China's Xiaomi Confirms It Will Enter US Smartphone Market By the End of This Year or Early Next Year (venturebeat.com) 61
Sensing an opening, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi says it plans to enter the U.S. smartphone market in late 2018 or 2019. From a report: The news comes just several weeks after rival Huawei, which appeared to have a head start, had its hopes dashed when a partnership with AT&T was scuttled. While both companies said the parting was mutual, the decision came after intense political blowback from U.S. politicians who worried that Huawei's technology poses security risks for U.S. businesses and customers. Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Xiaomi chair Lei Jun told one of its reporters: "We've always been considering entering the U.S. market. We plan to start entering the market by end 2018, or by early 2019." In general, while Chinese tech companies have become massive primarily by succeeding on their home turf, they are facing challenges in exporting that success to Western markets.
Re: The more competition, the better (Score:2)
I don't particularly mind that a Chinese company has my data, instead of a Korean or American. They all share and/or sell it to various actors/agencies etc, plus certain agencies have direct access to it so that is my starting assumption and just look at the device.
And in that respect after paying top dollar for the flagship Samsung, going to a Xiaomi is a revelation, with excellent build quality, years of updates at a fraction of the price. My current Mi Mix 2 is a bit more expensive than other top Xiaomi
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Xiaomi ought to be smart enough to circumvent any accusations of backdoors by only exporting Android One models, where requested by security agencies. i.e. Stock AOSP vetted by Google, using the same of the shelf parts (e.g. Qualcomm) as the mainstream Korean or Taiwanese brands.
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Let's assume that 100% of all phones track you for one government for another. All other things being equal, I'd rather have Huawei or Xiaomi than Apple or Samsung. At least they don't roll over for the NSA as easily.
The Chinese aren't going to give a wet snap what I'm doing on a daily basis. And I don't particularly care if they know.
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Anything that will help knock Samsung and Apple down a peg (or three) is good in my book.
Not only that, but also a more-secure (from the POV of a US citozen) alternative to security-weakened Western phone models. Sure, Chinese phones may have Chinese backdoors, but the Chinese aren't going to invade the US to come get you or I of we were to insult their new "leader for life" whereas the US government has already been caught "weaponizing" Federal departments and agencies as domestic political tools of control.
As a US citizen, or nearly anyone else in the West, you have much more to fear personal
Re:The more competition, the better (Score:5, Interesting)
Chinese phones may have Chinese backdoors, but the Chinese aren't going to invade the US to come get you or I of we were to insult their new "leader for life" whereas the US government has already been caught "weaponizing" Federal departments and agencies as domestic political tools of control.
But they can sell your data to the US government. The Chinese are smart. They know the agencies want your data. This is a lucrative opportunity for them. And the agencies can protect themselves from backlash by simply saying 'its the Chinese who steal data'. And the military gets its Chinese boogeyman. It's a win-win for everyone. Except you.
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Re: The more competition, the better (Score:2)
China isn't bothering anyone
I guess Bhutan and India don't count. How about Tibet? I don't care how long it's been; they don't belong.And rounding-up Uyghurs (and likely others) so you can harvest their organs? I don't even have words for that one... at least they're not eating 'em (I probably shouldn't give them any ideas; we've already got to watch our dogs).
Oh, and they're enthusiastically gearing-up to greatly increase their nation-bothering ability.
Let's face it: western interests sold out Taiwan in '79 (in return for equipping
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Taiwan has biological weapons. China isn't invading, they plan on taking it over politically.
When China's banking system falls over and they need an external 'boogeyman', then watchout. But who knows when that will happen. The Chinese banking system has been broken for decades, but nobody cares.
The next Chinese revolution will be 'interesting'.
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Some people are more or less concerned about privacy attacks from the US government, companies, and malicious strangers or acquaintances. Personally I don't care much about US government spying on me. I can't think of much in terms of personal data or opinions that I wouldn't openly tell them if they asked. I'm more concerned about companies and malicious individuals. I'm not saying that others are unreasonable in their fear, distrust, or skepticism of the the US government. Rather I'm just saying that
Re: The more competition, the better (Score:2)
I agree completely with your sentiment, however I doubt the Xiaomi is actually more secure. It still runs Android, therefore Google/fedgov still have root access to everything. There's no such thing as a secure consumer smartphone.
That said, I'm typing this on a Xiaomi Mi A1. It's a nicely made phone, good performance & battery life, runs stock Android with no hideous bloatware, and cost me half the price of a Samsung with the same specs.
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The more competition isn't always the better.
Sometimes this will make the lesser phone makers play a race to the bottom game. So while Apple and Samsung keep with their "Premium" line up. The other guys are fighting with themselves to make a cheaper phone then their competitors, with each generation getting crappier then before, and each product they sell has less profit margin to them, so they don't make money to invest back into the company, leading to a crappier next version.
While Apple and Samsung kee
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Some companies make a phone as good as the flagship players. HTC, LG, and Moto, have some good devices. Companies like Vivo have under-glass fingerprint scanners which are seeming to be doing well. As an added bonus, most of these devices have an official way to unlock the bootloader, so you can run LineageOS or a custom ROM.
Even lower-end phones like the LG Stylo 3+ are not bad.
I'd say they are worth looking at, oftentimes one can get away with a decent phone without having to shell out the big bucks fo
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How terrible (Score:2)
How terrible, Chinese are invading Americans, so bad
3..2..1.. (Score:1)
Time till Apple gets steamrolled 3..2..1..
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It will take about 50 years for Apple to be steam-rolled. That's given the rate of IQ increase in the human population. In about 50 years, a large part of the distribution's tail will have risen to a high enough point.
About time... (Score:2)
Good luck... You will need it. (Score:3)
Or... Maybe the government of China will subsidize this enough they can be successful?
Seriously, bring on the clones. Let's have some competition. I'm pretty tired of dropping almost $1k on a smart phone. Crazy price if you ask me. Maybe a bit of competition will bring phone prices down some and drive innovation...
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Have you SEEN the latest carrier loads for say the I-Phone? Can you say carrier bloat ware is everywhere? And that doesn't even go into what software Apple shoves on their devices. Don't get me started on Android devices....
You think the Chi-coms would be some how worse than a for profit company like Apple or AT&T? I'm not so sure.
It may be MY handset, but I'd be a fool to believe that anything I put on it or access though it is secure from my Carrier or Apple's prying eyes.
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Carefully, I use them carefully...
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Actually I have a Xiaomi Redmi 4x.
It costs about $140, has a 4100 mAh battery so it doesn't run flat in a day, IR so I can use it as a remote for my TV and set-top box, has a microSD slot and even a - hear that, Sony? - 3.5 jack, 3G RAM and 32 GB flash - so it's totally adequate for everyday use.
I don't care about hardware (Score:3)
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(I like Windows Phone) [...]
Oops. You just disqualified yourself from being a meaningful Slashdot contributor.
I think they should be welcome (Score:2)
Assuming that they're forced to partner with an American company and not own more than 49% of the entity.
Has little to do with security (Score:1)
Perpare for incoming. (Score:2)
Xiaomis price/performance ratio is nigh unmatched. They are basically the poor mans Apple with very neat design and quality. My daughter just had her phone stolen in Ecuador and had to get a new one. They don't have Motorola there (my first choice for price/quality/relyability) so after foraging for a day with my chat-support from around the planet we settled for a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. The specs are through the roof vis-a-vis her stolen Moto and the price is seriously competitive and it's a very well put-to
Project Treble (Score:2)
I'm actually looking forward to cheaper Chinese phones with Project Treble. Hopefully they can be continually updated for many years.