUI v6 software, having an ‘i’ moniker after the naming convention of a flagship product gives consumers a laymen impression of an improved product. If the ‘i’ stood for ‘innovation’, the Mi4i has no innovative features to impress apart from its price tag.
Instead of an ‘improved’ product, the Mi4i is literally a water down version of the original Mi4, it comes with a polycarbonate unibody and has a mid-range Snapdragon 615 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage with no expansion. The Mi4i’s camera has been downgraded to a 13-megapixel f/2.0 camera and a 5-megapixel f/1.8 front camera, which actually confuses me as a consumer on why Xiaomi would give a downgraded product an ‘i’ moniker?
Of course, I do understand Xiaomi is trying to bring down prices of their best smartphones out there, but being global doesn’t mean you need to sell it cheap, but instead they need to make it a world class product that comes with absolute value to the average worldwide consumer, just to name a few – a proper sales channel instead of a flash sale model, standardized support for software instead of a community based one.
A bad grammar destroys your ‘global’ product image
I tend to notice every single commercial of tech companies and I think Xiaomi should really fire the person who created the teaser banners with those lame broken language hashtags, or the one who approved these ads should really go back to take some English lessons.
Because of these subpar promotional messages, it no longer makes a product feel ‘global’, ‘international’, ‘world class’, ‘improved’ or whatever you define. If Xiaomi truly wanted to make a smartphone launch a globally recognized one, language is the first thing that they seriously need to work on. #iDisagrees, anyone?
Last but not the least, I still have to commend Hugo Barra’s initial effort on rebranding the company’s name from Xiaomi to Mi for a global brand presence, I’m not trying to suggest that Xiaomi should follow the footsteps of what Samsung, HTC and Apple has succeeded but the company really needs to create a user experience unique and consistent to the global market, and that includes its software, customer service, retail and marketing.
I love both Xiaomi and Apple, while I don’t worship any technology brands like a god, Apple’s consistent marketing effort on the World Gallery commercial that gives me a good impression of the company’s product truly ‘global’.
