The Xiaomi Mi Note and Note pro

Xiaomi’s latest offering is out and looks pretty promising, the Mi Note, which aims to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the Apple iPhone 6 Plus. The event, which took place in Beijing, saw constant comparisons between the Mi Note to the iPhone 6 Plus.

Display: The Mi Note features a 5.7-inch screen – slightly larger than the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. It’s a full HD display with a pixel density of 386ppi.  The Mi Note’s display features a Nela Tech LCD , which Xiaomi claims offers a higher contrast and dynamic pixel adjustment for better readability outdoors and improves contrast of darker areas in photos. Xiaomi also claims it has improved the colour reproduction from the Mi 4. The display is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

Camera: The Mi Note has a 13MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation. It uses Sony’s CMOS sensor, with a f2.0 aperture for low-light shots. The company claims that it uses a dual-tone flash developed by Phillips for more natural-looking colours in photos. Taking a dig at Apple once again, Xiaomi said that the Mi Note’s main camera does not protrude out like the iPhone 6. Mi Note has a 4MP front camera with large 2 micron pixels.

Build: Similar to the iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus, the front panel of the Mi Note features a 2.5D curved glass and a 3D curved glass rear panel. However, Xiaomi claims that it is thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus, with dimensions 155.1×77.6×6.95mm (hxwxd) and weighs 161g. There’s a metallic rim around the sides and the back camera. Also, like the larger iPhone 6 Plus, the Mi Note has a one-handed mode that minimises the size of app windows for easier one-handed use.

 Features: The Mi Note is powered by a 3,000mAh battery, comes with dual 4G Sim slots and runs a Snapdragon 801 processor backed by 3GB Ram. It will be available in 16GB and 64GB storage options and there’s no card slot for increasing the storage capacity. Out of the two SIM slots, one supports a nano Sim while the other is for a micro Sim. The Mi Note also claims to pack a hi-fi audio system with ESS ES9018K2M audio decoder for minimum distortion and lossless playback at 24-bit/192KHz.

Mi Note’s official price is 2299RMB or about Rs 22,900, while the 64 GB model set to launch for RMB 2,799 (Rs 27,900) later this year.

There’s also a Mi Note Pro version of the smartphone, which runs on Snapdragon 810 with 4GB RAM and 64GB of built-in storage. It also features a higher resolution display (2K) 2560x 1440 pixels. The Xiaomi Note Pro is priced at 3299 RMB, which is around Rs 32,900. Xiaomi also announced Mi Box mini  – a set up box that is smaller in size than its predecessor.

LG fingerprint sensor sits beneath smartphone screen

Fingerprint readers are increasingly ubiquitous in smartphone design, so much so that the question is not whether to include one, but where to put it. Where some manufacturers have chosen to add readers into buttons on the front or raised sections on the back of their devices, LG Innotek has a new idea — put it under the phone's screen. The LG affiliate announced today that it had developed a new fingerprint sensor that it has slotted into a tiny 0.01-inch (0.03 milimeter) space cut into the underside of smartphone cover glass, allowing device designers to incorporate fingerprint readers without dedicated buttons, pads, or other exposed elements.

Fingerprint modules regarding smartphones typically require you to press your finger roughly a raised button, meaning they must be mounted externally. LG's South Korean society Innotek is innovating upon this stomach, even though, and has created a fingerprint sensor that doesn't require a button at all and is mounted beneath the screen, for that defense offering the functionality without interfering behind the form.

With the sensor out of the way, companies can be more pardon once their smartphone designs.   The sensor is said to be safe thanks to tall-strength lid glass which protects it from water and scratches, even if a proprietary adhesive keeps it safe even after high impact. It's also said to have an totally low traitorous appreciation rate of 0.002%.