The day has finally arrived. Xiaomi has launched the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus. Earlier this week, the company gave us a full blown sneak peek of both handsets and they seem promising. Now we find out what both these devices pack and how will they fare.
Let’s begin with the Redmi 5. The build material looks pretty much the same as its predecessor the Redmi 4. It still retains that very iPhone-esque look overall. The display is where it starts to change for the better – a 5.7-inch 18:9 display in HD+ resolution, surrounded by minimal bezels. Xiaomi only had to forgo the capacitive buttons below the display for software keys, given the fact that it uses rear mounted fingerprint sensors since the beginning. The chin below the display however still takes up some space.
Underneath the hood lies a Snapdragon 450 processor with either 2GB or 3GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage respectively. It sports a 12MP PDAF rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture and LED flash, along with 5MP front facing shooter equipped with a soft light selfie flash. It packs a decently large 3,300mAh battery but unfortunately comes with a micro USB slot instead of USB type-C, which arises issues of future proofing.
The larger Redmi 5 Plus features the same build, with a larger 5.99-inch display which is sharper as well in Full HD+ resolution. It comes in 3GB and 4GB RAM variants with 32GB and 64GB of storage spaces respectively. The camera setup is retained from the regular Redmi 5 but it does come with a larger 4,000mAh battery, but also with a micro USB port.
Granted, both handsets still come at very affordable price tags, and they come with a bundled TPU case for protection. The Redmi 5 starts at CNY 799 (RM 491.50) and its older sibling the Redmi 5 Plus starts at CNY 999 (RM 614.53), making both of them very value for money devices.