Xiaomi Redmi 3 with Snapdragon 616 SoC, 4100mAh battery, metal body gets official

Xiaomi has officially taken wraps of its latest budget smartphone, the Redmi 3. The handset sports a full metal magnesium alloy unibody design with a unique pattern at the back that has 4166 stars arranged in a diamond pattern that is visible when the light hits at an angle.

The Xiaomi Redmi 3 sports a 5-inch HD (1280 x 720 pixels) IPS display and is powered by 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 616 processor aided by Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB RAM. On-board storage is 16GB, further expandable via microSD card up to 128GB. It runs MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop and has Hybrid Dual SIM slot (micro SIM + nano SIM or micro SIM + microSD)

For photography, the Redmi 3 is equipped with 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) resulting in a quick focus of just 0.1 second and f/2.0 aperture. On the front, there is a 5-megapixel for clicking selfies. Both front and rear cameras can record 1080p videos as well.

Connectivity features include 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS+GLONASS. It is fueled by 4100mAh battery, which is one of the biggest highlight of the Redmi 3. Despite the large battery, the Redmi 3 is 8.5mm slim, which is 0.9mm slimmer than the Redmi 2

The Xiaomi Redmi 3 is priced at CNY 699 ($107 | Rs. 7,500) and will be available in China starting January 12. It comes in Dark Grey, Silver, Gold and Classic Gold colors. There is no word on global availability.