Xiaomi Inc. is a privately owned Chinese electronics and software company headquartered in Beijing and is the world’s 5th largest smartphone maker in 2017. It continues dominance of the Indian market with the launch of its latest offering the Redmi Y1 and Y1 lite in the Indian Market.
Hardware and Exterior
Both the phones have been launched in the budget/pocket friendly segment which is the one gathering the most steam with the launch of 4G services by almost all operators in the country.
The Redmi Y1 has an all metal body with a camera module at the rear and the the front. The RedmiY1 packs in 16 MP front camera paired with an LED Selfie-light whereas the RedmiY1 Lite supports a 13 MP rear sensor.
Redmi Y1 also has the fingerprint sensor at the rear of the device whereas this seems to be given a skip in the Redmi Y1 lite.
The Redmi Y1 has a 1.4 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 octa-core with 2 variant options of 3 GB/4GB plus 32GB/64GB memory.
The Redmi Y1 Lite seems to be the lighter option with Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 quad-core 64-bit and 2 GB RAM and 16 GB memory. Both phones support expansion via MicroSD slot.
Both the phones support Dual SIM and have a 3080 MaH battery.
Software
The Redmi Y1 runs MIUI 9 beta out of the box, and will get the stable update mid-November.
According to the company, MIUI 9 has faster app launches that makes use of optimized touch feedback, CPU acceleration, and optimized thread scheduling in the background.
There’s also split screen (like stock Android), icon animations, and smart photo editing. The company claims that the latest iteration of MIUI is as fast as stock Android.
The phones are available as an Amazon Exclusive from the 12th November and is open to re-registration. The Redmi Y1 Lite price is 6,999/- whereas Redmi Y1 is 8,999/- and 10,999/- depending on the variant.