Xiaomi stepped in the ultra-affordable smartphone segment last year with the Redmi 4A. As always, the company brought great value to the segment. Now, it’s time for a refresh. To be frank, there is very little room for improvement with the kind of budget we have on our hands.
However, Xiaomi CEO has stepped up to give us a sneak peek at what we can expect. We’ve already seen the phone pass TENAA and thus its innards. We are within days of its official release.
Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi said that the Redmi Note 5A will come with a dedicated SD card slot. That will make the Note 5A, the first Redmi device to sport a separate slot for memory. While not a very groundbreaking feature but still useful. The phone will also possess a 16 MP front camera lens. The Redmi Note 5A will have at least two variants. Both the models will vary mainly in the processor, RAM, and storage department.
The more humble of the two is said to come with a Snapdragon 425, 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. While the top-tier variant will have a Snapdragon 430, 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB storage. The high-end one might also have a fingerprint scanner. What both the variants will have in common is the 5.5-inch 720p LCD display, 3,000 mAh battery, and the plethora of connectivity that the predecessor also had.
What perplexes us is the rumored price of the device. The Note 5A top-end model might be priced $150. That makes it enter the Redmi 4(4X) territory which takes away the whole purpose of the ultra-affordable phone. Why make an ultra-affordable phone which isn’t ultra cheap?
In Comparison, the Redmi 4A costs less than $100 in India. Although all this is not official we certainly expect the price to rise. We just hope its not as sharp as what we see here.
