In a bid to become a budget smartphone king, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 was launched this Thursday (3rd March) in India. The Xiaomi Mi 4i was launched last year, after which came Redmi Note Prime, Redmi 2 Prime, which were essentially upgrades of older devices. The handset will be up for sale from March 9 on Mi.com and Amazon.in. In a bid to take the lion’s share in the mid-priced smartphone segment, Redmi Note 3 will not only be available on other platforms like Snapdeal and Flipkart, but also offline, in stores. Its worth mentioning that the smartphone is the world’s first device equipped with Snapdragon 650 processor in India.
Manufactured in India as part of the country’s Make in India initiative let’s start with the major specifications of the device. It runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 650 SoC (four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz and two Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz) and comes with 2GB of RAM on the 16GB model and 3GB RAM on the 32GB model. The handset has Android 5.1 Lollipop and is powered by a massive 4,050mAh battery. It comes with 5v/2A Qualcomm Quick Charge technology, that’ll enables the device to charge up to 50% within an hour and requires only three hours to full charge.
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The phone comes with a 5.5-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels. The phone packs 16GB & 32GB of internal storage cannot be expanded. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 packs a 16-megapixel primary camera on the rearwith f2.0 aperture and phase detect autofocus and a 5-megapixel front shooter for selfies. It measures 150x76x8.65mm and weighs around 164 grams. As for connectivity, Redmi Note 3 has options like WiFi, GPS, GPRS/ EDGE, 4G LTE (compatible with Indian LTE bands), 3G, VoLTE, Bluetooth, and Micro-USB. The device supports dual 4G SIM cards (Micro + Nano) and has got a fingerprint scanner at the back, with a MediaTek SoC.
Redmi Note 3 comes with MIUI 7 in India with features like ShowTime anfd options for Child Mode, to increase Text Size, , Data Saver, etc. The device is available in the following colour options – Champagne Gold, Dark Gold and Silver Colours.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Key Specifications:
- Display: 5.50-inch
- Resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels
- Processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 650 SoC
- RAM: 2GB
- Operating System: Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Storage: 16GB & 32GB
- Front Camera: 5-megapixel
- Rear Camera: 16-megapixel
- Battery capacity: 4050mAh
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Now speaking of the offline sale of Redmi Note 3, the goal is to expand it growth in India which shouldn’t really come as a surprise.“India is an important market for us,” Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s International Vice-President said at the Redmi Note 3 launch. The company claims that they have shipped to over 1,500 locations throughout India. The company also informed that their previous devices were in high demand in the urban 1-tier cities but since last year there has been an increasing demand in tier-2 and tier-3 cities for Xiaomi devices, while online shipment to all those places are not possible Xiaomi has decided to step into the offline market too. Xiaomi India head Manu Jain made a statement, “We want to scale up our own e-commerce offerings in India, both on the front-end and back-end. In China, we’re not just a smartphone company, but also big on the e-commerce front and this is an area we want to improve in India as well.”
Wrap Up:
India is the next important market for Xiaomi’s growth and Redmi Note 3 is the stepping stone. With pricing Rs 9,999 -Rs 11,999, and the kind of specifications offered reassuring fans that the ‘Mi India’ magic is still alive, Redmi Note 3 is most likely to be a hit. If they manage to create enough buzz in the market, then in near future other mid-ranged smartphone company will have a run for their money.