Xiaomi Redmi 3S budget smartphone featuring a 4100mAh battery and a metal body has been launched in India. The Redmi 3S with 16GB storage and 2GB of RAM has been priced at Rs. 6,999, while another variant sporting 32GB storage, 3GB of RAM, and a fingerprint scanner called the Redmi 3S Prime will retail at Rs. 8,999.
Both models will be initially available exclusively via Mi.com initially, and then Flipkart. The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime will go on sale first starting August 9. Xiaomi says the Redmi 3S model will go on sale a week later. These are the first Xiaomi phones whose entire stock will be ‘Made in India’, the company told Gadgets 360 at a pre-launch briefing.
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime are identical, except for the memory and storage on board. The Redmi 3S also foregoes the fingerprint sensor on the Redmi 3S Prime model. The Redmi 3S bears 2GB of RAM with 16GB of inbuilt storage, while the Redmi 3S Prime bears 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S has been so far available in the China, and India appears to be the first overseas market.
For specifications, the Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime (seen below) pack an all-new octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor with four cores clocked at 1.1GHz, and four other cores at 1.4GHz alongside the Adreno 505 GPU. The Chinese company claimed that the Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime are the first smartphones featuring the new Snapdragon 430 chipset to ship in India.
The smartphones support expandable storage via microSD card (up to 128GB). The dual-SIM handsets (Micro + Nano) come with hybrid SIM slots which means the second slot also acts as a microSD slot. One of the biggest improvements over the original Xiaomi Redmi 3 is the Redmi 3S Prime features a fingerprint scanner at the back panel.
The Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime feature a 5-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) IPS display and run MIUI 7.5 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The smartphones sport a 13-megapixel rear camera with PDAF (phase detection autofocus), f/2.0 aperture, HDR mode, 1080p video recording, and LED flash. The handsets also pack a 5-megapixel front camera with 1080p video recording capability.
Connectivity options on the handsets include 4G, Wi-Fi, GPRS/ EDGE, Bluetooth, GPS/ A-GPS, Bluetooth, Glonass, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Micro-USB. The handsets are backed by a 4100mAh battery just like the original Redmi 3. The Redmi 3S and Redmi 3S Prime measure 139.3×69.6×8.5mm.
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