The long rumoured Xiaomi Mi 5s has finally been announced. With a design that’s strikingly similar to the Mi 5, the Mi 5s is essentially an all-metal variant of the former – of course, it also has several interesting new hardware, such as a slightly faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor.
Aside from a new processor, the Mi 5s also has a pressure-sensitive 5.15-inch 1080p display now. More likely than not, it should function similarly to the iPhone’s 3D Touch feature as well as Huawei’s pressure-sensitive display on the P9 Plus. According to Xiaomi, the Mi 5s’ display also has a brightness of up to 600 nits as well as NTSC colour gamut coverage of up to 95%.
As rumours have already suggested, the Xiaomi Mi 5s does in fact have an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which can supposedly identify fingerprints “in a split second.” As Xiaomi puts it, this ultrasonic fingerprint sensor solves the issue with wear and tear of any home button that also doubles as a fingerprint sensor – there are no moving parts, after all. It also lends to a more “seamless integration of screen panels,” the company added.
Another highlighted feature of the Mi 5s is its 12MP camera, which has a 1/2.3-inch sensor size; it is similar to the ones found in compact cameras. To show just how capable its camera is, Xiaomi showed off several pictures taken with the smartphone. The company also compared the Mi 5s’ camera against other flagship devices like the iPhone 6s Plus and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge.
Not surprisingly, other specifications of the Mi 5s are befitting of a high-end, flagship smartphone. It features 3GB or 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, very fast UFS 2.0 storage (up to 128GB), a sizeable 3,600mAh battery, as well as NFC support. The Mi 5s also has a USB Type-C port, a 4MP front-facing shooter, and support for Quick Charge 3.0.
As for retail price, Xiaomi keeps true to its competitive pricing strategy: the Xiaomi Mi 5s retails at only 1,999 Chinese yuan (about RM1,235) for the 64GB variant with 3GB RAM, while the 128GB model with more RAM at 4GB goes for 2,299 yuan (approximately RM1,420). Much like the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, the smaller Mi 5s will also go on sale on 29 September 2016 in China.
