Xiaomi of China today announced Surge S1, the company’s first in-house
chipset. With the launch of Surge S1, Xiaomi becomes only the fourth smartphone
manufacturer in the world to create a chipset that has been designed and developed inhouse.
Alongside Surge S1, the company announced its newest smartphone Mi 5C, which is
powered by the Surge S1 chipset.
According to Xiaomi, Surge S1 uses a high-performance octa-core ARM CortexA53
processor incorporating four 2.2GHz cores and four 1.4Ghz cores, achieving a balance. In the Geekbench benchmark, Surge S1 outperformed other chipsets in its range such as Snapdragon 625 as claimed by Xiaomi. This chipset has an integrated Mali T-860 MP4 GPU for superb graphics performance in gaming and 4K video is made possible while using up to 40 percent less power than the last-generation Mali GPU. Equipped with a 32-bit DSP supporting VoLTE and 16kHz sampling, Surge S1 claims to provide high-quality voice calls even in noisy environments. Its 14-bit dual ISP features increases light sensitivity by up to 150 percent and a dual noise reduction algorithm reduces noise and preserves detail, resulting in clear images even in challenging lighting situations.
As far as Mi 5c is concerned, this phone features a 5.15-inch (1920×1080 pixels) Full HD curved glass display which has a 1500:1 contrast ratio for darker blacks and brighter whites, as well as a 94.4% NTSC colour gamut. This phone comes with 3GB LPDDR3 RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
On the imaging front, this phone is mounted with 12 MP rear camera with LED flash, 1.25 um pixel size, f/2.2 aperture and six-element lens. For selfies, this phone is provided with an 8MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture and 27 mm wide-angle lens.
This phone is packed with a 2860mAh battery with fast charging support. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based MIUI 8 and is upgradable to Android 7.1 Nougat. This phone also incorporate fingerprint sensor on the home button. This phone offers connectivity options of 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, USB Type-C, 3.5mm audio jack, and FM radio. This phone has dimensions of 144.38 x 69.68 x7.09 mm and its weight is 135g.
The Xiaomi Mi 5c has metal body and comes in Rose Gold, Gold and Black colors and is priced at 1499 RMB ( Rs. 15,000 approx.) and will start selling in China from 3rd March.
