Xiaomi Mi 5 with Snapdragon 820 SoC gets official

Xiaomi after nearly two years has finally officially announced its flagship, the Mi 5 in China. The Mi 5 is the successor to the Mi 4, and the expectations are quite high, given that the Chinese smartphone maker, now faces bigger challenges with new mobile device manufacturers with capable smartphones across the budget market.

Xiaomi's flagship Mi 5 sports a 3D glass body, with strong glass on the rear, and flaunts a sleek profile with 7.25mm thickness, and weighs just 129g. The Xiaomi Mi 5 sports a 5.15-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) curved glass display with a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass for protection, below which there is a home button that doubles as fingerprint scanner.

The Mi 5 is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 64-bit quad-core processor with Adreno 530 GPU, 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB/128GB (UFS 2.0) on-board storage. It actually comes in three variants - Standard Edition w/ 1.8GHz Snapdragon 820 SoC / 3GB RAM / 32GB storage  (or) High Edition w/ 2.15GHz Snapdragon 820 SoC / 3GB RAM / 64GB storage (or) Exclusive Ceramic Edition w/ 2.15Ghz Snapdragon 820 SoC / 4GB RAM / 128GB storage. 

For photography, there is 16-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, Sony IMX298 sensor, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF resulting in a quick focus, DTI pixel isolation technology, Spectra image processor, 4-axis OIS and 4K video recording capabilities. For clicking selfies you get a 4-megapixel front snapper with large pixel size of 2 microns, f/2.0 apeture and 80-degree wide-angle lens.

The Dual-SIM Mi 5 runs MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and supports 4G LTE with VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/m/ac dual-band (MIMO), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, NFC and USB Type-C. It is fueled by a 3000mAh battery that supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging technology. Xiaomi claims that users can get a talk-time of  2.5 hours with just 5 minutes of charge. Also on-board is an IR Blaster.

The Xiaomi Mi 5 Standard Edition (1.8GHz Snapdragon 820 SoC, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage) is priced at CNY 1999 ($305 | Rs. 21,000), High Edition (2.15GHz Snapdragon 820 SoC, 3GB RAM, 64GB storage) costs CNY 2299 ($350 | Rs. 25,000), and the Exlcusive Ceramic Edition (2.15GHz Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage) will cost CNY 2699 ($415 | Rs. 28,500). It will go on sale in China from March 1. The Mi 5 comes in Black, White, Gold and Rose colors.