Xiaomi Mi4 poses for new pictures; is the back plate plastic or metal? (It's plastic!)

Freshly leaked pictures of the Xiaomi Mi4, just days away from its July 22nd introduction, still do not end a mini-controversy about this upcoming flagship device. A sentence about the new handset, written in Chinese on Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun's Weibo account, was translated and apparently says something along the lines of, "The journey of a piece of steel metal." That would seem to indicate that the phone will be made of metal. There is speculation that the phone will feature a metal rear plate.

The pictures that leaked out on Sunday of the Xiaomi Mi4, do not answer the question about what material was used on the phone's rear panel. The back of the phone appears to be made of metal, but is actually made of plastic, according to those who have handled the device. This is similar to the rear panel of the LG G3, which looks like brushed metal, but is made from plastic.

While recent specs call for a 5.5 inch screen, there are rumors that the Xiaomi Mi4 actually has a 5 inch screen with resolution of 1440 x 2560. A quad-core Snapdragon 801 is believed to be under the hood, with 3GB of RAM inside. 16GB of native storage is said to be on board. Back and front-facing cameras are expected to weigh in at 13MP and 5MP respectively, and a 3000mAh cell is rumored to power up the device.

The Xiaomi Mi4 has all of the specs that you would expect from a flagship model. We should learn what Xiaomi has in mind about pricing and availability on Tuesday, when the device is unwrapped by the manufacturer.


Thanks for the tip, Radu!

via:mobilissimo.ro (translated) 

UPDATE: The answer to the question in the headline has been answered by Xiaomi VP Li Wanqiang. Li says that the back cover is not metal, but there is plenty of metal used on the device. He says, "The new product is indeed uses a lot of metal, but no for the purpose of metal back cover." The executive did promise that because it is the fourth anniversary of Xiaomi, the Xiaomi Mi4 will not let you down.

Thanks for the tip!

source: GSMInsider (translated)