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When we think of budget smartphones, we think of phones that either use low-end chipsets or mid-range ones at best. However, Xiaomi’s sub-brand Redmi has plans to do neither. In a post on Weibo, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun was asked if the recently launched Redmi Note 7 would be the company’s flagship smartphone for the year.
According to Lei Jun, he said that it will not and apparently the company has plans to release a phone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 which would is the same chipset we expect many flagships to be powered by this year. His comments seem to have been deleted (we can’t find it) which suggests that maybe it was information he wasn’t supposed to share just yet.
If they are accurate, it seems that Xiaomi is well on their way to conquering the low-end market, which while might offer up smaller profit margins, makes up for it in quantity. This would also not be the company’s first budget smartphone offering with flagship specs. Back in 2018, another Xiaomi sub-brand Poco launched the Pocophone F1, a smartphone featuring the use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 that was priced starting at $300.
It has been reported that the Snapdragon 855-powered smartphone is also expected to be priced around that range at roughly $368, which despite being slightly more expensive is still very much affordable and at least half the price of most flagship smartphones.
Lei Jun does not mention when this phone will be launched, but we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it.
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