Xiaomi today unveiled its flagship handset for 2016: the Mi 5. The handset features a metallic chassis with a 3D glass/ceramic body that is curved at the edges to improve ergonomics.
Xiaomi says that the design of the Mi 5 is based on its flagship phablet from 2015: the Mi Note. Compared to other handsets from Xiaomi, the Mi 5 is certainly a looker and oozes premium build quality. The front of the handset houses a 5.15-inch Full HD display with minimal bezels on its left and right sides. Xiaomi has also made sure that the top and bottom bezels of the handsets are of the same size.
Under the hood, the 7.25mm thin and 129gms heavy Mi 5 is powered by a Snapdragon 820 chipset, an Adreno 530 GPU, up to 4GB RAM and 128GB of speedy UFS 2.0 NAND chip. In terms of connectivity, the Mi 5 supports 4G+ LTE networks for download speeds of up to 600Mbps, NFC — a first for a Xiaomi device after the Mi 3, GPS, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, and a 3,000mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 support.
At the rear, the Mi 5 house a 16MP camera that uses Sony’s IMX298 sensor with 4-axis OIS and is aided by a two-tone dual-LED flash. The camera lens is made from sapphire that makes it scratch resistant. The front houses a 4MP camera with 2um pixel size for better low-light selfies.
https://youtu.be/d8CxnHAAG7s
Lastly, the Mi 5 is the first phone from Xiaomi to run on MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.
Xiaomi will be offering the Mi 5 in three different RAM and storage configurations: 3GB RAM with 32GB space, 3GB RAM with 64GB space, and 4GB RAM with 128GB of storage space. The Snapdragon 820 chipset present inside the variants are also clocked at different speeds. The 4GB RAM variant is being called as the Mi 5 Pro from Xiaomi and will be the only model to feature a ceramic back and a Quad HD display, instead of a Full HD one.
The cheapest variant of the Mi 5 has been priced at RMB1999 (~$305) and comes with 3GB RAM/32GB of storage, while the 64GB and 128GB variants come with a more powerful 2.15GHz Snapdragon 820 chipset and are priced at RMB 2299 and 2699, respectively.
Xiaomi will start selling the Mi 5 in China from March 1st. The handset will be available in three colors: Black, Gold, and White.
