30 European technological journalists sit in a meeting room in Munich looking at Zaheed SaburSenior director of Engineering at Google Gemini, already Terrence XiaoSenior Director of Product Marketing of Xiaomi.
We are in the question and answers session after the presentation of the Xiaomi 15tbut the interesting thing goes beyond the mobile or the fridge: here we have talked about all that friction inherent to the Western Expansion project of the Chinese brand.
The first crack appears when someone asks for Ireland. He Xiaomi 15t Prothe star model with its periscopic teleobjective of five optical increases, will not reach the Irish market. The Executive of Xiaomi dodges with diplomacy: “There are complicated factors that include business decisions and local regulations.” Translation: The fragmented European market remains a logistics and regulatory puzzle That not even Xiaomi, with all its ambition, has finished solving.
Zaheed Sabur. Image: Xataka.
When a Slovak journalist asks about Bugs persistent in Hyperos “Some have been dragged for some time,” silence is revealing. “It is a great priority for us,” says Terrence, promising to take the topic to the PR team. But the underlying reality is more complex: building an Apple -type closed ecosystem requires perfection in the execution that Xiaomi has not yet achieved. They are and it is fair to recognize that the future perspective is good if we see the evolution that the brand has had in the last decade.
The drama appears when someone mentions the ads in the operating system. The answer is an exercise of balancing: the ads allow to offer devices at competitive prices (true), but erode the premium experience that Xiaomi tries to project with higher products.
Zaheed Sabur takes the floor when the conversation derives towards AI. “The priority is not to discover the monetization plan,” he says, “but to create value for the user.” It is a statement that sounds noble but hides a more raw reality: Google and Xiaomi are in a career against time to justify the huge investments in AI before investors lose patience. Although it is fair to recognize that companies such as Google or Xiaomi can better allow these investments, each to their extent, when obtaining income from other roads.
And speaking of the subject, the integration of Gemini In the Xiaomi it actually goes from Google ensuring distribution beyond the Pixel ecosystem, and Xiaomi obtaining AI capabilities without the prohibitive cost of developing them internally.
When Sabur mentions that AI processing costs have fallen significantly, it is subtly revealing why these functions are still free: it is cheaper to subsidize them than to lose the ecosystems war.
“We have no definitive plans not to launch a new Flip In global markets, “says Terrence Xiao when asked about folding. Double denial usually betrays uncertainty. Samsung dominates the Premium folding segment in Europebut Xiaomi seems paralyzed between launching a product that could cannibalize its traditional sales or completely yield that market segment.
And from there we talk about cameras. The association with Leica is no accident. In a world where Mediatek has reached almost parity with Qualcomm (the Dimensity 9400+ of the 15T Pro is a processor beast), and where the amoled screens of 3,200 nits are Commoditycomputational photography is one of the few fields where there is still margin to differentiate.
Terrence to the left, Zaheed to the right. Image: Xataka.
But even here there are limitations. When they ask why they cannot record 4K at 60 fps with full zoom, the answer is limited to saying that “the video recording experience is something very important for us,” says Xiao, without explaining real technical limitations: real -time image processing remains a bottleneck even for the most advanced chips.
The most incisive question: why not include magnetic load Qi 2? “It’s something we are receiving a lot feedback“, admits the Executive of Xiaomi. The non-response is eloquent: adding magnets would interfere with the complex antennas system that Xiaomi promotes as a differentiator (the Xiaomi arises t1s Tuner and the Super Antenna Array), but admitting it would be to recognize that they are trapped between physics and market expectations.
The Xiaomi Offline Communication, which allows direct communication between devices up to 1.9 kilometers without a mobile network, is technically fascinating and very interesting if we scratch a bit: it is a function designed for markets with poor infrastructure or for emergency situations, transplanted to European markets where the 5G coverage is ubiquitous. Is Xiaomi trying to be all for everyoneand ending with functions that impress in the presentations but that 99% of users will never use.
In any case, Xiaomi’s best play is not at 15T. It is in that 502 -liter mijia fridge and that washing machine with AI That detects fabrics. Terrence lets you glimpse when talking about the ecosystem: each device reinforces others, increasing the psychological and economic cost of changing brands.
Terrence Xiao. Image: Xataka.
But here the final paradox arises: Xiaomi needs you to trust its brand enough to put an 85 kilos washer in your home, while simultaneously it cannot guarantee that the Bugs of software reported two years ago they will be solved soon. It is asking for an act of technological faith.
The presentation in Munich was not on phones with Leica cameras or mediatek processors. It was about a Chinese company trying to conquer European households while overcoming regulatory, cultural and technical complexities of a continent that still see with suspicion the technology that comes from the east, although less and less. The 15t They are impressive, yes. But They are just the Trojan horse for something much more ambitious And, precisely because of that, much more uncertain.
In Xataka | Xiaomi’s Troy horse is already here: a domestic ecosystem that you will not escape
Outstanding image | Xataka
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