Xiaomi is all set to make some changes in its popular Redmi brand. The company confirmed a couple of days back that the brand was going independent, much like Honor acts as a separate brand from Huawei. The primary reason given by Lei Jun for this big change was allowing the two brands, Xiaomi, and Redmi to focus on their respective high-end and low-end segments. But this change might bring some upgrades to the Redmi lineup, at least according to the comments from CEO Lei Jun.
Earlier today, he posted a couple of comments on Weibo about the idea of Type-C ports on a Redmi smartphone. He asked his followers whether they would like to see Type-C port on Redmi phones. He further added that this would eventually increase the cost of the smartphone. However, he failed to confirm whether the upcoming 48MP Redmi model will feature this new USB standard. Given his sudden interest in this particular topic, especially before its launch on January 10, it’s likely that the phone swaps the old MicroUSB port for Type-C.
Despite upgrading the processors on recent Redmi smartphones like the Snapdragon 636 in the Redmi Note 6 Pro or its predecessor, the low-cost lineup has almost always used the traditional MicroUSB port. USB Type-C connectors first started appearing nearly three years ago. If you remember, the LeTV trio — Le Max, Le 1 Pro, and Le 1, were the first set of Android smartphones to bring this reversible connector into the mainstream market back in 2015. At that time, we would have thought Type-C ports would become mainstream by the end of 2018. But unfortunately, there’s still a lot of MicroUSB smartphone releases in the market. Even the new Zenfone Max Pro M2 features a MicroUSB 2.0 port, not to mention a bunch of mid-rangers from OPPO like the A7X still featuring this old port.
The upcoming Redmi smartphone is confirmed to come with a 48MP camera on board. Recent TENAA certifications further reveal a few features about the phone, including its gradient design. You can read all about it from here. Another interesting rumor going around is that the Redmi brand could be headed by Gionee’s former president, Lu Weibing. A couple of days back, Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun revealed that Lu had joined the company but he failed to reveal his exact role. The timing of the announcement and the news about Redmi going independent could have led to these speculations. For now, we don’t have any official confirmation in this regard.
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