Over the past few weeks, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 was extensively leaked on several occasions, but surprisingly enough, the smartphone appears to have now been launched in China under a different name, specifically as the Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus which was officially unveiled earlier this month. Moreover, according to MIUI forums moderator, Xiaomi has dropped the Note moniker for its budget devices, and it’s unclear what will happen to the supposed Redmi 4X successor known as the Redmi 5. Whatever the case may be, the latest Note model is now available in China as the Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus and offers respectable specs on a budget.
The device features a 5.99-inch display and features a full-screen design with thin bezels, rounded corners, and an 18:9 aspect ratio. The panel has a resolution of 2160 x 1080 leading to a pixel density of 403 pixels per inch, covers 84 percent of the NTSC color gamut, and is capable of delivering 450 nits of brightness. As expected, the smartphone is fueled by a chipset supplied by Qualcomm, namely the Snapdragon 625 housing eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and the Adreno 506 graphics chip. The device is available in two different memory configurations, specifically a variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, as well as a beefier model with 4GB of RAM and double the on-board memory. In either case, the storage can be expanded via a microSD card by up to an additional 128GB, and the microSD card slot can also be used as a secondary SIM tray. The back panel holds the fingerprint scanner and a 12-megapixel main camera with phase detection autofocus and a dual-LED flash, whereas the front-facing shooter clocks in at a resolution of 5bmegapixels. Other details include Bluetooth 4.2 support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and 4G LTE connectivity, and a 4,000mAh battery wrapped in a body weighing in at 180 grams.
The Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus can be acquired in one of four colors – black, gold, light blue, and rose gold. The model with 3GB of RAM costs 999 yuan or the rough equivalent of $151, whereas the variant with more RAM and storage costs 1,299 yuan or approximately $197. Though availability seems to be limited to China as of this writing, the device might arrive to other markets in early 2018 and will likely soon be offered internationally by resellers like Gearbest.
