We knew this was going to happen sooner or later – Xiaomi has created quite a stir in the China smartphone market selling quality smartphones with mid-range specs at a low-end price. We knew it would not take Lenovo long to come out with a device to combat the Xiaomi Redmi Note and announced their model S898t+, better known as their ‘Golden Warrior S8.’ Both devices will battle for the low-priced market in China and it will be interesting to look at the sales figures at the end of year to see which one will be crowned the victor…of course, Huawei may have something to say about that.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note, which comes in a variety of colors, is priced at $130 and comes with a whopping 5.5-inch HD IPS Display which is a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. It runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and only has 8GB of internal memory, but does include a microSD card slot to add an additional 32GB of memory. There are two different sets of octa-cores powering the device, both made by MediaTek – the MT6592 processor that is clocked at 1.4GHz with a Mali 450 GPU and 1GB of RAM and the other is the same model MT6592, only clocked slightly faster at 1.7GHz and it comes with 2GB. It sports a 13MP main Camera and a 5MP FFC with a f/2.2 aperture for good low-light picture-taking.
The specifications, according to a promotion poster from Lenovo, tell us it has a 5.3-inch Sharp LTPS HD (1280×720) display with OGS technology and Gorilla 3 glass. It also uses the MediaTek MT6592 octa-core clocked at 1.4GHz and comes with 1GB of RAM with the same 8GB of internal storage, but also comes with a microSD slot for expansion. It will also be running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The aircraft-grade aluminum body is only 7.9mm thick and the cameras match up in the megapixel department – 13MP main camera and 5MP FFC for video chatting or selfies. Lenovo has conformed to our source that the Golden Warrior S8 is a dual-SIM device.
The dimensions are 147 x 76.7 x 7.9mm and weighs in at 140 grams. It will be an exclusive device of China Mobile and compatible with the TD-SCDMA network of the carrier, although Lenovo may be preparing different variants for other Chinese carriers.