Since Hugo Barra left Google for Xiaomi last year, everyone has had their eye on Xiaomi to see what they are up to. And they know it. It’s been rumored for a while that the OEM would be producing a 5.5-inch phablet known as the Redmi Note. Now just because it has the word “Note” in the title doesn’t mean that it’s going to have the stylus like Samsung’s Galaxy Note line of smartphones and tablets.
The new teaser, which is pictured above, doesn’t show us much about the new Xiaomi device, but that it’ll have a 5.5-inch display which will be 720p unfortunately, also powered by an Octa-core processor which will be either 1.4GHz or 1.7GHz. Now this isn’t confirmed but it sounds like they are using the MediaTek Octa-core processor that they’ve been working on for a bit, which is coming in a few Huawei and ZTE devices this year.
So what about the price? Well nothing is in the leak about the price, but Engadget is thinking that it’ll be between the Redmi’s price of CN¥699 which is about $110, and the MI2a’s price of CN¥1,499, which is about $240. So it’s going to be pretty cheap, especially for a larger phone.
If you’re one of those that’s in China, you’ll be able to pre-order at 8pm local time on March 19th, using Tencent’s Qzone app, which has the exclusive on the Redmi Note’s debut sale. Now if you’re not in China, you’ll be able to order it through your usual market channels shortly after the March 19th pre-order date.
Xiaomi makes some really nice smartphones with high-end specs for low prices, which is something we’d love to see in the US and elsewhere in the world. Hopefully with Hugo Barra on board we’ll see more of these popping up in the US and other regions, other than just Asia.