Alongside launch of flagship Mi3, Xiaomi has also announced two budget smartphones – the Xiaomi Redmi 1S at Rs. 6,999 and Xiaomi Redmi Note at Rs. 9,999, which are scheduled to be available in India in the month of August. These two smartphones will also be available exclusively through e-commerce site flipkart.com.
Xiaomi Redmi 1S sports a 4.7-inch 720×1280 pixel IPS-LCD display having Corning Gorilla Glass 2 protection, and is driven by a 1.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor with Adreno 305 GPU and coupled with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of built-in storage, which is expandable to 32GB via microSD card. This smartphone is also equipped with an 8-megapixel rear autofocus camera with flash and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video-calling and selfies.
The Redmi 1S runs on Android on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with customisation of MIUI Version 5. This smartphone is a Dual-SIM device with dual standby and is packed with a 2400mAh battery. The connectivity features of this phone include 3G, GPRS/ EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Micro-USB, Bluetooth 4.0, FM radio, GPS/ A-GPS, and USB OTG.
On the other hand, the Redmi Note phablet features a 5.5-inch 720×1280 pixel IPS-LCD display. Under the hood, it has a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek MTK6592 processfor, coupled with Mali-450MP4 GPU. It comes with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage with the provision to expand it upto 32GB via microSD card. This phablet also has Dual-SIM support with dual-standby.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note also runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with the MIUI 5 superimposed on it. It is equipped with a powerful 13-megapxiel rear autofocus camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front camera, which will be a treat for the selfies enthusiasts. This phablet has a strong 3100mAh battery. For connectivity options, it has same features as of the Redmi 1S.
The above two smartphones have the capacity to fire the budget smartphone market in India. These two smartphones will challenge the supernmacy of Moto E, Moto G and many smartphones of Indian handsets makers who are also getting their products manufactured in China. It is going to be interesting time for Indian consumers to get the powerful devices at very low prices.
Speaking about their India foray, Mr. Bin Lin, Co-founder and President, Xiaomi, said, “We see India as a huge opportunity for us and are excited about bringing Mi products to this market. Just like in our other markets, we will strive to provide users with incredible value, and the best customer experience possible.”
