Xiaomi Redmi 5 sale on Amazon at 12 noon today: Read review, specs & more

The Redmi 5 sports modern 18:9 aspect ratio screen wrapped in a metallic-plastic chassis. The phone seems to be on the expensive side for a budget-centric smartphone

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi launched the Redmi 5 at a starting price of Rs 7,999 on March 14. The Amazon-exclusive budget-centric smartphone would go on sale today, March 30, at 12 noon.

The Redmi 5 is the third Redmi-series smartphone launched after the Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro in India in 2018. The phone has a modern 18:9 aspect ratio screen wrapped in a metallic-plastic chassis, which looks plush. However, unlike previous-generation Redmi-series devices, the Redmi 5 seems to be on the expensive side for a budget-centric smartphone.

The smartphone is built on the blue print of its elder sibling, the Redmi Note 5, which gives it an edge in terms of design. However, the innards have been kept in line with previous generation, besides some minor improvements, to keep the price in check.

On the front, the Redmi 5 is dominated by a 5.7-inch HD+ 18:9 aspect ratio screen, covered by a 2.5D glass. It does look plush; but for an 18:9 screen device, the smartphone has huge bezels on the top and bottom. The screen is bright and vivid. However, the HD+ resolution in the 5.7-inch screen looks pixelated.

The Redmi 5 sports the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 system-on-chip (SoC), which is an octa-core processor built on 14-nanometre processing plant. The energy-efficient processor is mated with the MIUI 9 operating system built on Google Android Nougat 7.1.2.

For imaging, the Redmi 5 sports a 12-megapixel primary camera and a 5MP selfie camera. Both the cameras offer a satisfactory output in day light but suffer drastically during low-light conditions.

Powering the device is a 3,300 mAh battery, which is good 800 mAH less than the predecessor. However, the power-efficient processor, coupled with HD+ screen returns good on-battery numbers.

The phone competes with Huawei Honor 9 Lite, iVoomi i1, InFocus Vision 3 and itel S42 in its price segment.