Xiaomi Mi 5 launched at around Rs 21,000 onwards; coming soon to India

After a string of leaks, rumours and teasers, Xiaomi has finally unveiled its new flagship smartphone- the Mi 5 - at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2016, which is the company's first big release of the year 2016.

The company has launched the Mi 5 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 Mi 5 64 GB variant is priced 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) carries a price tag of Rs 2699 (roughly translates to Rs 28,500). The phone is coming soon to India, said Xiaomi vice-president Hugo Barra at the launch event.

Successor to the Mi 4, the design of the Xiaomi Mi 5 is inspired by the Mi Note. Featuring curved edges, the new Mi 5 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 will be available in white, black, and gold colour options.

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