BusTalk: Why the Really Affordable Redmi Note 5A isn’t Good News
Yesterday was the grand opening of the second Mi Home in Singapore, an indication that Mi Singapore’s shift to offline stores is paying off. But yesterday was also the day Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 5A in China, an ultra affordable variant of the unreleased Redmi Note 5. Only one of them is a good news and it is definitely not the latter. Here’s why.
The base variant of the Redmi Note 5A comes in the 2/16GB RAM and storage configuration and cost only ¥699. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Moving the next storage configuration, we have the 3/32GB variant, which is priced at ¥899. This is where things get a little concerning.
¥899 sounds really affordable and the specs are not bad. However, if the Redmi Note 4X with same storage configuration only costs ¥999, can we consider the Redmi Note 5A a good deal? Just to save ¥100 (~S$20) and get a slightly better selfie camera, you are sacrificing the large battery and a powerful yet efficient processor, both key features of the Redmi Note 4. Unless budget is super tight, why would anyone get the Redmi Note 5A?
However, that isn’t the real bad news. We can always ignore its existence like we did with the Mi 5C. What we cannot ignore is the possibility of a costlier Redmi Note device this year. Xiaomi isn’t dumb. They are not going to release a clearly superior Redmi Note 5 with the same price tag as the Redmi Note 5A. The base variant is expected to be priced above ¥1000; probably around ¥1299 in China and above S$300 here in Singapore.
That said, I can understand where Xiaomi is coming from. The Redmi 4A did really well in 2017 Q2, selling more than any other Xiaomi devices in that quarter. It even took home the fifth spot in the global top selling smartphone list. Clearly, this strategy is working really well for Xiaomi.
I do not mind Xiaomi increasing the Redmi Note 5’s price tag as long as they can impress us with significant improvements from the Redmi Note 4. If they can bring the Mi Max 2’s superb camera to the Redmi Note 5 at under S$350, and maybe bump the processor to a Snapdragon 660, it will still be an excellent deal. What do you think? Leave a comment below.
