Xiaomi Hongmi Note 4G

[drewski]

Ok, fwiw I now have confirmed proof that the new Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G is indeed the one to get in US/Canada.

Here's a picture of the box of the 4G model that is sold online (ebay, aliexpress, merimobiles, etc) - this is the one I had helped my friend here to buy from merimobiles:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9jPizm...sp=sharing
The Model number is 2014021

The new variant which is now popping up all over India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore (and probably several other countries) has a model number of 2014715.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9jPizm...sp=sharing
Picture was taken by someone whom I just managed to beg to buy the phone for me in Hong Kong a few days ago. Note the AWS band listed for 4G LTE, which means it will work in US/Canada (Rogers,Bell,Telus,AT&T,T-Mobile, etc).

Sadly, I have not been able to find this particular model for sale in the online sites. This model was released in Singapore in November and Malaysia in December, and shows as Out-Of-Stock on their websites. From what I can gather, they hold flash sales in those countries, and Xiaomi has claims there that it's all sold out in minutes. I was trolling around the HongKong Xiaomi site and found that it's available for sale and in stock, no need to wait for flash sales. Now I can't wait for my friend in Hong Kong to come back to Canada!

So, long story short, if you want 4G in US/Canada, and you want the Xiaomi Note 4G, the model you seek is 2014715. It was very inexpensive in Hong Kong too - phone comes to HKD1199 shipped, roughly USD 155, CAD 180 at today's exchange rates.

[adelino]

I think that you can wait for the hongmi note 2s! It may be released in this month! I heard about this form a Chinese website.

[drewski]

@adelino yeah the new Xiaomi Note and Note Pro were announced on Jan 15. Nice looking phones, but at 3x the price of the Redmi Note 4G, I’m sticking with the latter for now. :-)

@mather Finally got my hands on the new variant of the Redmi Note 4G two days ago (this one’s from HongKong), and it’s rocking 4G on Rogers after I keyed in the right APN - woohoo! Main difference I noticed is that some apps that were on the Chinese version did not make it to this one, e.g. the Video app. There are obvious differences as well in the Music app and even the Dialer (i.e. China-specific web links are no longer there), but you'd not be able to tell them apart otherwise.