Smartphone was unveiled in China a month ago.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi, for the first time ever since it entered the Indian market, will launch its new flagship smartphone Mi 5 just a month after the company unveiled it in China.
According to an official press release of the company, “Mi 5 will be launched on March 31, making it the fastest Mi phone to arrive in India after its 1st launch.â€
During the launch event of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 on March 3rd, Vice President of Xiaomi Hugo Barra had said that Mi 5 will be launched in India within a month.
According to experts, the latest flagship device from the company that has gained the name “China’s Apple†is estimated to be anywhere in between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 27,000 depending on the models. Mi 5 will not be a budget smartphone like other Xiaomi devices that are currently available in the market.
The other Xiaomi smartphones that are sold through online e-retailers are Mi 4, Mi 4i, Redmi Note 3 and Redmi Prime. All these devices are priced under Rs. 15,000.
Mi 5 was launched in the Chinese market last month in 32GB, 64 GB and 128 GB variants. Unlike the other Xiaomi devices, the new Mi 5 has a 3D glass back, and the 128GB variant comes with a complete 3D Ceramic body.
As of now there is no confirmation of whether Xiaomi will launch the 128GB variant in India market.
Xiaomi Mi 5 32GB version is powered by the latest Snapdragon 820 processor with a clock speed of 1.8 GHz and is coupled with 3GB of RAM. The 64 GB variant is powered by an even powerful Snapdragon 820 processor which has a speed of 2.15 GHz paired with 3 GB RAM.
Mi 5 sports a 5.15-inch full HD 1080p display with a 16-megapixel rear camera with face detection, autofocus, OIS (4-axis), dual-LED (dual tone) flash. It is also capable of shooting video in 4K quality. The device also sports a 4-megapixel selfie camera.
Coming to the connectivity features of Mi 5, the device is equipped with dual-SIM card slots, 4G LTE, IR Blaster, USB Type C-Port, VoLTE support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/ac, 4G, Bluetooth 4.2, Glonass, and NFC. All variants of Mi 5 comes with a fingerprint sensor.
Xiaomi Mi 5 measures 144.5×69.2×7.25mm and weighs 129 grams. The Mi 5 is backed by a 3000mAh battery that supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, which Xiaomi claims is 20 percent faster than Quick Charge 2.0.
The new Xiaomi Mi 5 will run Android Marshmallow on top of Xiaomi’s MIUI 7.
Ahead of the launch of Mi 5, Xiaomi India has launched a new forum where participants have a chance of winning F-codes that can be used for buying the smartphone at any time within its expiration.
Those who sign up in the forum will have to post a reply with how they are going to match or beat the speed of Mi 5. They can use mediums like sketching, drawing, Photoshop work, video, etc. to illustrate the idea and the best 30 entries will win the F-code each day.
When Mi 5 was recently launched in China, it saw over 18 million registrations the first day.