Xiaomi, the Chinese company under the helm of Hugo Barra has officially launched its much-awaited flagship, the Xiaomi Mi 5 at Beijing and Barcelona today. In a world of 6-month product refresh cycles, the refresh comes a whole 18 months after the previous one, the Mi 4. The devices boasts a 5.15 inch Full HD screen, a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB RAM, a 16mp camera with 4 axis image stabilization, a whopping 128 GB of internal storage and an average 3000mAh battery to power the device. In today’s ever increasing world of metal bodied phones, Xiaomi Mi5 has what Xiaomi is calling a “3D ceramic body”.
There are actually 3 versions of the phone with different clock speeds, RAM size and Storage. The standard edition has a CPU clock speed of 1.8Ghz, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The next version is clocked at 2.15 Ghz and has 64GB of storage. Both are made out of a 3D curved glass body and is available in gold, white and black. The Mi 5 Pro edition is made out of ceramic with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It is only available in black.
The Mi 5 has a similar design language to last year’s phone in its note lineup, the Mi Note and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 with front and rear glass panels, a metal build and a fingerprint sensor integrated into the home button. The design looks nice with minimum bezels and curved edges. The ceramic version is surely a head turner.
The Mi 5 runs on MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 marshmallow. The phone also supports quick charge 3.0, which Xiaomi claims can charge the smartphone up to 90 percent in just one hour.
- 5.15-inches full HD (1920×1080 pixels)
- Snapdragon 820 quad-core
- 4GB RAM
- variant – 2.15 GHz + 4GB + 128GB + Ceramic body, 2.15 GHz + 3GB + 64GB + 3D glass body and 1.8GHz + 3GB + 32GB + 3D glass body
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow with MIUI 7
- 16 megapixel Sony IMX298 sensor back camera and 4MP front-facing camera
- dual SIM
- 4G LTE + VoLTE, 3G, 2G, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC
- 3,000mAh battery (Quick Charge 3.0)
Xiaomi as a company has grown immensely over the year becoming the No one in China and the sixth in the world, selling 70 million phones last year. The Mi 5 is seen as a crucial phone for the company with others eating away at its market share.
The Mi 5 starts at 1999 RMB ($262 USD or Rs 21000) with the Mi 5 Pro coming in at RMB 2699 ($354 USD or about Rs 28000).