Xiaomi had a great year in 2016 with the release of their Mi 5 flagship, following with the Mi Mix. This time around, the company does not feel like going bigger is better, but instead will be focused on making a well-rounded smartphone that packs in the best of what the company currently has to offer. The Mi 5c was just announced during the MWC, and here are the 7 features that buyers will want to consider when they decide to buy this handset.
1) Size
Just like its predecessor, the 4c, the Mi 5c offers a similar flavour of things to come. The phone comes with a 5.15 display and comes in a relatively smaller body compared to its siblings. The phone weighs just 132gms. It’s not the smallest footprint, but it’s sufficient enough to be called compact, and large enough to be enjoyed with. The phone has a unibody design that is just 7.09mm thick.
2) Specs
Internally, the company has taken its own direction, adding their own home-made processor, dubbed the Surge S1, which is an Octa-core CPU which consists of 8 Cortex A53 cores, with 4 of those cores clocked at 2.2GHz and the other 4 clocked at 1.4GHz. It is supported in graphics by the Mali-T860 GPU, which will not take any prizes for performance, but will at least get the job done on low settings. The Chip is made on a 28nm HPC process – a far cry from the flagship standard Snapdragon 835 with their 10nm process chips. According to the company’s press release, they claim that the chip is mainly focused on low-power consumption and daily use. We will not hold our breath for benchmarking scores.
Memory comes in at 3GB of RAM, which is quite decent, considering it’s a budget offering, including 64GB of internal storage. The internal package seems good enough for consumers who want a reliable and usable smartphone. For that budget, the company has also added a fingerprint scanner on the front of the phone.
3) Connectivity
The phone runs on dual-SIMs, with 4G LTE enabled and the ability to conduct VoLTE. There is also an FM Radio baked into the smartphone, which is something more and more manufacturers should stop omitting from their devices. The phone also comes with USB Type-C and a 3.5mm audio jack.
4) Software
Out of the box, the phone will come with Marshmallow, but the company has promised a planned upgrade to Nougat by March. Xiaomi will be updating the phone to Nougat 7.1, so that should make the phone relevant for the majority of the year at the very least. The UI will be layered over with Xiaomi’s MIUI 8, which should also be updated appropriately when the Nougat update kicks in.
5) Camera
Xiaomi has not been cheap on the camera department. The company has included a 12MP rear camera, with an 8MP shooter on the front. The rear camera features 1.25 micron pixels with an f/2.2 aperture. It will be paired with an LED flash as well. The front-facing camera will sport a 27mm wide-angle lens for group selfies. The Surge ISP algorithm enhances the lighting within the photos by up to 50 percent.
6) Display
The 5.15 inches of screen real estate is a good and compact size for an FHD resolution with 448ppi. The display is made of JDI and covers the front of the phone quite well, with minimal bezels showing. Users will never have a dull moment with the display, quite literally, because it offers over 2048 levels of brightness adjustment and can get as bright as 550 nits. The dedicated chip made by Xiaomi also allows for better optimization of the brightness.
7) Battery
As if all those features mentioned above were not enough already, the battery on this phone comes in at a cool 2860mAh. Considering that the processor is good at low-power consumption, so it should give the phone enough battery life to last at least a day. The phone also supports fast charging at 9V/2A.
It’s phone like the Mi 5c that show exactly why manufacturers like Xiaomi are doing so well for themselves. At a cost of just $220, this is great value at a great price.