Redmi’s General Manager Lu Weibing has provided his perspective on the lack of acceptance of gaming smartphones, stressing that the company is well-primed to engender greater popularity of gaming smartphones in the market. Weibing’s statement comes in the wake of the unveiling of the Redmi K40 Gaming Edition in China.

The Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition is Xiaomi’s first gaming smartphone outside of the BlackShark brand. The company expects it to catch the appeal of its customers due to its impressive gaming features and affordability. Liu Weibing disclosed that Redmi decided to enter the gaming smartphone market due to the lack of popularity of gaming smartphones.

Redmi’s gaming phone is the most affordable model around as gaming phones are mostly expensive. Weibing attributed the premium pricing to the higher cost of production of premium gaming smartphones.  Getting an appropriate processor, decent screen, memory, and other aspects in the production and marketing spectrum combine to make the cost of the phones to be generally exorbitant.

The K40 Game Enhanced version sells for around 2000 yuan (~$310), making it by far the cheapest gaming smartphone among the popular brands by a mile. The phone was sold out within a minute during its first sale today in China. It is expected that the acceptance given the K40 Gaming edition in China would be replicated in other countries where a rollout of the model or its variants will take place in the coming weeks. There are speculations that it will launch as POCO F3 GT in India.

The Redmi K40 features an impressive overall form factor and has a relatively lower weight than its competitors like the ASUS ROG Phone 5 and the Nubia Red Magic 5. It is, therefore, lighter and thinner than its present competitors and is a fair reflection of the research and innovative effort put in by Xiaomi in the design and production of the gadget. The company is targeting sales of up to 1.7 million units of the K40 Gaming Enhanced Edition in China alone and the early results indicate that the outlook remains bright for the model.

The Redmi General Manager also noted that the popularization of gaming smartphones could be a difficult task, but the company is ready to plunge into the task because of the opportunities it sees, going forward.

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(via)

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Redmi general manager Lu Weibing insists that the demand for small phones has been on the increase in recent years. He also said battery technology needs to advance to deliver the same battery size in a smaller form factor.

Weibing also made some mention of the future of fast charging and LCD-based in-display fingerprint sensors.

Fast-rising Chinese phone maker, Xiaomi has released various competitive devices this year, but smaller phones are not among the devices released so far. Weibing had previously said that the firm wants to build a small phone but that battery capacity will be sacrificed because the technology is yet to achieve longer-lasting batteries for such small phones.

In an interview session with Android Authority, Weibing acknowledged that indeed there is a growing demand for smaller phones. In his comments, he stated that extended battery life is a fundamental requirement for all Redmi smartphones, stressing that the challenge is developing a physically smaller battery with the same capacity as the larger one requires a tremendous breakthrough in battery technology.

In 2017, the Redmi 4X was released with a 4,100mAh battery while the phone was just 5 inches long. However, a greater challenge awaits the firm in this age 5G, with key components and multiple cameras taking up vital space, while 5G and high refresh rate screens require larger batteries too.

A bigger battery usually requires faster-charging speeds to maintain standard fast charging times. Xiaomi indeed launched 120W charging in 2020. But is there a limit to charging speeds? Improved battery technology holds the key, in the words of the Redmi Executive.
Inevitably, with recent tech advancements, low-end phones will soon have fast charging capabilities.

Although Weibing was silent on the kind of charging speeds Xiaomi is expecting for sub-$300 phones in 2021, the company has already revealed several low-budget phones with 30W or higher speeds in 2020, including the Redmi Note 9 Pro series. So it should be expected that fast charging technology may be more prevalent by 2021.

Of course, super-fast charging was not the only technology Weibing has touted in 2020. He also demonstrated in-display fingerprint sensors using LCD screens earlier this year. However, the implementation of technology seems to be stalled at the moment.

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