Close on the heels of debuting the Redmi 3 in China in June, Xiaomi has now launched the Redmi 3S budget smartphone in India.
The Xiaomi community website and social media accounts streamed the launch event live as Hugo Barra, the company's vice president, explained the features of the two Redmi smartphones — the Redmi 3S Prime and the Redmi 3S.
India is the first international market where Xiaomi made the affordable smartphone, which touts decent specs and features, available.
For the uninitiated, the Redmi 3S is the next-gen version of the Redmi 3, which was launched in January, and like most successors, boasts upgraded features.
Xiaomi, however, has released two variants of the smartphone: the Redmi 3S Prime and the Redmi 3S, which are identical barring the memory storage capacities. Another distinguishing feature between the two Xiaomi smartphones is that the Redmi 3S Prime model packs in a fingerprint scanner, whereas the Redmi 3S variant does not.
Memory-wise, the Redmi 3S Prime boasts 3 GB of RAM and offers support for 32 GB storage, whereas the Redmi 3S houses 2 GB of RAM and offers 16 GB of storage.
Both the new Xiaomi smartphones sports a 5-inch HD IPS screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. Under the hood, the entry-level handsets house the new octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor and Adreno 505 GPU, which is an improvement on the predecessor's octa-core Snapdragon 616 CPU and Adreno 405 GPU.
The design sensibilities of the Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime are similar to the Redmi 3 and the handsets boast a metal body.
Interestingly, the 4G LTE compatible Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime smartphones have the same dimensions of 5.48 x 2.74 x 0.33 inches as the Redmi 3. Moreover, the handsets weigh 144 g (5.08 ounces)— the same as the predecessor.
Both the handsets are fueled by a powerful 4,100 mAh battery and offer support for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, Glonass and Micro USB. The new Xiaomi handsets also house a microSD card slot, so one can expand the device's memory up to a maximum of 128 GB.
The Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime also tout a 13-megapixel primary camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF), HDR mode, LED flash and an f/2.0 aperture. The smartphones also boast a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfie lovers.
The Xiaomi smartphones come pre-loaded with Android 6.0 Marshmallow with MIUI 7.5 running on top.
The Redmi 3S Prime, which is the steeper of the two, will hit the Indian shelves on Aug. 9 and set consumers back by Rs. 8,999 or about $135. The Redmi 3S will release a week later and cost Rs. 6,999 or about $105. The smartphones will initially be available exclusively from Mi.com and are currently listed as coming soon.
