When the Xiaomi Mi 5 was released more than six months ago, the rumors of a Mi 5S soon followed, which the company neither confirmed nor denied. However, thanks to a recent leak, there is now compelling evidence of the Mi 5S' existence.
A screenshot showing the specs of a mobile device, which is alleged to be the Xiaomi Mi 5S, surfaced on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. The device specifications show a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC with each core clocked at 2.4 GHz, which coincides with Qualcomm's description of the 64-bit quad-core chip.
This is corroborated by a listing that surfaced on Antutu's benchmark database that shows the same SoC.
"The Snapdragon 821 is engineered to deliver a 10 percent performance increase over the 820 with the Qualcomm Kryo quad-core CPU, reaching speeds up to 2.4 GHz," wrote Qualcomm about the Snapdragon 821 SoC. "The 821 is designed to complement and extend the competitive strengths of our Snapdragon 800 lineup."
The chipmaker said that the Snapdragon 821 can be expected in the second quarter of 2016, which further boosts the likelihood of the rumored Mi 5S sporting one. It also comes with an Adreno 530 GPU, which is the same one used in the Snapdragon 820.
According to the Weibo screenshot, the 821 will be packaged with 6 GB of LPDDR4 1,866 MHz RAM, which is plenty considering that the current Android flagship phones have 4 GB. The internal storage capacity is listed at 256 GB, on par with the maximum storage configuration for the iPhone 7 and an improvement from the 128 GB found in the Mi 5 Pro Edition.
While previous rumors speculated that the Xiaomi Mi 5S will have a different display size than that of the Mi 5, the screenshot shows the alleged Mi 5S has the same dimensions: 144.55 x 69.2 x 7.25 millimeters (5.69 x 2.72 x 0.29 inches). The screen size at 5.15 inches is also the same as the Mi 5. However, the Mi 5S at 147 grams (5.19 ounces) is 18 grams (0.63 ounces) heavier than its older brother.
According to the unconfirmed Mi 5S benchmark on Antutu, the device will run natively on 1080p (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) and will be shipped with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow on board.
The 16-megapixel main camera also seems to be the same as that of the Mi 5, which has a 4-axis OIS and dual-LED flash. It is capable of shooting 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) videos at 30 fps.
One of the other major differences is the Mi 5S' 3D Touch support, which the Mi 5 lacks. The 5S also has a bigger battery pack at 3,490 mAh compared to the Mi 5's 3,000 mAh.
The Xiaomi 5S will come equipped with two nano SIM slots, NFC, Bluetooth 4.2 and LTE connectivity, granted that the Weibo screenshot holds true. However, bear in mind that Xiaomi has yet to officially announce anything and hence, everything sourced from the screenshot should be taken with a grain of salt.
