Hands on photos plus leaked specifications, reveal Xiaomi could be launching an all new entry-level phone with an estimated price of just 799 Yuan ($130).
Rumours of the Xiaomi “Red Rice” started a few months ago but died down after the launch of the Xiaomi M2s and M2a (which many believed the “Red Rice” to be). Today, new details of the phone have emerged along with more spy photos and specifications.
From the rear of the phone it is easy to see why many people thought the Red Rice was the M2a, as both feature the new square-shaped camera, which is thought to be the same 8 mega-pixel sensor used in current Xiaomi phones.
However, the front of the mysterious Xiaomi Red Rice confirms that this is a different phone all together.
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According to sources who have had some hands on time with the Xiaomi Red Rice, this low-cost phone has the largest display of any Xiaomi to date measuring in at 4.7-inch with a resolution of 1280 x 720. That’s the same resolution as the Xiaomi M2s and M2a but on a larger panel. In comparison the M2s has a 4.3-inch display and the M2a a 4.5-inch.
Looking back at past rumours, one report suggested that the Red Rice would be use the 1.2Ghz quad-core Mediatek MT6589 SoC, but that has now changed and a dual-core Leadercore LC1810 processor running at 1.2Ghz is in place.
The LC1810 is a Cortex A9 based chip with dual standby support for TD-SCDMA and GSM bands, and 1080P HD video coding and decoding.
There is also 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM (no word on a SD card slot) 2000mAh battery, 2 mega-pixel front camera and MIUI V5 will come installed as standard.
As for a launch date, we guess that Xiaomi will save the launch of the Red Rice until around October which is when we also expect to see the Xiaomi Mi3 launch!
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IDK why, but it just seems unlikely to me that it would have a 4.7 inch screen with as large as the bottom bezel is. Looks good though and $130 is a killer price. The only big question is this Leadercore processor. Haven’t heard much about it.
What gpu does it have? what camera, 5mp or 8mp? Which version of android, 4.1 or 4.2? If this phone is real then it is stunning value. cortex a9 is much faster than cortex a7, performance would be like a dual core 1.6ghz cortex a7.
8 mega-pixel rear camera, Mali 400
This is one strange SOC…. Didn’t seem to find anything about it online but from what you’re saying it doesn’t support WCDMA so for me it’s pretty much useless.
Also if it won’t launch till October … The Jiayu G4 it is then 🙂
Leadercore = Leadcore technology. http://www.leadcoretech.com/
They did did get a 40mn Corxex A9 licence in combination with a Mali 400 GPU in 2011.
If they are still using this setup for there chipsets then (besides 3G only in China) the phone will consume quite some power…
Indeed these are my 2 main concerns, power usage will be far over the rest of the bunch and with 3G only in China this is no buy for anyone outside China.
I don’t really get this, there are good Qualcomm, Mediatek and even Intel low cost and low power SOCs …
I’m not sure ,why would xiaomi pick that over mtk? or even over other less known chinese brands which are still more known than “leadercore”? do they want to help leadercore to become more known? Also if they “got a licence of a SoC” they are makers, not designers and the processor is not “leader core”. Strange also seems not likely. BTW the redphone looks really bad :s
Andy can you make a comparition review of the jiayu g4 vs xiaomi m2a.
I’m interested in both phones but can’t really choose
They are very different in terms of price. The M2a is also more powerful and gets weekly OTA updates. We will get our G4 sample for review soon.
I remember reading a couple of months ago that Xiaomi were going to launch an android tv box, did it ever materialise ?
They did release a TV box a while ago, but I believe it was not based on android. Also, this box has mostly Chinese content, so I don’t think this box is interesting for most people. You don”t even know if this box works outside China (referring to the Chinese content).