Xiaomi's Mi 4i Spreads in Asia

Chinese wunderkind smartphone manufacturerXiaomi is taking its flagship Mi 4i smartphone to Hong Kong and Singapore, with availability slated for next Tuesday. Designed especially for emerging markets, the Mi 4i has been wildly successful in India, where it launched two weeks ago and reportedly sold 40,000 units in less than 15 seconds.

The Mi 4i is the first Xiaomi phone to run Android 5.0, aka "Lollipop," albeit with MIUI 6, Xiaomi's custom skin for the OS.

The device has a 5-inch, 1920 x 1080 Corning OGS Sunlight display with a 178-degree viewing angle.

It runs on an eight-core 64-bit 1.75 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor; has 16 GB of flash memory; and includes 4G dual Micro-SIM cards that support 2G, 3G and 4G.

The Mi 4i also has a 13-MP Sony/Samsung rear camera, a two-ten flash, a "torch" function for shooting in the dark, a 5-MP front camera, and a 4.5V 3120 mAh rapid-charging battery claimed to last up to one and a half days.