Xiaomi, soon after launching the Redmi 3 smartphone, on Thursday unveiled a new variant of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. Featuring a Qualcomm SoC instead of a MediaTek one, the smartphone will go on sale starting Sunday in China, and will be available in Dark Grey, Champagne Gold, and Silver colours. The company confirmed the launch news in a Weibo post.
Priced at CNY 999 (approximately Rs. 10,000), the Qualcomm-variant of the Redmi Note 3 sports an all-metal body and also packs a fingerprint scanner at the back, just like the Redmi Note 3. It will go on sale in China via the company's official website.
The highlight of the new Redmi Note 3 is it packs a hexa-core Snapdragon 650 processor (four cores clocked at 1.2GHz and two cores clocked at 1.8GHz). Other specifications of the smartphone are identical with original, including a 5.5-inch full-HD 1080x1920 pixels IPS display and offers 178 degree viewing angle. The Redmi Note 3 will be available in two RAM and storage versions - one including 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage, and other 3GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage. The company as of now has not given price information for the 3GB/ 32GB variant of the Redmi Note 3.
It runs MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop and supports dual 4G SIM cards. The handset packs a 4000mAh battery with fast charging support that can charge up to 50 percent in 1 hour, same as the Redmi Note 3. On the camera front, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 sports a 16-megapixel rear camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF) and two-tone flash. It also houses a 5-megapixel front camera. It measures 150x76x8.65mm and weighs 164 grams. For connectivity, the handset supports 4G LTE (compatible with Indian LTE bands), Bluetooth, 3G, GPRS/ EDGE, GPS, Glonass, Wi-Fi, and Micro-USB.