Xiaomi Mi Note could be iPhone 6 Plus beater: QHD, Snapdragon 810, Cat 9 LTE for £350

Xiaomi Mi Note. There's a name that the Chinese company hopes will strike fear into the heart of Apple. This is its premium phablet which undercuts Apple in price while offering tip-top specs.

The Mi Note should be a competitor to Apple's iPhone 6 Plus at 5.7-inches with a 6.95mm slim body and 161g weight. The Mi Note offers dual-SIM and has a protective Gorilla Glass front and back with a "2.5D curved front" and "3D curved back" either side of a metallic frame.

There will be two variants offering different price options. The first will be high-end with a Quad HD 2560 x 1440 display for 515ppi. A 2GHz Snapdragon 810 processor will be running the show backed by Adreno 430 graphics, 4GB of RAM, 64GB storage, a 3090mAh battery and LTE Cat 9 4G (450Mbps). This model will come in gold and cost CN¥3,299 which is about £348 and is out in March.

The cameras on both models will be 13-megapixels in the rear with f/2.0, OIS and dual-colour LED flash plus 4MP "large-pixel" front-facing selfie cameras that sound similar to HTC's UltraPixel.

The base model is powered by a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM with Adreno 330 graphics and a 3000mAh battery.

It will come in 16GB and 64GB variants as well as black or white colours. This will cost CN¥2,299 which is about £243 for the 16GB model and CN¥2,799 or £295 for the 64GB variant – both will be out 27 January.

READ: Apple iPhone 6 Plus review