After a lot of leaks, the Redmi 5 and 5 Plus are official. Xiaomi just launched them on 7th of December in a launch event in China. So what’s new about them? The tall screen obviously but there is a tad bit more to the tail.
Xiaomi Redmi 5 Specifications:
- Android 7.1.2 Nougat with MIUI 9
- Hybrid Dual SIM Support
- Fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor
- 5.7 inch HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display with 450 nits Brightness, 72% NTSC Color Gamut, 1000: 1 Contrast Ratio
- 1440 × 720 pixels resolutiomn
- 1.8GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 450 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 506 GPU
- 2GB of RAM with 16GB storage, 3GB of RAM with 32GB storage, Expandable up to 128GB using microSD card
- 12 Megapixel rear camera with LED Flash, 1.25µm pixel size, f/2.2 aperture and PDAF
- 5 Megapixel front-facing camera with LED flash
- 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2 and GPS + GLONASS
- 3300mAh battery
Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus Specifications:
- Android 7.1.2 Nougat with MIUI 9
- Hybrid Dual SIM Support
- Fingerprint sensor, Infrared sensor
- 5.99 inch Full HD+ 18:9 2.5D curved glass display with 450 nits Brightness, 84% NTSC Color Gamut, 1000: 1 Contrast Ratio
- 2160 × 1080 pixels resolution
- 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 506 GPU
- 3GB of RAM with 32GB storage, 4GB RAM with 64GB storage, Expandable up to 128GB with microSD card
- 12 Megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash, 1.25µm pixel size, f/2.2 aperture and PDAF
- 5 Megapixel front-facing camera with LED flash
- 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS + GLONASS
- 4000mAh battery
From the back both of them look like your typical Redmi devices, Unimetal build, with a single camera followed by the flash and the fingerprint sensor and some branding near the bottom. We kind of seen all this before this right? The rounded edges, the metallic parts, it’s supposed to feel quite good but now it looks a bit boring, but turn the device around and here’s where things get really interesting.
Let’s take the Redmi 5 first. To the front we’ve got a 5.7 inch display a significant jump from 5-inch screen on the Redmi 4, but that is something to be expected with the taller 18:9 display. The resolution is HD+ this time though, which means the pixel density comes out to somewhere around 280 pixels per inch. Its bigger brother the Redmi 5 Plus have a nice even larger display at 5.99-inches and it receives a bump in resolution as well. The FullHD+ panel on the Redmi 5 plus has a 2160 x 1080 resolution which translates to much more respectable 402ppi. The screen to body ratio of this devices also seems to be quite decent at 77.4%.
The internals too have received an upgrade, although the change here for the Redmi 5 isn’t as huge jump as the screen size. The younger one come with an Octa-core Snapdragon 450 chip again there are 8 cores but this time they’re clocked at 1.8GHz. The Adreno 506 handles GPU duties, this is the decent update from the Snapdragon 425 phone in the Redmi 4. As the clock speed is boosted by 30%, so there should be some performance improvement here.
The Redmi 5 Plus gets even more gains since it’s coupled with the Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 Chip which is also manufactured on the 14nm process. The difference between these two phones just don’t end here though. The bigger size of the Redmi 5 Plus means Xiaomi was able to cramp in larger capacity here. So the 5Plus gets a 4000mAH battery while the Redmi 5 admires to make do with 3300mAH. That’s bit disappointing that Xiaomi decided to cut on the batter size but almost 20% from the Redmi 4 to its successor to Redmi 5. Now despite that we expect that both these devices have pretty decent all day battery life.
After the difference let me tell you about the similarities. The camera, the rear shooter for both devices is a 12-MP unit with f/2.2 aperture and a large 1.25 micron size pixels. It is the same camera unit which was used as the primary shooter of MI A1, this going to be really excited about the camera on a Redmi device. To the front Xiaomi added a 5-mp camera and this time around the USP is going to be the selfie flash. There is a beauty mode, which Xiaomi claims will take your selfie game to a new level.
On the software front, both of these devices will be running on MiUI 9 which does come with host of features and well as themes. While some stock Android features might be missing, UI is an entire experience in itself. These devices are available in various colors like, Gold, Black, Rose Gold, Pink, Black and light Blue. The Redmi 5 has been introduced at around Rs.7800/- (approx.) for base variant of 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal while the 3GB/32GB variant is expected around Rs.8800/- (approx.).
For the Redmi 5 Plus, this is a new addition to the Redmi line-up, with that screen size, resolution and even processing power, it seems to be more of a Redmi Note series device. Now users will expect the Note 5 with more powerful processor, like Snapdragon 630 or even the 660. The 3GB RAM and 32GB internal variant is priced around Rs.9800/- (approx.) and 4GB RAM and 64GB internal at Rs.12, 700/- (approx.). We do expect a lesser price once it come to India.
