Xiaomi has sort-of conquered the budget smartphone market. And adding on to that, the Mi 5 smartphone was well-received by users all over the world. Now, riding on the very same success, the company has today announced two new addition to its arsenal — Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus.
However, as has been the case with most of Xiaomi’s devices, everything from names, the design concept and philosophy to power, looks heavily borrowed from Apple. Take this for an example — both the devices come in an all-metal body, featuring a new elegant design. With the powerful new hardware under the hood, the phone promises better performance than its predecessors.
The Mi 5s comes with a 5.15-inch Full HD display. The display is said to be force-sensitive, but its not known yet how company is planning to utlilize that in MIUI. Under the hood, it is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor, clocked at 2.15GHz.
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On camera front, there’s a 13-megapixel camera on the back with significantly larger 1/2.3-inch Sony CMOS sensor, and an f/2.0 aperture. It has a 4-megapixel selfie camera. On the front side, there is a seamlessly integrated fingerprint sensor. Xiaomi says that it can recognize a 3D map of fingerprint through ultrasonic waves. Thus, there is no need for a separate button. The phone is powered by a 3,200mAh battery.
Like all recently launched Xiaomi smartphones, this one too comes in two memory options. One with 3GB RAM with 64GB storage, and another with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage.
On the other hand, the Mi 5s Plus, comes with a bigger screen size, 5.7-inch. It utilizes the same processor as of Mi 5s, the Snapdragon 821. However, the clock speed is faster — 2.35GHz, instead of 2.15GHz.
Apart from the display and processor, another significant changes on the Plus variant include memory specs and camera. Besides the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage variant, it also comes in a 6GB RAM and 128GB storage version.
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While the camera specs are same as of Mi 5s, Xiaomi has included dual camera on the back of the Plus variant. One sensor captures black and white photos while the other sensor captures colour photos. As per the company, this results in better image quality, with much less noise.
The Mi 5s will be available in China for￥1999 (approx. $300 or Rs. 20,000) for the 3GB+ 64GB version and ￥2299 (approx. $345 or Rs. 23,000) for the 4GB+128GB version.
The Mi 5s Plus, on the other hand, is priced at ￥2299 (approx. $344 or Rs. 23,000) for the 4GB+64GB variant, while the 6GB+128GB variant costs ￥2599 (approx. $389 or Rs. 26,000).
Both the smartphones will go on sale in China from Thursday on Xiaomi’s site as well as on JD.com. As always, there is no information about the global availability of the phones, but we’re hoping for an India launch soon.
Recently, Xiaomi launched its Mi Air Purifier 2 in India for Rs. 9,999, along with its second-generation fitness tracking band — Mi Band 2, priced at Rs. 1,999.
