We all know Xiaomi for being a Chinese phone designer that creates outstanding hi-end China handsets to later sell them for a budget. But besides that, we also reckon the company of experimenting and not fearing risks of failure. One of the greatest revolutionary risks in the industry was undertaken by Xiaomi its self, the creation of a concept mobile phone that has an all-touchscreen display. Xiaomi made this dream-phone a reality last year when introduced the Xiaomi Mi Mix. One pricey handset that often sells in flash sales that last a few minutes before going out of stock.
We Also know Xiaomi for introducing a hi-end laptop called Mi Notebook Air. But we will soon learn to recognize the Chinese giant as a processor maker. Might sound weird, but Xiaomi has been developing a processor of its own for its mobile handsets. The Xiaomi processors will be called Pinecone, and the first chipset is reportedly set to debut with the Xiaomi Mi 5c (the rumors regarding the Mi 5C stated that it would run Snapdragon 625, but in fact is the Pinecone SoC which looks like an overclocked Snapdragon 625).
Xiaomi is set to announce two versions of the Pinecone processors, the first of the two series will be an octa-core chipset with eight Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at 2.2GHz while the second will be housing Cortex-A73.
As for the mid-range Mi 5c, it recently leaked in images online, and its appearance and most of the specifications became public ahead of official announcement. Xiaomi Mi 5c will be sporting a 5.5-inch FHD display (1920 x 1080) and bear a metal body design. Its main camera will be a 13MP unit and the selfie camera to be an 8MP. Both cameras will be capable of recording videos at 1080p.
Mi 5c will run the company’s own octa-core Pinecone mobile processor (not the Snapdragon 625) with 3GB of RAM and will have a 64GB of storage version. The internal memory will support expansion via a microSD card (probably up to 128GB), and the handset will launch upgraded to Android 7.0 Nougat with MIUI 8 interface on top.
The battery capacity of the Xiaomi Mi 5c is not known yet, but if the company decides to maintain the same capacity as that featured on the Xiaomi Mi 5s we can expect a decent battery life. Mi 5c is expected to launch somewhere between March and April, as Xiaomi is expected to launch the Xiaomi Mi 6 powerhouse flagship running the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in July.
Mi 5c is expected to cost somewhere near $320, a bit more expensive than the Snapdragon 820-powered Mi 5s. Let’s hope that Xiaomi’s Pinecone chipset will offer a better performance than the Snapdragon 820. In addition, Xiaomi has supplied its mobile processor’s brand with an empty website and a Weibo account.