Xiaomi Mi 5 hits Malaysian shores this weekend

Xiaomi Mi 5

Xiaomi’s latest and greatest flagship—Mi 5 is finally coming to impress Malaysian consumers this weekend. Launched at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, the Mi 5 hits stores this Saturday, 18 June.

Like the Mi 4, the latest flagship will not be sold through the Mi Online Store, but instead via a local distributor Thorus.

Xiaomi Mi 5

The Mi 5 comes in three variants, and expectedly, Malaysia only gets the lower spec. This means the 3GB RAM and 32GB UFS 2.0 flash storage option with a Snapdragon 820 chip clocked at 1.8GHz. It’s still a powerhouse, regardless, powered by one of the world’s most powerful SoCs that money can buy. I remember Hugo Barra calling it, “Insanely fast.”

Xiaomi Mi 5

It sports a 5.15-inch Full HD display with Sunlight Display technology.

In terms of design, the Mi 5 gets its inspiration from the stunning Mi Note. It gets a solid metal frame and 3D back. The lower spec variant gets a glass back, but the one to watch is really the ceramic back on the Pro.

Xiaomi Mi 5

There’s no camera bump, but that’s probably not as important as the latest Sony IMX298 16MP sensor that’s in the Mi 5. It gets PDAF as well as DTI (pixel-to-pixel isolation) and a high performance image processor called Qualcomm Spectra. What does this mean? Fast accurate focus and stunning images.

There’s a six-element lens and a groundbreaking on-lens 4-axis OIS system.

It has everything a flagship smartphone needs—Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, full-featured NFC and Cat.12 LTE. Oh, and it has an infrafred blaster on the top.

It’s equipped with a large 3,000mAh battery which is pretty sizable, and features Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology. Get the Mi 5 charged up from 0-80% in an hour. That’s fast.

xiaomi-mi-5-launch-1-2

Want to know more? Read about the Mi 5 here. And if you need reasons to own this flagship, I give you five.

Pricing and availability

The Xiaomi Mi 5 goes on sale officially this Saturday, 18 June 2016 and will retail at MYR1,549 (incl. GST).

Head over to Xiaomi Mi 5’s product page for official information: www.mi.com/my/mi5/

Vernon
Vernon is the founder and chief editor of Vernonchan.com. A graphic designer by profession, he has a deep love for technology, cars, gadgets, food, and travel. He tweets too much and is also known as a caffeine bacterium ("life's too short for bad coffee"). Bleeds Blue (go Chelsea FC!) and considers BMW, Porsche, Alfa Romeo cars to have in the garage--hallmarks of a true petrolhead.