Snapdragon 800-touting Xiaomi Mi3 flagship to come in December with 3G WCDMA support

The Mi line of Xiaomi phones has beenaround for quite a while now, starting with the dual-core SnapdragonS3-sporting Mi-1, and for fans of the Chinese company, it has becomesynonymous with high performance devices, but at an affordable price.The last descendant of the now aged Mi1 is the XiaomiMi3 – a Snapdragon 800-touting performance beast, with a priceof 1,999 yuan, or about $330. Think China's Nexus 5, of sorts.

Much like other compelling offeringsfrom the Beijing-based manufacturer, however, the Mi3 initiallyshipped with a Tegra 4 chip inside, which only supports China's 3GTD-SCDMA network. Thankfully, right from the start, Xiaomi haspromised that a second, Snapdragon 800 MSM8974AB-packing version ofthe Mi3 will come by the end of the year, and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has just confirmed that December is (likely) the month to circle, if you'redigging the flagship. As the true specs nerd among you may havenoticed, this is not the standard Snapdragon 800 we're talking here,but rather an alternative, even higher-powered version of it. It'sreally more beefy in pretty much every aspect: higher CPU, GPU andLPDDR3 clocks, as you can see below:

The rest of the specs on the XiaomiMi3 are equally impressive. You get 2GB of some of thehighest-clocked RAM there is in a smartphone, a 13-megapixelSony-made camera with a dual-LED module and a hearty 3050mAh battery.Lastly, the Xiaomi Mi3 is going to be one of the very first smartphone to incorporate the new Wi-Fi 802.11acstandard which runs on the far less-busy 5GHz band, and provideshigher speeds than your conventional smartphone.

Unfortunately, until Xiaomi getsserious about worldwide expansion, you're pretty much left with theoption of obtaining a unit from a reseller.

Source: Weibo via MyDrivers