While the smartphone world went gaga over the OnePlus 3, Xiaomi went and did what it does best: announce a cheap and attractive smartphone with the new Redmi 3S.
The phone doesn’t feel like it lies in the sub-$150 price bracket, thanks in part to its metal unibody frame and a fingerprint scanner on the back. It is 8.5mm thin and weighs 144 grams.
The display is a large 5.5” panel with a mediocre 720p HD resolution. It starts to show its price advantage through its software though, running Android 5.1 Lollipop MIUI and showing the reason in full force why Lollipop just won’t fade away.
Under the hood, you get an octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor, which is slightly underclocked compared to the preceding Snapdragon 616. It’ll be accompanied by either 2 or 3 GB RAM, or either 16 or 32 GB of expandable storage. The storage could be expanded via the second SIM slot.
The camera on the back is a 13 MP f/2.0 shooter with phase-detection autofocus with LED Flash. There is a 5 MP camera with f/2.2 aperture on the front. Connectivity includes LTE, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS with GLONASS.
The battery capacity is set at 4100 mAh. Prices are set at $106 for the model with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage, or $136 for the 3 GB RAM and 32 GB capacity model. It goes on sale starting from tomorrow.
Considering even AliExpress has stopped shipping Xiaomi phones to Pakistan, we can only hope that it makes its way to our country at some point because frankly, the bang for buck offered by this phone as well as assurance of quality because of the Xiaomi brand is hard to find in the market.
Here are the full specifications of the Xiaomi Redmi 3S:
