Chinese Internet company, Xiaomi, has refreshed its smart TV line-up for the Indian market. Barely nine months after Xiaomi entered the TV segment in the country, the company has managed to sell over half a million smart TVs across 32 inch, 45 inch and 55 inch sizes. The new refreshed line-up brings new features such as Android TV user interface and voice search. Xiaomi emphasises on offering a unified experience across all the three sizes. The Mi LED TV 4C Pro 32 inch has been priced at Rs 14,999, Mi LED TV 4A Pro 49 inch for Rs 29,999 and the Mi TV 4 Pro 55 inch for Rs 49,999.
"Irrespective of the TV size, the user experience will be the same. Unlike many other brands, we do not differentiate on the basis of the panel size. We aim to offer consistent TV experience across all the three size variants, which will feature both -- PatchWall and Android TV," says Sudeep Sahu, Product Manager, Xiaomi India.
The new Pro series include smart TV panels in three sizes -- 32inch, 49inch and 55inch. Along with the Xiaomi's proprietary PatchWall UI, the new panels will also have Android TV built-in. While the former has a content-first-approach and offers over 7,00,000 hours of content and seamless browsing, Android TV brings Google Play Store for downloading compatible apps, support for Chromecast for casting content from mobile device and voice search for quickly fetching content across online apps and set top boxes. To support this functionality, the 12 button Mi Remote comes with a dedicated button, each for PatchWall TV and Android TV, along with voice search. For content, Xiaomi has partnered with 14 content partners including HooQ, Eros Now, Jio Cinema to name a few. "Over 40 million hours of content being watched on the Patchwall every month. And we are working closely with Amazon. The Prime Video support will be introduced soon on the new TVs soon and will be followed by the integration on the older Mi TVs too," adds Sahu.
The new Mi TV remote will be able to turn off the older and the new generation Mi Air Purifiers.
The Mi LED TV 49 inch has a 1080p full HD + HDR display with the 20W stereo speaker. It is powered with Amlogic 64-bit quad-core processor with Mali-450 graphics paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB ROM for downloading apps. On the connectivity front, it features Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi (2.4 GHz), Ethernet along with 3HDMI ports, 2 USB ports and S/PDIF. The other two TVs are also powered by the same Amlogic processor. The 55 inch Mi LED TV 4 Pro continues to have a 4.9mm thin 4K HDR display panel and same processor and connectivity ports as on the 49 inch TV. The 32 inch TV comes with HD resolution, 20W speaker along with headphone jack instead of S/PDIF, 3HDMI ports and 2 USB ports.
Just in-line with the new launches, Xiaomi has expanded the offline availability of the Mi TVs. The Mi LED Smart TV's were initially available through Xiaomi India's online partners and through the brand's flagship Mi Home retail outlets. Now, consumers will be able to experience and buy Mi LED Smart TVs in over 500 Mi Preferred Partner stores across 9 cities, namely New Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Indore, Patna, Pune, Mumbai and Maddur; and will soon be available across all cities wherein Xiaomi's Mi Preferred Partners are present. The new Mi LED TV 55inch will go on sale from October 10, while the 49 inch and 32 inch models will be available from October 9.
There was a time when Samsung, Sony and LG dominated the TV segment in India. But over the last few years, brands such as VU, Sanyo and some other Chinese companies have started offering feature-rich TVs at competitive pricing. Although, Xiaomi was a late entrant in this category, yet it has managed to mark the presence in such a short span of time.
"Xiaomi has expanded the service points from 300 points in few cities in February this year to 650 points in India," says, Sahu.