Xiaomi Redmi 3S gets a fingerprint scanner (leaked photos)


xiaomi redmi 3

Xiaomi have spoilt their buyers by having a fingerprint sensor on a phone from their budget range, i.e., the Redmi Note 3.

As you all know, the Redmi Note series consists of large screen phones (~5.5-inch), while the smaller phones in the budget series fall under the Redmi scheme.

Launched in January this year, the Redmi 3 doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor akin to its Note cousin. Xiaomi seem to want to set that straight.

What confirms the company’s intentions are leaked photos of the Xiaomi Redmi 3S, aka a Redmi 3 with a fingerprint scanner.

Gizchina News of the week


While spec and pricing will only go official during the launch (which is expected to take place on the 6th of April), TENAA gives insight into what could be the Redmi 3S.

The phone will, supposedly, feature a Snapdragon 616 processor, a 5-inch display (possible upgrade to 1080p), 2GB RAM, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, and a 4000mAh battery 3000mAh battery (which is strange, because the weight remains the same)… besides all other Redmi 3 bells and whistles.

Moving on to the alleged pricing of the phone, it’s being said that this fingerprint phone will go for 799 Yuan or $122, a slight bit over the non-fingerprint Redmi 3.

Would you buy?

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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110 Comments

  1. Xalis
    March 10, 2016

    Still no global ROM for the Redmi Note 3.

    • Muhammad Yasir
      March 10, 2016

      whats a global rom ?

      • Tajwar
        March 10, 2016

        It’s… A Global Rom

        • Muhammad Yasir
          March 10, 2016

          okkk…??

        • MaxPower
          March 10, 2016

          Is there a global ROM for RN3 Pro?
          Did you keep the original one?

          • Tajwar
            March 11, 2016

            Ah yes still have the original one

            • MaxPower
              March 11, 2016

              How do you like it so far?
              I’m experiencing several bugs.

              On a Skype video call the sound stops when I switch to portrait mode.

              Also chrome has some issues with portrait mode.

              YouTube videos are choppy of you watch them embedded into a webpage.

              Page with lot of JavaScript are slow (same page with MI4 is fluid)

              What about yours?
              I’m afraid it’s due to lollipop ROM, I’m gonna try to ask to unlock the bootloader to try another ROM, maybe the developer one.

            • Tajwar
              March 11, 2016

              It’s probably lollipop.

              Ram management is awful, could be just me.

              I don’t like the intensity of the vibration, it’s very annoying as I always have my phone on vibration mode.

              I don’t know if it can be considered a con but the LED notification light is too f*ing bright, at night time as I have the white/silver variant the whole thing just shines like it’s Christmas already.

              Some times it restarts for no apparent reason.

              Whenever I come from Flight Mode it doesn’t connect to the 4G so I have to restart the phone.

              And some other problems that I don’t remember…
              Hope it gets Android N or Marshmallow, heck even KitKat is fine

      • Tajwar
        March 10, 2016

        Well ok, it’s an official version of MIUI with Play Services already installed and no Chinese “bloatwear” & services.

        • Mi-fan
          March 10, 2016

          I hate the global roms, because they never include all the features like the CN rom. Rather go with CN rom and have all the CN convenience apps and load play on it with installer

          • cyril dieudonné
            March 10, 2016

            I agree. Global is missing a lot of features.

        • Xalis
          March 10, 2016

          Also multi-languages.

        • Muhammad Yasir
          March 10, 2016

          yeah … thats more like it !

  2. Muhammad Yasir
    March 10, 2016

    NEEDS FHD !

    • Mi-fan
      March 10, 2016

      Why? 720p is enough and good for battery life.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        March 10, 2016

        because … this needs to go compete with lenovo’s latest lemon model …

        and it’d be a MASSIVE step up in the series !

        • Mi-fan
          March 10, 2016

          Oh yeah, right the lemon. I guess they will likely keep the usual specs and throw in a fingerprint sensor. Maybe there is money left in these 100rmb for a FHD screen

          • Muhammad Yasir
            March 10, 2016

            thats what im hoping for !
            it’d be the PERFECT buy !

            value for money and awesome set o’ specs for the current gen phones !

            • Mi-fan
              March 10, 2016

              Will you finally buy a phone? You always complain its to expensive, so what phone do you have?

            • Muhammad Yasir
              March 10, 2016

              Nokia 105 (2013)
              and
              HTC Cha Cha

              and i did not complain about any expense here…

            • Mi-fan
              March 10, 2016

              Wow i feel sorry now. Is tax in Pakistan to high to buy redmi 3

            • Muhammad Yasir
              March 10, 2016

              yeah well , the customs dept is ruthless and the taxes are kinda ridiculous. mostly lousy govt policies :/

              to summarize it for you ,
              any thing costing $ X for you , is LIKELY to cost $ X + ( 40% * $ X ) here

            • MaxPower
              March 10, 2016

              It sucks wherever you buy something from outside your country but it’s good to protect your local economy.

            • cyril dieudonné
              March 10, 2016

              I agree

            • cyril dieudonné
              March 10, 2016

              what is so perfect in buying something that nobody can actually see? There is no advantages, only flaws. Draining battery and asking more to chips. What if Lenovo is doing a mistake? You want Xiaomi to copy it? Just … to copy it? A phone trading batterylife for an invisible screen resolution evolution might not be the best path to walk.

            • realjjj
              March 11, 2016

              You have at least 1 big problem, you need glasses.

            • cyril dieudonné
              March 28, 2016

              actually no, the human eye will not be able to see the difference. and if a minority of people with super powers can do it… what is it for? Since you know it reduces the battery life? Isn’t it stupid to sacrifice the battery life over a very small display improvement? you just react like a kid who absolutely want the last power rangers because they painted it under the feet, unlike the previous model.

        • nobitakun
          March 10, 2016

          Suuure. Let’s have all phones with FHD screens because, why not?

          FHD 5″ screen is the senselest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, as same as I would say for 4k on a laptop.

          Is really more always better?

          • Muhammad Yasir
            March 10, 2016

            most of the time it is !

            who are you to say we won’t be getting 4k Laptops by the year’s end ?!

            FHD should become standard now

            • nobitakun
              March 11, 2016

              And who you are to say that we need FHD screens for a 5″ phone? do you differentiate what people need? I don’t need a FHD screen in such small size as well as other many people. You go and buy whatever you want but do not come up with made up laws about what should be standard or not.

    • EasyCare
      March 10, 2016

      Virtually no difference in details at expense of worse battery life, worse performance and higher price tag? No.

  3. thelion
    March 10, 2016

    I hope in 1080p and sd650

  4. realjjj
    March 10, 2016

    ??? TENAA gives you specs but you refuse to look and go with random ones?
    It’s the same device, they add fingerprint and the battery goes from 4000mAh to 3000mAh http://shouji.tenaa.com.cn/Mobile/MobileDetail.aspx?code=zDErPbEoeuAgCnH5gd4%2fOXWVcIffXokT

    • March 10, 2016

      Ah, apologies about that, correction made.

      • realjjj
        March 10, 2016

        You forgot the screen res.

  5. HBK
    March 10, 2016

    Will be launched in India too i guess, For 599 Yuan or under 100Usd.

    • HBK
      March 10, 2016

      799 yuan won’t be good considering the price of Redmi Note 3 SD 650 version.

      • realjjj
        March 10, 2016

        That’s a random speculation from some chinese blogger and a realistic one is same price as the normal version as it trades battery capacity for fingerprint.

  6. Young
    March 10, 2016

    Too many phones within a short period of time from Xiaomi.

    Cant they just focus on the ones already released and give support to it than every month, new phone.

    This isn’t funny.

    • EasyCare
      March 10, 2016

      You have a point. Though fortunately Xiaomi do support all of their recent phones (1st Redmi Note from 2014 is still supported).

      • Young
        March 10, 2016

        Not well enough.

        • EasyCare
          March 10, 2016

          How is it “not well enough”? All their phones will receive monthly updates with MIUI. If you’re talking about Android version, they simply don’t care much because their MIUI offsets the feature found in newer Android versions.

          • Young
            March 11, 2016

            No update for Mi 3 for such long. Global Stable ROM

            • EasyCare
              March 12, 2016

              Mi 3 is actually still receiving software updates for Global ROM http://en.miui.com/download-101.html with MIUI 7.2 coming up later after Chinese ROM rollout.

            • Young
              March 12, 2016

              We suppose to have gotten Lollipop or Android M just for a better battery.

            • EasyCare
              March 12, 2016

              Maybe, but even then MIUI has system-level battery optimization as well. Also Marshmallow-based MIUI is under development stage.

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      That’s basically the same phone just with the addition of a fingerprint scanner, same hardware, same kernel, same drivers.
      The updates for this one are the same for the previous one, same about support.

      • Young
        March 10, 2016

        They should just slow down.

        • MaxPower
          March 10, 2016

          Di you mind reasoning it?

          I’m asking because in this specific case “support” is not a valid argument.

          You will have basically the same phone but one has a bigger battery and one a fingerprint scanner.
          If you like the one with fingerprint scanner then you go for that specific model, somebody else might prefer the one with bigger battery.

          I really don’t see cons.

          • Young
            March 11, 2016

            Noted

      • highwind
        March 10, 2016

        With same updates and support you mean that both are still stuck at Android 5?

        • MaxPower
          March 10, 2016

          Google released their data today:
          Marshmallow is installed on 2% of worldwide phones.

          If you want the very last update from Google then get a Nexus

        • EasyCare
          March 10, 2016

          Xiaomi doesn’t care much with Android versions, but all of their phones do receive the same MIUI version (7.1 now).

          Their focus is on their custom user interface and they deliver features through it, hence why some are still on KitKat, some on Lollipop and few on Marshmallow but still same MIUI 7.1. Heck, their UI doesn’t even comply with Google’s Material Design.

  7. VMortens
    March 10, 2016

    Scanner could be a welcome thing, but way smaller battery with bigger resolution screen is just something that will hold the sales back. Plainly stupid.

  8. Guest
    March 10, 2016

    Still no global ROM for the Redmi Note 3.

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      whats a global rom ?

    • Tajwar
      March 10, 2016

      It’s… A Global Rom

    • Tajwar
      March 10, 2016

      Well ok, it’s an official version of MIUI with Play Services already installed and no Chinese “bloatwear” & services.

    • Beloved Chairman Lei Jun
      March 10, 2016

      I hate the global roms, because they never include all the features like the CN rom. Rather go with CN rom and have all the CN convenience apps and load play on it with installer

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      Also multi-languages.

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      yeah … thats more like it !

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      okkk…??

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      Is there a global ROM for RN3 Pro?
      Did you keep the original one?

    • cyril dieudonné
      March 11, 2016

      I agree. Global is missing a lot of features.

    • Tajwar
      March 11, 2016

      Ah yes still have the original one

    • MaxPower
      March 11, 2016

      How do you like it so far?
      I’m experiencing several bugs.

      On a Skype video call the sound stops when I switch to portrait mode.

      Also chrome has some issues with portrait mode.

      YouTube videos are choppy of you watch them embedded into a webpage.

      Page with lot of JavaScript are slow (same page with MI4 is fluid)

      What about yours?
      I’m afraid it’s due to lollipop ROM, I’m gonna try to ask to unlock the bootloader to try another ROM, maybe the developer one.

    • Tajwar
      March 11, 2016

      It’s probably lollipop.

      Ram management is awful, could be just me.

      I don’t like the intensity of the vibration, it’s very annoying as I always have my phone on vibration mode.

      I don’t know if it can be considered a con but the LED notification light is too f*ing bright, at night time as I have the white/silver variant the whole thing just shines like it’s Christmas already.

      Some times it restarts for no apparent reason.

      Whenever I come from Flight Mode it doesn’t connect to the 4G so I have to restart the phone.

      And some other problems that I don’t remember…
      Hope it gets Android N or Marshmallow, heck even KitKat is fine

  9. Guest
    March 10, 2016

    NEEDS FHD !

    • Beloved Chairman Lei Jun
      March 10, 2016

      Why? 720p is enough and good for battery life.

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      because … this needs to go compete with lenovo’s latest lemon model …

      and it’d be a MASSIVE step up in the series !

    • Beloved Chairman Lei Jun
      March 10, 2016

      Oh yeah, right the lemon. I guess they will likely keep the usual specs and throw in a fingerprint sensor. Maybe there is money left in these 100rmb for a FHD screen

    • nobitakun
      March 10, 2016

      Suuure. Let’s have all phones with FHD screens because, why not?

      FHD 5″ screen is the senselest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, as same as I would say for 4k on a laptop.

      Is really more always better?

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      most of the time it is !

      who are you to say we won’t be getting 4k Laptops by the year’s end ?!

      FHD should become standard now

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      thats what im hoping for !
      it’d be the PERFECT buy !

      value for money and awesome set o’ specs for the current gen phones !

    • Beloved Chairman Lei Jun
      March 10, 2016

      Will you finally buy a phone? You always complain its to expensive, so what phone do you have?

    • EasyCare
      March 10, 2016

      Virtually no difference in details at expense of worse battery life, worse performance and higher price tag? No.

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      Nokia 105 (2013)
      and
      HTC Cha Cha

      and i did not complain about any expense here…

    • Beloved Chairman Lei Jun
      March 10, 2016

      Wow i feel sorry now. Is tax in Pakistan to high to buy redmi 3

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      yeah well , the customs dept is ruthless and the taxes are kinda ridiculous. mostly lousy govt policies :/

      to summarize it for you ,
      any thing costing $ X for you , is LIKELY to cost $ X + ( 40% * $ X ) here

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      It sucks wherever you buy something from outside your country but it’s good to protect your local economy.

    • cyril dieudonné
      March 11, 2016

      what is so perfect in buying something that nobody can actually see? There is no advantages, only flaws. Draining battery and asking more to chips. What if Lenovo is doing a mistake? You want Xiaomi to copy it? Just … to copy it? A phone trading batterylife for an invisible screen resolution evolution might not be the best path to walk.

    • cyril dieudonné
      March 11, 2016

      I agree

    • nobitakun
      March 11, 2016

      And who you are to say that we need FHD screens for a 5″ phone? do you differentiate what people need? I don’t need a FHD screen in such small size as well as other many people. You go and buy whatever you want but do not come up with made up laws about what should be standard or not.

    • realjjj
      March 11, 2016

      You have at least 1 big problem, you need glasses.

    • cyril dieudonné
      March 29, 2016

      actually no, the human eye will not be able to see the difference. and if a minority of people with super powers can do it… what is it for? Since you know it reduces the battery life? Isn’t it stupid to sacrifice the battery life over a very small display improvement? you just react like a kid who absolutely want the last power rangers because they painted it under the feet, unlike the previous model.

  10. thelion
    March 10, 2016

    I hope in 1080p and sd650

  11. realjjj
    March 10, 2016

    TENAA gives you specs.
    It’s the same device, they add fingerprint and the battery goes from 4000mAh to 3000mAh http://shouji.tenaa.com.cn/Mobile/MobileDetail.aspx?code=zDErPbEoeuAgCnH5gd4%2fOXWVcIffXokT

    • Yash Garg
      March 10, 2016

      Ah, apologies about that, correction made.

    • realjjj
      March 10, 2016

      You forgot the screen res.

  12. Guest
    March 10, 2016

    Will be launched in India too i guess, For 599 Yuan or under 100Usd.

    • Guest
      March 10, 2016

      799 yuan won’t be good considering the price of Redmi Note 3 SD 650 version.

    • realjjj
      March 10, 2016

      That’s a random speculation from some chinese blogger and a realistic one is same price as the normal version as it trades battery capacity for fingerprint.

  13. Young
    March 10, 2016

    Too many phones within a short period of time from Xiaomi.

    Cant they just focus on the ones already released and give support to it than every month, new phone.

    This isn’t funny.

    • EasyCare
      March 10, 2016

      You have a point. Though fortunately Xiaomi do support all of their recent phones (1st Redmi Note from 2014 is still supported).

    • Young
      March 10, 2016

      Not well enough.

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      That’s basically the same phone just with the addition of a fingerprint scanner, same hardware, same kernel, same drivers.
      The updates for this one are the same for the previous one, same about support.

    • Young
      March 10, 2016

      They should just slow down.

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      Do you mind reasoning it?

      I’m asking because in this specific case “support” is not a valid argument.

      You will have basically the same phone but one has a bigger battery and one a fingerprint scanner.
      If you like the one with fingerprint scanner then you go for that specific model, somebody else might prefer the one with bigger battery.

      I really don’t see any cons.

    • provokanter Tabellenführer
      March 10, 2016

      With same updates and support you mean that both are still stuck at Android 5?

    • MaxPower
      March 10, 2016

      Google released their data the other day:
      Marshmallow is installed on 2.3% of worldwide phones.

      If you want the very last update from Google then get a Nexus

    • EasyCare
      March 11, 2016

      How is it “not well enough”? All their phones will receive monthly updates with MIUI. If you’re talking about Android version, they simply don’t care much because their MIUI offsets the feature found in newer Android versions.

    • EasyCare
      March 11, 2016

      Xiaomi doesn’t care much with Android versions, but all of their phones do receive the same MIUI version (7.1 now).

      Their focus is on their custom user interface and they deliver features through it, hence why some are still on KitKat, some on Lollipop and few on Marshmallow but still same MIUI 7.1. Heck, their UI doesn’t even comply with Google’s Material Design.

    • Young
      March 11, 2016

      Noted

    • Young
      March 11, 2016

      No update for Mi 3 for such long. Global Stable ROM

    • EasyCare
      March 12, 2016

      Mi 3 is actually still receiving software updates for Global ROM http://en.miui.com/download-101.html with MIUI 7.2 coming up later after Chinese ROM rollout.

    • Young
      March 12, 2016

      We suppose to have gotten Lollipop or Android M just for a better battery.

    • EasyCare
      March 12, 2016

      Maybe, but even then MIUI has system-level battery optimization as well. Also Marshmallow-based MIUI is under development stage.

  14. VMortens
    March 10, 2016

    Scanner could be a welcome thing, but way smaller battery with bigger resolution screen is just something that will hold the sales back. Plainly stupid.

  15. highwind
    March 10, 2016

    xD

  16. provokanter Tabellenführer
    March 10, 2016

    xD