Xiaomi‘s Mi5 flagship has arrived not too long ago on the market, and has been greeted with generally positive reviews. Its praises come from good build quality matched by mostly high specs, and, in typical Chinese fashion, an affordable price.
However, the firm does not want to trail behind come the last quarter of the year. In order to hack it against the likes of Samsung (with its Note 7) and Apple (and the iPhone) among others, it looks like Xiaomi is prepping to launch a higher-end version of its top phone…
Of course, the rumored “Mi5s” will come with top-of-the-line specifications, with things like 6GB of RAM and possibly even a dual camera setup on the back. However, a report from China (via GizmoChina) is mentioning a few, potentially distinctive and more interesting characteristics.
If the rumors are correct, the Mi5s will have both a pressure-sensitive panel and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader.
As per the former, despite the delay of a universal, platform-wide support from Google itself, we have already seen other companies — like Huawei with its Mate S and P9 Plus, or ZTE‘s Axon mini — do this, so we would expect some sort of similar integration (hoping for Google to hurry up and bake this feature right into Android).
The latter, instead, would come as a world’s first in the consumer electronics’ world — potentially beating none other than Apple to the punch — and likely derivative of a collaboration of Xiaomi and Qualcomm, as the chip manufacturer has already shown a working technology at this year’s CES.
As far as functionality goes, ultrasonic scanners are not much different from today’s “standard” readers — and neither should speed change much, considering how good the ones we have are already — but the ultrasonic pulse transmitted against the finger would allow the device to have a much more complex and true-to-life image of your fingerprint, making it noticeably harder for potential prowlers to imitate.
There’s no word on official announcement dates yet, but we can expect to hear more during the coming weeks and months.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments