Xiaomi Mi 5 launching in India today; expected to be priced under Rs 25,000

New Delhi: China-based Xiaomi is all geared up to launch its all-new Mi 5 flagship smartphone today in India. The Mi 4 successor is said to take on design elements of the Mi Note.

Earlier this month, the company launched its sub-10K priced Redmi Note 3 and at the same event, company VP Hugo Barra announced the date of arrival of the new Mi 5 in the country.

Unveiled to the world late last month, the Mi 5 is available in three variants. The Mi 5 (32 GB storage and 3 GB RAM) is priced at RMB 1999 (roughly translates to Rs 21,000), the 64 GB Mi 5 variant at RMB 2299 (approximately Rs 24,000) and the Mi 5 Pro (the top-of-the-line SKU with 128 GB storage and 4 GB RAM) at Rs 2699 (roughly translates to Rs 28,500).

There is no information as to what all variants will be introduced in India and at what prices, but we expect to be priced in India under Rs 25,000. It cannot be said if the phone will go on sale from the same day or later. The company will announce availability details for the Indian market at today's event.

The Mi Note-inspired Mi 5 features curved edges, sports a slim metal frame with a 3D ceramic body which is claimed to be durable, wear resistant, and feels like marble. As Barra explains, the 3D ceramic body is 75 per cent more expensive than 3D glass.

Touted to be "insanely fast", the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64-bit quad-core chipset, which is the latest Snapdragon processor in the market and is claimed to offer 200 per cent improved performance with 50 per cent reduction in power consumption. The Pro variant of the phone includes 4 GB of RAM and has 128 GB of onboard flash storage.

The base version of the phone has a 1.8 GHz processor while the higher priced variants have 2.15 GHz processors.

The Mi 5 comes with a Sony IMX298 16 megapixel sensor with dual-tone LED flash, PDAF, OIS, and 4K video recording. It sports a 4 megapixel front camera with 2um pixel size. It has a 3000 mAh battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

Weighing 129 grams, the Mi 5 is about 14 g lighter than the iPhone 6s. It is 7.25 mm thick and features a 5.15-inch QHD display with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels.

In a bid to offer more user security and ease of use, Xiaomi has also added a front fingerprint sensor to the Mi 5. The Mi 5 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Xiaomi's newest MIUI7 layer atop.

Other specifications include 4G LTE with VoLTE support and dual SIM support. The Mi 5 comes in white, black, and gold colour options.