>Strange how good it is at that price. The margins on flagship phones are substantial; most Chinese brands are happy to make fairly slim profits on hardware, o

>Strange how good it is at that price. The margins on flagship phones are substantial; most Chinese brands are happy to make fairly slim profits on hardware, or none at all in the case of Xiaomi. Most of the cost of the components in a flagship represents the R&D and infrastructure costs incurred at the cutting edge. Mid-priced handsets from Chinese brands use slightly older components, which aren't drastically lower in performance but are drastically cheaper. There's an odd sort of trickle-down effect - people who buy $800 flagships are effectively subsidising the price of $200 mid-range handsets.