During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, Xiaomi unveiled its flagship for 2016, the Mi 5. The phone is the vendor’s first to offer a home button at the front, which houses a fingerprint scanner.
The phone has curved edges that are reminiscent of a certain Galaxy handset. However, unlike the glass back of the Galaxy S6 series, Xiaomi is going with a ceramic back on the Mi 5.
Here’s what’s on offer with the Xiaomi Mi 5:
| Display | 5.15-inch Full HD IPS display | Max. brightness of 600 nits |
| SoC | Snapdragon 820 | Adreno 530 |
| RAM | 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM |
| Storage | 32GB/64GB/128GB UFS 2.0 flash storage |
| Camera | 16MP camera with 4-axis OIS and dual-LED flash |
| Connectivity | Category 12 LTE, Wi-Fi ac, NFC |
| Software | MIUI 7 with Android 6.0 |
| Battery | 3000mAh battery with QUick Charge 3.0 |
Xiaomi is going with UFS 2.0 storage, which is what Samsung used last year with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The Mi 5 offers 4G+ (LTE Advanced) delivered via a Qualcomm Category 12 LTE modem. The phone weighs 129g and has a thickness of 7.25mm despite housing a 3000mAh battery.
The Mi 5 is the first in the world to offer Sony’s IMX298 imaging sensor, which is a 16MP offering with PDAF and DTI (Deep Trench Isolation) pixel-to-pixel isolation, which leads to better photorealism.
The phone comes in black, white and gold, with the gold variant offering a textured back design.
The vendor announced that it sold 70 million devices in 2015, falling short of its sales goal of 80 million. Xiaomi is now the fifth-largest handset vendor in the world, with a global market share of just under five percent. MIUI has a staff of 700, making it the largest division within Xiaomi. The goal with MIUI is to localise services based on the region, which is why Xiaomi set up a software facility in India.