Mi Soundbar is priced at Rs 4,999. It will face tough competition as there are brands offering sound bars at much lower prices in India
Xiaomi has announced the launch of two new TVs in India. Dubbed Mi LED TV 4X Pro and Mi LED TV 4A Pro, these latest Xiaomi TVs are 55-inch and 43-inch additions to existing Mi TV family. The China based consumer electronics brand will be retailing LED TV 4X Pro at Rs 39,999 and Mi LED TV 4A Pro at Rs 22,999 in India.
A tweet made through the official Mi India Twitter handle read, “There is no match for this. Mi LED TV4X PRO is priced at just Rs. 39,999. Goes on sale for the first time on 15th Jan 2019, 12 noon onwards. On flipkart, mi website, and at Mi Home.”
The brand has also launched Mi Soundbar in the country. This is the first time that Xiaomi is offering a product in the home audio category in India.
Eshwar Nilakantan, category lead, Xiaomi Technology tweeted, “We launched 2 TVs & Soundbar today! Mi Soundbar redefines home audio with its Cinematic Sound, Modern Design, Versatile Connectivity & Honest Price! Mi Sound bar at Rs 4,999.”
It is to be noted here that portable loudspeakers, with the capability of being connected to a smartphone using Bluetooth, had registered around €5 billion in revenue in 2018. This segment, as per a recent Gfk report, had registered a growth of 15 per cent over previous years.
Price wars
Xiaomi 4X Pro features a UHD 4K panel while the 4A Pro sports a FHD panel. The brand may have won the pricing game here as the most affordable 55-inch UHD 4K panel TVs available on leading e-commerce portals in India are priced above Rs 35,000.
Flipkart’s private label MarQ is offering 55-inch UHD 4K smart TV at Rs 35,999, while Thomson UD9 55-inch UHD 4K smart TV is retailing for Rs 37,999 on the same website. There are other brands offering such TVs at prices below Rs 40,000 but their popularity as compared to Xiaomi is relatively low.
Mi Soundbar priced at Rs 4,999 will also face tough competition as there are brands offering sound bars at much lower prices. Envent Horizon 301 Silver 20 W Portable Bluetooth Soundbar is currently retailing for Rs 2,399 on a popular e-commerce portal. Iball, another consumer electronics brand in India, is offering a 40 W Bluetooth sound bar at Rs 3,375 on the same e-commerce portal.
Mi sound bar features
Mi sound bar, Xiaomi’s first product in the home audio category, features eight drivers including two 20 mm dome tweeters, two 2.5-inch woofers, and four passive radiators. Connectivity options on the sound bar include line-in, aux, Bluetooth and S/PDIF.
Manu Kumar Jain, MD, Xiaomi India, tweeted, “Not just built for TVs, you can connect the 8 speaker Mi Soundbar with any TV or mobile device in just 30 secs.”
Mi LED TV 4X PRO and Mi LED TV 4A Pro features
Both the new Xiaomi TVs come equipped with 20 W stereo speakers that support DTS HD-surround sound. These TVs are being offered with Bluetooth remotes that, as per the company, support voice recognition. Xiaomi has also equipped these TVs with its propriety Android-based interface called PatchWall.
Xiaomi 4X Pro comes powered by a 64-bit Amlogic quad-core chipset coupled with Mali-450 GPU, 2GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The 4A Pro TV variant is also powered by the same chipset. Internal storage on the variant is exactly similar to Xiaomi 4X Pro variant as well. However, the RAM of the 43-inch variant is limited to 1GB only.
