Xiaomi's livestream to show off Mi Max's battery life has been running for 2 weeks

Xiaomi has been running a livestream online to demonstrate the battery life of its behemoth 6.44-inch Mi Max phablet — and the show's been on for nearly two weeks now.

The Chinese phone giant launched the stream on May 10 at 4pm in the afternoon local time, right after it launched the device. It's got a Mi Max in the frame turned on with a SIM card in it, but on standby and not running any apps.

Each hour, the phone's screen is briefly turned on to show it's still running. Thanks to the phone's massive body, Xiaomi's been able to put a 4,850 mAh battery in it, which has been powering the device for a mind-boggling two weeks.

Crazy as that sounds, the stream, up on Chinese video site Bilibili, attracted over 20 million unique views by the weekend — about 11 days into broadcast. And it's still going strong. Users tuning in continue to flood the chat box with a whizzing stream of remarks.

This is a capture of the chat box's comments coming in on Monday — day 13:

And this is how the screen of the broadcast looks, with the comments overlaid:

The show has so far featured skits with actors lip syncing to a Chinese cartoon, streams of video game battles played live, and general talkshow segments with groups of people chatting.

Xiaomi has also given out Mi Max phones to commenters live on the show, which has no doubt only helped to fuel the noise. It's so far handed out 777 devices to viewers, the company said.

We wonder if Xiaomi knew it would be tough running a nonstop show for as long as this. It seems to have an inkling: it named the stream the "Xiaomi Max ultra enduring boring livestream." (Its original name in Chinese: 小米Max超耐久无聊待机直播)

On Weibo, netizens seem to agree that the livestream is "boring". A user called Wang Dian said: "What a boring livestream, but there are 10,000 people tuned in right now."

Others seem to be impressed at Xiaomi's ability to keep the show going. "It's 'boring' but I'm watching every day," said a user called Mickey, posting from the Bilibili app over the weekend.

Several Chinese papers have commented on the livestream, with one saying it taps into the "emptiness" of present youth in the country who are addicted to their devices and online videos.

Xiaomi Mi Max 6.4-inch smartphone to launch soon

NEW DELHI: Xiaomi will launch its Mi Max smartphone featuring a massive 6.4-inch screen on May 10 in Beijing. The company also shared a glimpseof the smartphone in a Weibo post stating the 6.4-inch smartphone will fit in denim pockets.

The device will look similar to the Mi 5 and will come with a fingerprint scanner. It is still early to comment whether the smartphone would be introduced in India or not. The specs are expected to be similar as well. The Mi 5 handset runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system and is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. The device comes in 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB/128GB storage variants.

Xiaomi decided to name the 6.4-inch smartphone as Max after an online poll. Some photos of the device's front panel have surfaced online. These pictures are reportedly straight from the production line.
The shots show the phablet's front panel and it appears huge. In tune with Xiaomi's design language, the image shows side bezels, capacitive keys and sensor array.

Recently, Xiaomi's rival Lenovo launched Phab phablet with a 6.9-inch screen. The Lenovo Phab sports a 6.98-inch HD display with 1280x720 pixels resolution. The device runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system topped with the Vibe UI of the company. It is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2GHz. The phablet offers 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage which can be expanded further using a microSD card.

The Lenovo Phab offers dual sim functionality and comes equipped with Dolby Atmos, 3 microphones and dedicated voice processor support. The device flaunts a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front-facing camera for selfies. The connectivity options of the device include 4G, LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. It houses a massive 4,250 mAh battery for smooth functioning.