That’s not a secret Xiaomi will announce a new device on August 21. The spokesman will be company’s president, Lin Bin. The device has been designed for an entry-level market. Therefore it’s reasonable not to find eye-catching features in its specs list. But are you sure it’s so? Today Lin Bin published an interesting post on his social media profile making many smartphone makers revise their policy. It turns out the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A will sport a 16MP camera paired with a front LED flash and 36-level beautification feature. Thus the phone belongs to the entry-level category and it’s been made for students mainly. Do you imagine how large its targeted market is?
To understand what this means we have to take a look at a few selfie-centric smartphones. First of them is the Oppo R9S, a great handset sporting a 16MP front camera. This handset took Oppo to the unseen heights. Mainly thanks to it and its predecessor Oppo could sell too much and became the second Chinese smartphone brand after Huawei. Second, the Vivo Xplay 6 comes with a 16MP front shooter as well. Though this brand has a few other flagships unlike Oppo, this phone has been very popular a few months back. It helped the company to get the third position in the smartphones market.
As for now, the selfie-focused smartphones come with larger camera sensors. Say, the Oppo R11 sports a 20MP camera; the same can be said about the Huawei Nova 2; finally, Meitu has gone further and launched 21MP camera-packed the M8 and T8. I am not talking about dual-front-camera handsets that are very popular as well. It turns out the powerful front shooter is a mainstream, but no one could imagine a 16MP camera module can appear on a device costing as low as 599/799 yuan ($90/120).
Now when we know the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A will come with a 16MP front camera and a couple of advanced features for it, we can say that’s not just a Redmi Note 4A with a bigger screen. It’s a new low-end smartphone at the most affordable price and made generally for customers with low income – for students.
Update: Check out the first photo samples of the forthcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A’s front camera.
