I was searching for xiaomi MI3 and found this one on ebay which is cheapeast among all search i did so far.
Hope this is helpful to someone.
Further details:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-XIAOMI-MI-3-16GB-5-INCHES-IPS…
It has also got FREE Expedited delivery from outside AU.
Item location: Hong Kong, Hong Kong
I m bit unsure about this 3 years warranty thing. It seems they are grey importer same as DWI, eglobal or kogan. Please correct me if im wrong.
Aussie seller, grey stock..without GST!
DWI hmmmm
Nothing wrong with dwi. Period.
…until something goes wrong with the product/order.
if something goes wrong with it, you get a rma number then mail it back to their sydney address.. had a few camera lens and bodies returned. whole process took about 2 weeks inc new stuff sent from overseas.
I bought a galaxy note from them a while back and the phone arrived opened (samsung seal was broken). I was told that they open it to check if it's working, but for some reason i dont buy it. Other than that, no complaints here.
hmmm no 4G hmmmmm
and also 16GB with no expandable storage is a problem on an otherwise brilliant phone.
There's a 64GB model available, but it's $469
Hard to recommend over the one plus one.
Agreed.
Unless 16gb is sufficient or 5.5" is too large a phone, then the one plus one has it beaten on quite a few levels.
Anyone have experience dealing with DWI for post sale support?
Bought a headphone from ebay, it arrived with scratches last month,and they only offered repair on 'goodwill'. I didn't accept the offer as I want a replacement or refund instead of repairing my "brand new' headphone. Then, it is sorted out via paypal and I will get a refund after returning the damaged item.
Kind of waste of time.
No problem with DWI, bought a couple things from them.
Strangely, they are selling the Nokia 515 dumbphone for $998 (white), ridiculous!
They're that good.
I think you should get educated first before sprouting your opinions…
http://www.trustedreviews.com/xiaomi-mi3_Mobile-Phone_review
http://www.cnet.com/au/products/xiaomi-mi-3/
So xiaomi isn't good? Compare with oppo and opo?
Xiaomi is top selling smartphone in China. It should be one of the best value smartphone ATM. I think the 4G version is coming though. Review from Cnet http://www.cnet.com/au/products/xiaomi-mi-3/
Xiaomi Tops Chinese Smartphone Market
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/xiaomi-tops-chinese…
"Xiaomi sells its phones for nearly the same amount it costs to buy and assemble the materials"
can xiaomi use google play?
yes
Xiaomi apparently is the cream of the crop from Chinese manufacturers.
Not Lenovo? I wonder how many Chinese will prefer Xiaomi over Lenovo which is a global brand.
Lenovo makes some pretty simple stuff. There have been some bargains posted of a quad-core Lenovo phone for about $200, which seemed tempting. Until I realised it didn't even have a flash. Lenovo isn't what it used to be, and shouldn't be confused with the "IBM" quality it once was.
Most of their early offerings weren't intended for sale for the international market. If you were looking at the models from 2012-early 2013 many of their devices lacked Google Apps support and were as such, not meant to sold overseas. I had to root my Lenovo A789 to get Gapps.
And most of them were rather mid-end (lacking flash, at most 8GB of storage and less than 2GB of RAM mainly to keep the phones competitively priced.
Also Lenovo did buy out Motorola Mobility from Google so it probably means that they might get serious about making phones and making them available in Australia according to their Tweet, and their new flagship devices actually look very high spec.
oh, and looks like Oppo is coming to Australia as well:
http://oppomobile.com.au/
Oh god what am I reading. Lenovo are happily running the Thinkpad name into the ground, the IBM models were bank vault tough and 100% practicality over style
Granted they cost a fortune but no comparison in build quality
Samsung is overpriced tbh. Even in Australian markets. Low end and low priced mobiles phones is not Samsung's strong suit (and neither is HTC's).
Woolies sells a pretty low end Samsung Galaxy Trend for $199, a phone which is far outclassed by a Moto G.
Comparing with other "budget" phone in China,
u can better off this one and go get the one plus one.
Or wait for the MEIZU MX4, IUNI U3. Both of them have 2K screen and 4G which is becoming the mainstream now.
I have it now since 2 weeks. Brilliant phone. Simply love it. Maybe it has to do withthe price being less then $300.
And the 4G vs 3G, at the end if I'm correct it's only the download speed. So does not really matter, does it.
Heard a lot of good things about this company's phones. If they have a 4G I would consider
if you can get your hands or know someone in china, the mi4 has 4g and was realised 2nd august.
the other markets xiaomi sells to has released dates of Q4 this year.
The current 4G from Mi4 is NOT compatible with Australia or Europe. Otherwise I would have gone withthe Mi4
Xiaomi is the next Samsung, according to many popular tech writers.
As for this MI 3 model, $289 is slightly cheaper than the usual price that one can get it which is around $300. Decent price but not a huge bargain.
No, they think they are Chinese Apple.
Yeah, if it were 4g I'd jump on this.
You'd break your new 4G phone :-(
I've heard good things about the build quality of their phones. I would have been tempted to get their tab the mipad, since it has the fastest hardware available for an android tab at the moment, but I hate crappy 4:3 AR. Its good to see Chinese brands building quality devices and dragging down costs with competition. Who'd think a couple of years back you'd be able to buy a $300-400 phone that competes with the flagships and doesn't have a nexus badge.
4:3 is not bad, it depends how you use the tablet that designates the type of aspect ratio best suited to you
Bought one couple of weeks ago from a different Ebay seller ($295). Very good phone with excellent features and great price. You can check the features (tips & tricks) here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6E4Epa560A
Bought one more last week from DWI ebay for a friend. Took 3 days for handling but once posted I got it very quickly. They use express international postage. Posted on Thursday and got it on Monday (Rural Victoria).
They are a very nice phone. I personally think that the operating system they run on top of their phones is one of the best Android skins out there. Very good value for money and plenty of room if you get the 64GB one.
I'm running XiaoMi ROM (MiUI) on my iOcean China-droid phone, and agree that it's pretty slick.
It does, however, want you to have a "MiCloud" account, and you have to go through their config apps to do simple things like setting wallpaper and ringtones… which gets infuriating because the apps are all in Chinese. I think they're trying to get me to pay them to download "theme" packages… which look like standard Asiana kitsch.
I hope they've translated their system completely if they're pushing them out harder to an international market. Just be mindful that they're trying to build a captive user ecosystem, which might not be to everyone's taste.
That said, I have gone right off the idea of cheap Chinese Android phones based on my iOcean experience. If I charged a sensible hourly rate for the hours of screwing around I've done trying to get this bastard of a thing working properly, I could have bought several top-spec brand-name phones. Is $289 really that much cheaper than a Nexus 5 to make it worth all the dicking around?
Beside only has 3G, this phone is a great one for sure.
For the MiUi, the reason why they only have Chinese version is because they haven't planed to sell their phone overseas so far. I am sure they will do it in the future just same as OnePlus did. They wouldn't simply want to sell a little theme to particularly use Chinese as a fence to make you feel hard. It's just the most technician work in either XiaoMi or whole china don't speak good English. Without the language barrier, I am 100 per cent sure, they will enlarge their mobile's market other then sell a small Theme App.
Have you tried googling for guides on installing the Singapore version or the Multilingual version of MiUI? People are doing it.
I've had a hell of a time finding ANY ROM that will work on my piece of crap phone. I'm only using MIUI because it works, and doesn't crash anywhere near as often as the stock ROM. Even getting this ROM on was a nightmare… I've soft-bricked this phone a few times now.
Truth be told, the actual hardware of my iOcean X7-S is pretty sweet. Octa-core, 2GB, FHD screen, blah blah. But the reality of living with such an unstable operating system, and the reality of trying to deal with 1949deal customer "support" (hint - don't bother, just Google it and waste days of your own time working it out before they finally respond to your email) have put me riiiight off the ChinaDroid program.
Now waiting for Nexus 5 prices to plummet in anticipation of Nexus X release. I'll have a brand-name phone next, please.
How much is the latest Mi4 selling in China?
1999RMB (around AU$350). same price for every generation Mi phone.
How is the GPS in these phones?
very fast lock acquired
I had used a few Chinese brand phones in the past few years and they all have the common issues. The very poor WIFI and data signals. Unable to access internet on a train and the annoying thing is the frozen screen. Perhaps this phone overcome all the problems I mentioned, but spending almost $300 you might as well get something like Nexus 5 instead IMO.
Agreed, adding $100 to get the OPO is a no brainer in this case. If you are really tight on budget, grab a MotoG or Asus Zenfone.
Btw, Xiaomi's quality control and sales strat have been questioned even within mainland China. Not to mention they are stealing code from Xposed framework. As a Chinese myself I would recommend everyone to steer away from them.
I don't like their market strategy. So I never buy their phones. Also their are so many 50 cent posts positive commons on the Internet.
Lol, 50 cents commons, Mate, are you a Chinese too?
I first time see this expression in English.
their market strategy is what make their phones cheap. the profits dont have to be spent on advertisement.
@18:
Luckyang is probably Chinese and was merely asking if ltbonline is Chinese too.
It wasn't a malicious comment.
@VFM:
well by laughing and automatically assuming he's Chinese because of his mistake which suggests that he believes that Chinese people cannot speak English properly.
@18:
No it is because his comments on fifty cents. In China there is a rumer some people get paid posting on forum supporting something - 50c each post
@18:
I am sorry, mate, I realised I confused you. Actually I come from China too. In China there are some people post commons for earning money not to show the reality. So many Chinese people hate these kind of people, and give them a name which translate into English directly would like "50 Cents Party". Because this is very uncommon at here, so I have never seen the official expression for this things, and also this is the reason why I feel fun to see this phrase.
Additionally, I hate people to criticise any others who can not speak a perfect second language. In my opinion, if a person speak my language as a second language, doesn't matter for which reason, I would very happy to see it. It is a kind proud, isn't it? Not every one is a language genius, if someone can express himself clearly I am sure I will feel good enough.
Anyway, I just want to explain why I wrote that for you, because I feel you are a pretty good person, you want to help others to defend them for a same reason as my feeling. But mate, you used somewhat unfriendly way.
I guess you/we are already spied even with using android or apple. Its just that when we are spied by Android/Apple, its called national security check or blah blah blah…
Yeah, that "news" was debunked a couple of days after it was published. The servers these phones are contacting are the Xiaomi API / services servers. In just the same way a standard Google Android phone contacts the Google API / services servers.
Huge Android fan and I've never owned any Xiaomi products but I keep a very close eye on things they do, as they're making some really quality products - unfortunately so many of them do not come with English language settings, which precludes me and many other Aussies from giving them a go.
Confused between Xiaomi mi3 (289$ grey stock, no micro sd slot, no 4G) and Sony Xperia Z (349$ MSY Aus stock, micro SD slot, 4G)!
I guess you are talking about Xperia Z Ultra from MSY Deal and it was $319. Main difference is screen size, Z ultra is massive 6.4 inches. I guess Xperia Z Ultra should have more support on XDA.
Nope…Xperia Z for 349$…Ultra is too big though cheaper!
Then i would go with Xperia only because of camera, some water proofing and better XDA support and no chinese stuff in XPERIA.
Sony z ultra at MSY imo
This, Mi4, Nexus 6 or the OPO? I am really stuck. I am going to be buying the phone before the end of September if possible, but I could wait if it was going to be a big improvement.
Nexus 6 my choice..
Nexus 6 all the way. I'd much rather wait a month or two to see where the cards land before making any decisions.
After all, when you spend so much time playing with your phone these days, spending an extra $100 over the course of several hundred hours does not amount to much.
Nexus 6 should offer an improvement over current gen flagships. At this stage I'd be waiting to see what that offers. It's expected to be released around the end of October though.
XiaoMi also replied claiming Apple is doing similar things on iphone to make the service better but when security expert examined iphone 5s the same way, iphone 5s wasn't transmitting anything extra back to the server.
Did you believe that their explanation for security issues was good enough? I don't think so.
Clive palmer endorses this phone
Very good marketing, poor quality , poor support.
Please share your experience with the phone breaking and trying to get support. Or is this a generic statement without any evidence to back it up?
My opinion of the mi3 is the opposite. I ditched my poorly built z1 and couldn't be happier with the mi3.
A bit hard to complain about marketing for a phone that hasn't been released in Australia. Unless you are in India I don't get how the marketing is impacting anyone
Well regarding the support… First of all, the brand is pretty much non-existant in Australia, or even the world outside of China.
So that's already a big fail.
@inose: in terms of branding aspect, you might wanna expand your knowledge and reading little bit further, Xiaomi sold out 40.000 unit Redmi 1S in India under just 4.2 sec few days back, Indonesia and other countries to follow suit… it has already on fast track to become global brand line, wait & see.
@timhobart exactly.
@inose they have no presence here. It is a grey import so warranty is as good as your sellers support. The last person also said the quality is poor. My mi3 is as good as my Sony Z1.
@timhobart: And you do believe that story? I know most of the Chinese don't believe that kind of story any more.
I know about Xiaomi mate.
But India, China, Indonesia… they are developing nations, not Australia.
Xiaomi (and other Chinese brands) is pretty much non-existent in developed nations (for now anyways).
@inose: you still haven't explained the poor quality claim. Not one review has questioned the build quality of the mi3. I personally rate it much better than my Sony Z1
@inose: mate, the Xiaomi 40k units sold out under 5sec is now also featured in time magazine and CNET. developing nation yea, ok let's start with recent basic facts, in less than 24 days from now India will land their first spacecraft mission in Mars after travelled 622 million km, Indonesia ranked #2 in the world as "the most innovative country in education" behind Denmark, don't start with China-fact way too advance for you..i'm just being real and refrain from being narrowly judging on other nation outside our own before knowing the true facts IMHO… show me Australian company or manufacturer that can or already built mass-produced mobile technology using company owned O/S like this Xiaomi, hope you get my point now…travel more.
…what's your point? That those countries are comparable to developed nations? Lol. If you've actually been to these countries, you'd know that it's faar from the world we live in (especially in the country side, where most of the populations lie).
My point is this: Xiaomi doesn't have a strong support network, if at all, especially in Australia (unless you go through a 3rd party importer).
(So, consumers would have a much easier time, in case of problems, if they bought from established brands, say… Google (Nexus), Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia etc.)
@inose: gee you still didn't get my point.. first i'm replying to your comment abt develop nations: those developed countries are now being the strongest economy nations in the world, nowadays you could never undermined any nations by using a "colonial-aged mindset", the world has changed, opportunities for all now and yes i have lived in those countries & witnessed poverty.. but you'll be surprised to also find many things over there more advanced than 1st world (i.e you could buy airline/train ticket, pay various bills, recharge pre-paid electricity, recharge pre-paid cable TV from ATM machine in Indonesia etc.) true facts.
Second, i think you are wrong, Xiaomi is getting really strong brand worldwide, i would not be surprised if they are expanding greatly towards US, Europe and Asia huge-population marketplace, than a shoe-box population sized as Australia.
Hence, i wrote wait & see.. almost same approach as Apple (& Google) that came very late to Australian shore and in that period people bought grey import apple products without any local support/presence etc.. same circumstances..
If an average-mate in Australia does not know about this brand/product, does not automatically mean that the brand & product is not good & strong worldwide.. it's just only mean that mate is way behind in his knowledge of this brand/product than the rest of the world, I rest my case.
Isn't this the old model?
I have been using this phone since early this year with no problem at all especially upgraded to MIUI 6 which is much smooth and snappy.
I flashed to developer MIUI which is updated every week.
This is expensive.
i just came back from china and got their latest phone, phone recjarger unit, covers for both, memory16g micro sd card and earphones for about $160aud.
Just order direct from the company site.
hope it helps
Provide comparable links?
http://hd.mi.com/webfile/zt/open/cn/index.html#mi4
Xiaomi also has a list of electronic goods.
From memory, they are also the manufacturer of iPhones. Don't quote me on it.
Their phones are dual sim which i find very helpful.
Hope it helps.
Your description just sounds like some random Chinese phone. Any mi3 around that price or with a memory slot is fake. Most providers are around the $300USD mark. Eg. Flosmall , opponent. So this is as cheap as you will find from a reliable seller.
I am talking about the XiaoMi brand.
Order from their company site is as good as it gets.
I'm not sure if the site has english translations yet as it's only available in China at the moment. I hope you can read chinese.
Your post is irrelevant because they don't ship directly to Australia.
I've been using HongMi, which is a dual-sim model from the same manufacturer, since early this year. Love it!
samwyze on 02/09/2014 - 13:23 Comment score below threshold.
