Xiaomi has announced the Mi Note, a phablet meant to take on the iPhone 6 Plus

When it comes to the world of smartphones and tablets, Apple is the top dog that all the others strive to beat. Chinese firm Xiaomi is no different, and its Mi Note phablet is definitely a device designed to knock the iPhone 6 Plus down a peg or two.

That’s not just an implication either, because Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun emphasised that the Mi Note is lighter and thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus (6.95 mm thick and 161 grams compared to 7.11mm thick and 172g). Oh and the camera doesn’t stick out, which is always handy.

But if you ignore the references to Apple’s obsession with creating the thinnest, lightest devices possible, the Mi Note is actually an impressive piece of kit. It’s got a 5.7-inch 1080p display made of slightly curved ‘2.5D’ Gorilla Glass, 3GB of RAM, a Snapdragon 801 processor (2.5GHz), a 13MP rear camera, dual-SIM, and a choice of 16 or 64GB of storage.

If that’s not quite what you’re after, there is a more advanced version known as the Mi Note Pro. The Pro is mostly the same, but instead has a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, a Quad HD display, and 64GB of storage.

The phones will cost ¥2,299 (£244) and ¥3,229 (£350) respectively. Sadly we don’t know whether they’ll make it to the UK since Xiaomi only announced availability for China and India. That being said if Xiaomi actually going to prove itself to be a worthy competitor with the likes of Apple it will have to start shipping all of its new phones to markets like the US and Europe.

The Mi Note will be released sometime in March, and we’ll let you know if we hear anything about a UK release.