We have been seeing several variants of the Xiaomi Redmi 3 in the past couple of weeks. Now, Xiaomi has officially taken the wraps off the new device, and it is confirmed that the phone will be called as the Redmi 3S. The new model uses the Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz instead of the Snapdragon 616 chipset found inside the previous Redmi 3 models. Rest of the specs and design seem to be similar to the earlier models.
So, the new Redmi 3S will come with a metal body with a fingerprint sensor located at the back. There will be three color options, gold, silver with white front and gray with black front. As for the specs, the Redmi 3S will come in two memory variants, 2GB RAM + 16GB storage and 3GB RAM + 32GB storage. The storage is further expandable up to 128GB via a hybrid MicroSD card slot.
The phone sports a 5-inch 720p display and a 5MP f/2.2 front facing camera. At the back, the device features a 13MP shooter with f/2.0 aperture, HDR, PDAF and 1080p full HD recording. Like the previous generation Redmi models, Xiaomi Redmi 3S is using a large 4100mAh battery on board with 5V 2A fast charging. With the efficient chipset and display, you should easily get around a couple of days of usage with this battery. The phone also comes with an infrared port which can be used to control various applications inside your home. Other features include MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, 4G LTE and dual SIM dual standby.
Like always, Xiaomi has priced the new handset aggressively. The Redmi 3S 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM edition starts at 699 Yuan ($106), and you will have to shell out 899 Yuan ($136) for the 3GB RAM + 32GB of storage. The phone will go on sale on May 16 at 10:00 AM from the company’s official store, Lynx store, JD.com and Suning.com.
