Xiaomi Mi 5: The Samsung Galaxy S7 of the mid-range market is now official! 10 Things to Know!

By Ankit

| Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2016, 17:37 [IST]

Xiaomi today officially announced the launch of its newest flagship smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi 5. This announcement comes almost 18 months after their previous Mi 4 was launched in 2014.

With the pricing starting at just around $306 or Rs. 21,000, Xiaomi is looking at aggressively targeting the mid-range smartphone segment, by offering flagship level specifications. It is like the Galaxy S7, but for the mid-range segment. Making the Mi 5 accessible to more of their audience, Xiaomi is looking at taking on competition from OEMS like Motorola and OnePlus.

While, the Samsung Galaxy S7 boasts of flagship specifications including a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and a dual-pixel 12MP camera lens. The Galaxy S7 also has a 3,000 mAh battery and a design composed of glass and metal elements.

The Xiaomi Mi 5 comes with a 5.15-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. It also packs in 3/4GB of RAM along with 32/128 GB of internal storage. The Xiaomi Mi 5 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and will run the latest MIUI 7, based on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Here are the top 10 things about the Xiaomi Mi 5 that you need to know!

#1

Debuting with the Le Max Pro recently, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 is the processor that will be powering the new Xiaomi Mi 5. A quad-core 64-bit chipset, the Snapdragon 820 is succeeding the infamous flagship Snapdragon 810 processor of 2015. Clocked at 1.8 GHz, the processor will be accompanied by the Adreno 530 GPU for improved graphic performance.

#2

The Xiaomi Mi 5 will have MIUI 7 software running on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. This means that Xiaomi is finally bringing the latest UI to its flagship smartphone. MIUI 7 claims to improve response time by 30% along with 10% more battery life. This, besides Marshmallow's new additions, will help the Xiaomi Mi 5 claim its top spot once again.

#3

The Xiaomi Mi 5 has a decent 3,000 mAh battery packed under the hood but the most interesting feature of the battery is its fast charging capabilities. Powered by the Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology, the company claims that the Xiaomi Mi 5 can go from 0% to 80% battery level in just about 35 minutes. Now that's a game changer.

#4

This time around, Xiaomi has fitted the Sony IMX298 sensor onto their flagship smartphone, the Mi 5. The new camera has a 16MP sensor and features like Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF), dual-tone LED flash, 4-axis OIS as well as 4K video recording. The camera is capable of recording slo-mo video upto 120 FPS. The front camera also has an upgraded 4MP sensor with a pixel size of 2um.

#5

Shunning the boring White and Black color options, Xiaomi has gone ahead and added two new colors for the Mi 5 launch - Gold. Aiming to reach a wider audience with this new addition, the two colors are glossy and will add a certain luster to the overall look and feel of the device.

#6

Missed on the previous-gen Mi 3 and Mi 4, dual-SIM card support has finally returned with Xiaomi's newest flagship, the Xiaomi Mi5. The smartphone accepts two Micro SIMs (GSM+GSM) and the slot is a pure SIM slot, not a Hybrid one. Both the slots will support 4G LTE-enabled SIM cards for faster cellular connectivity.

#7

The Xiaomi Mi 5 packs in a lot of options for connectivity, improving the overall flexibility of the smartphone. The Mi 5 has Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, 4G LTE, and the usual Wi-Fi and GPS as connectivity options. With the new VoLTE support, Xiaomi Mi 5 is expected to have connectivity speeds upto 600 MBps. It also supports Band 40 for 4G LTE, one that is used by some operators in India.

#8

With the world moving towards this new technology for charging and data syncing, it was but natural for Xiaomi to incorporate the USB Type-C port on their flagship smartphone, the Mi 5. With a reversible connector and fast charging support, the port will help offer better battery performance during regular daily usage.

#9

The Xiaomi Mi 5 comes in three variants, according to memory and storage differentiation. The cheapest option has 3GB of RAM along with 32GB of internal storage, the second one has 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage and the premium variant has 4GB of RAM accompanied with 128GB of internal storage. All the options have a slot for expandable storage via MicroSD card support.

#10

As talked about in the previous slide, the cheapest variant - with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage - is priced at CNY 1999 (Rs 21,000 approx), the second one - with 3GB RAM and 64GB internal storage - is priced at CNY 2299 (Rs 24,000 approx) and the premium variant - with 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage - is priced at CNY 2699 (Rs 28,000 approx). The Xiaomi Mi 5 was announced on February 24th and will go on sale in China in the following weeks.