Telecom
Xiaomi Mi4 Built With Incredible Power, Fast Software
The Xiaomi Mi4 is one of the biggest handset releases in Nigeria in 2015 and deserves testing one out.
Here is the experience you are going to get upon using the smartphone:
Up: Xiaomi Mi4 proves to be amazingly built with quality, fast software, excellent hardware and pocket-friendly.
Down: It is unbelievable that Xiaomi Mi4 has no Micro SD card slot; showing that the design is a clear imitation of the iPhone.
Design & Display (DD)
The Mi4 come with a metal chassis fronted by a Gorilla Glass screen and backed with a plastic rear panel. Along the bottom you’ll find a single speaker and again looking like the one seen on the iPhone 5.
The device uses MicroUSB-B, a clear departure from what “regular” smartphones use which is MicroUSB-A.
The USB-B connection will still fit, however, but there’s the added danger of inserting it upside down here.
Sleek phones loving Nigerians will definitely find a “companion” in Xiaomi Mi4, especially for it semblance with iPhone.
The hardware (body) build quality is fantastic, and the use of metal equates the smartphone to a standard not usually associated with Android arena.
The 5in IPS display is also striking and very impressive, sporting a full HD 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution and rock-solid viewing angles.
Interestingly, the display is easily seen in direct sunlight, and boasts the kind of colour replication you’d expect from a top of the line handset.
Hardware and Performance (HP)
While the Xiaomi Mi4’s price may be well below what you’d pay for an iPhone 6 or Galaxy S5 –– in Nigeria, of course, it retails for less than N50,000.
Mi4 has some elegant specifications, including a quad-core Snapdragon 801 chipset clocked at 2.5GHz. That’s backed by 3GB of RAM, all of which provides a silky-smooth user experience and amazing performance when playing 3D games.
The 3G unit we reviewed comes with 16GB of storage while the 4G unit has 64 gigabytes .
It’s worthy of note that there is no way to add in more storage using Micro SD cards, so you’ll have to choose wisely if you like downloading lots of content.
Also, NFC is also missing, which iis not pleasant when you consider that the tech is likely to take off in a big way now that Apple is officially supporting it with its new iPhone models.
Software (MIUI)
Xiaomi’s MIUI (pronounced, “Me-You-Eye”) is snap on Android.
In the case of MIUI 5, which ships with the Mi4, it’s built on Android 4.3.
However, unlike other manufacturers Xiaomi has been quite aggressive with its UI skin.
Unlike to a Western user who may not enjoy not Google apps, largely because Android phones sold in China rarely come with such software pre-installed, Nigerians can (though a Google Installer application) load up everything you need, from Gmail to Google Play.
While MIUI 5 was the OS that shipped with the device reviewed, it is upgradable to MIUI 6 (based on Android 4.4), which isn’t officially available as yet but can easily be flashed to the phone using a dedicated application.
Another feature of MIUI that makes it feel like iOS is the lack of an app drawers. Of course, all time Android fans may find it hard to get adapt. But, you can still use widgets as normal.
There is minor change on the MIUI based as the notification bar at the top of the screen no longer displays any icons, and instead you have to slide down the notification panel to see what messages you have.
The challenge is the possible of one often missing notifications or ignored them purely because they didn’t flash up in the bar.
But, designers at Mi are smart enough to compensate. Thus, notifications now pop up at the top of the screen no matter what activity you’re involved in –– just like they do in iOS.
MIUI 6 are very cool; coming with “Do Not Disturb” option built into the OS itself, and there are little customizations to play around with, including a menu which allows you to control the colour temperature of the screen.
Most of all though, MIUI is fast; perhaps not as swift as stock Android on a Nexus 5, but certainly meets the fancy.
Battery and Camera (BC)
The Mi4 has a large 3080mAh battery, and edges of the in the Galaxy S5 in terms of size. It seems there is behind the scenes operations that ensure the Mi4 lasts longer than most of its big-screen rivals.
This is because, it lasts almost three entire days out of the pphone. This has not been the case with an Android phone for some time now.
It’s actually possible to select from different battery profiles, but most interesting to us is the “Balanced” mode that left most features running and intact, presumably dialing down the Snapdragon 801 chipset in order to save on the juice. Regardless of what tactics Xiaomi is adopting to preserve battery life, the Mi4’s stamina supercede others of same status.
Xiaomi Mi4 brandished its Sony-made 13MP camera and that is equally impressive.
It offers excellent picture quality and fast focus times. The Mi4 is capable of producing some spectacular images, even if it does occasionally struggle with high-contrast areas.
Verdict
Xiaomi understands that iPhone hasn’t made significant inroads to Nigeria, which might have spurred it to through up the “iPhone of China” into the market late last year.
However, and with its incredible power and a gorgeous design; making it one of the best phones of 2015 (in Nigeria) , as long as you can put up with snatches of Chinese text, there are drawbacks also. Without Micro SD card slot being possibly the most obvious and the lack of 4G in this launch model is also an issue.
Not including NFC seems very shortsighted by Xiaomi.
Nonetheless, it is worth putting up with due to the speed and the design being the most aesthetically pleasing Android handsets in the market now.
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) is planning to encourage geo-political regions that grants zero charges for ‘Right of Way’ approvals as well not implementing arbitrary charges on telecommunications base stations in their regions with zero tariff.
Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON disclosed this to Nigeria CommunincationsWeek against the backdrop of incessant closure of base stations in some states.
He said that operators believe that the way out of this arbitrary charges and high cost of RoW approvals is regional tariffs.
“Operators are advocating for a regional tariff which means that geographical regions of Nigeria where cost of doing business for telecommunications operators is extremely high will attract high tariff compared to regions where there is low operating cost.
“Our advocacy of regional tariff is not based on a particular state but on regions. As at today there are regions where we have zero cost of “Right of Way” and low cost of doing business. Tariffs should reflect on operating environment. This means that national rate plan should consider high and low cost of doing business.
“If this is implemented, in a long run we could witness some regions having zero tariff because operational cost in such regions are friendly to operators,” he said.
It would be recalled that Kogi State recently shut down some operators’ base stations on account of local levies which raises the call for discriminatory tariff among geographical locations.
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software driving digital transformation and sustainability in industries, today announces the appointment of Sébastien Ory, 48, as EMEA VP in charge of the partner and distributor network. VP of AVEVA Southern Europe since 2022 and President of AVEVA France since 2023, Sébastien now replaces Karine Calvet while remaining President of AVEVA France.
Sébastien Ory as EMEA VP Partners & Channels, AVEVA
In this new role, he will oversee the relationships with the various stakeholders involved in the distribution of AVEVA software and will have direct responsibility for more than forty employees spread across the EMEA region. Sébastien Ory will report directly to Jesus Hernandez, the new SVP of the EMEA region, who replaces Evgeny Fedotov, now CCO of RIB.
More than 18-year career in the industry
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris and the Institut National de l’Aéronautique (ISAE-SupAero) in Toulouse, Sebastien Ory is an active advocate for driving sustainable progress in the industrial sector.
He began his career at France Telecom as a sales manager where he stayed for 4 years before giving a more industrial dimension to his career.
With fifteen years of experience in the industrial automation industry, Sebastien Ory has developed a strategic understanding of this field. After 10 years in Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business, he led the global industrial software business development team for Schneider Electric Software from 2015 to 2018, with a particular focus on the water, power generation, mining and food industries. During these 3 years, the introduction of new software solutions will allow Schneider Electric Software to initiate and develop significant growth areas.
7 years at AVEVA
In 2018, Sébastien joined AVEVA as Vice President of the Southeast Asia region, leading a team of 200 talents in charge of delivering cloud-based industrial analytics and AI software. In addition to the growing developing the teams he leads from the Singapore headquarters, part of his energy is devoted to establishing direct engagement with leaders of major groups in the region such as Petronas, Pertamina, PTT, Wilmar and Olam, to stimulate their digital transformation initiatives.
In 2022, he took over the leadership of AVEVA’s activities in Southern Europe, a major industrial market for the company, whose customers, world leaders in the fields of Energy, Chemicals, Agri-food, Pharmaceuticals and Water, are looking for AVEVA’s expertise to accelerate and drive their digital transformation and sustainability strategies, as well as their energy transition projects. The changes he brings to the organization of the sales team are bearing fruit and allow AVEVA to acquire new customers while consolidating key accounts. As Sebastien transitions to the role of VP EMEA Partners & Channels, Dominique Bazin becomes the new Vice President of AVEVA Southern Europe.
EMEA VP Partners & Channels: a highly strategic position within AVEVA
Sébastien now holds the position of Vice President in charge of the Partners and Channels for AVEVA in Europe, Middle East and Africa, a major market for the company. His main mission is to design and implement a strategy for the growth of indirect sales, through a network of partners and strong alliances with Digital Services Companies (DSCs), AI platform providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) whose solutions are compatible with the CONNECT platform.
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has hit back at Meta Platforms Inc, warning the tech giant that its threat to exit Nigeria will not erase its legal responsibilities or liabilities under the Nigerian law.
Meta said earlier today, May 3, that it “may be forced to effectively shut down the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in order to mitigate the risk of enforcement measures.”
Meta’s warning came after it lost a legal bid last week to overturn a ₦220 million fine imposed by the FCCPC for violations of data protection and consumer rights laws.
Reacting to Meta’s threat, FCCPC, in a statement on Saturday, May 3, described Meta’s statement as “a calculated” move aimed at “inducing negative public reaction and potentially pressuring the FCCPC to reconsider its decision.”
FCCPC said that Meta threatening to leave Nigeria does not absolve the company of liabilities for the outcome of a judicial process.
“These infringements included denying Nigerians the right to control their personal data, transferring and sharing Nigerian user data without authorisation, discriminating against Nigerian users compared to users in other jurisdictions and abusing their dominant market position by forcing unfair privacy policies,” FCCPC wrote on X.
“Interestingly, Meta had been fined for similar breaches in Texas ($1.5b) and only recently was asked to pay $1.3 Billion for violating E.U. Data Privacy Rules.
Elsewhere in India, South Korea, France and Australia, Meta had faced varying penalties for similar breaches. But Meta never resorted to the blackmail of threatening to exit those countries. They obeyed.”
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