Xiaomi is taking on the iPhone 6 with its latest high-end smartphones

We’re not even a month into the new year yet and Xiaomi has already released two new smartphones that have been met with the kind of Apple-level fanfare that we’ve come to expect from the burgeoning Chinese smartphone manufacturer. That description is especially meaningful when you consider the fact that the Mi Note and the Mi Note Pro are the company’s new high-end devices that are meant to be direct competitors to Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. 

Xiaomi, a Chinese company and the third largest smartphone maker in the world, held one of its big events in Beijing on Thursday. Among the now-standard Xiaomi launch fanfare, the company introduced two new smartphones, a pair of premium headphones, and a TV streaming stick that looks similar to a smartphone charger. The two smartphones Xiaomi launched on Thursday, the Mi Note and the Mi Note Pro, use Xiaomi’s high-end Mi moniker, and shouldn’t be confused with its lower-end Redmi Note, or Samsung’s more expensive Galaxy Note, which it resembles. The Mi Note is a dual-SIM smartphone, with a 5.7-inch 1080p display, powered by a Snapdragon 801 chip and 3GB of RAM. It comes in both 16GB and 64GB versions starting at RMB 2299 ($370). It’s running on Xiaomi’s tweaked version of Android and the MIUI ineterface.