Xiaomi had a huge surprise for its Indian fans at its Redmi Note 3 launch event. It announced it will launch the Mi 5 in India in April. Check out our first impressions of the latest Xiaomi flagship smartphone.
After launching the Redmi Note 3, Xiaomi surprised everyone by announcing that its latest flagship smartphone Mi 5 will be launched in India “in a month.” Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra said India has continued to be the company’s top priority and that the relatively quick launch of the Mi 5 signifies this. We spent brief time with Xiaomi’s latest flagship smartphone at the Redmi Note launch event, and here are our first impressions.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 distinguishes itself from the contemporary broad large-screen smartphones with its unique narrower form factor slim while maintaining a 5.15-inch size. The narrower built allows you to have better and tighter grip, and makes single hand usage easy. Xiaomi’s efforts to deliver better screen to body ratio is quite evident. Interestingly, the smartphone is quite thin at 7.25 mm and light at 129 grams despite housing a 3,000 mAh battery. In comparison, the Apple iPhone 6s is 7.1mm slim and weighs about 143 grams. The Mi 5 feels rather taller when held in the hand, but nonetheless gives a decent grip.
The curved glass panel on the back looks really beautiful and fluidly merges with the metallic frames on the sides. But I am bit skeptic about the glass panel on the rear as it seemed to be a fingerprint magnet. Right now, glass back panels are very popular among the flagship devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S7, and even the Sony Xperia Z5. The good news is Xiaomi has a premium variant of the smartphone, which boasts of a ceramic body.
Another thing that am skeptic about is how comfortable will be the fingerprint scanner at the bottom. The scanner feels very narrow.
Even though we used the Mi 5 briefly, the smartphone delivered smooth performance. The MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow looks as impressive as it has been thus far. Performance shouldn’t be an issue for the device as it runs Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 along with RAM starting from 3GB. In fact, the Mi 5 could be the first smartphone with Snapdragon 820 to launch in India.
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The smartphone comes with 3,000 mAh battery and Quick Charge 3.0 support. Other important features include VoLTE support and dual-SIM connectivity.
Along with the design and performance, Xiaomi has also extensively focused on the camera department. During its China launch event, Xiaomi demoed a few stunning camera samples. The Mi 5 comes with 16-megapixel, increment from 13-megapixel on the predecessor Mi 4. The rear camera comes with unique 4-axis optical video stabilization (OIS) that allows better stable videos in vertical, horizontal and even rotational motion. In one of the demo videos, Mi 5 clinically outperformed the Apple iPhone 6s Plus. The rear camera of the Mi 5 also comes with PDAF, dual-tone LED flash, 4K video support and Sony IMX298 sensor.
For selfies, the Mi 5 has the 4-megapixel front camera with 2-micron pixels, which is said to help deliver better and brighter images. The selfie camera also has the Beauty Mode that can also be used in video calling. The smartphone comes with a Mi Video Calling app that allows users to switch on real time beauty mode as well as different video effects.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 gives the vibes of being a solid flagship-level smartphone. With top of the line specifications and premium design, Xiaomi will be looking to expand its base in the mid-range segment. A lot depends on the pricing as well. Pricing of the smartphone starts in China at 1,999 Yuan that is approximately Rs 20,900. We are hoping the India pricing will be closer to China and could give a good fight to the new Android flagship smartphones as well as close competitors like the OnePlus 2 and Yu Yutopia, if not the likes of the Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6s.
Source: bgr.in
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