Xiaomi Mi Max: An Almost Tablet Phone

How big can a smartphone get? Pretty big, it would seem. Huawei, Sony and others have been known to bring to the market some phones that are competing for identity with tablets. And now Xiaomi has decided it wants a huge phone in its portfolio too.

Enter the Mi Max, launched in China, and very probably headed to India sometime soon. It's a whole 6.4 inches of screen and to most, it'll seem too large.

On the other hand, there will be a category of customers who a pre-tablet which while it may not be something you can use one-handed nor slip smartly in and out of a pocket, is certainly a very portable way of using a device intensely for work, entertainment and content consumption.

The majority of users have become accustomed to 5.5 inches of phone, but it remains to be seen whether enough users also want a phone as large as the Mi Max.

Another group that critics often don't consider is the user who likes to carry more than one phone. Say, a reasonably sized one to use for the majority of calls and messaging, and a larger one for anything that calls for the screen space -- like a video. A presentation. A book.

The Mi Max has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 hexa-core processor, 4GB of RAM (phones with 6GB are beginning to crop up), 128GB of onboard storage, and a 4,850mAh battery. Surely enough to keep it running.

The cameras are 16-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front. And there's a fingerprint scanner, shown to work very well on all of Xiaomi's recent releases.

It's also metallic, now expected of Xiaomi's phones. At the same time it is light for its size -- and good looking.

Nothing is announced for India yet, but the expectations are that the Mi Max will come in at an affordable price.