The definition of a premium, or a 'flagship' smartphone is slowly and steadily undergoing a monumental change.
A few years ago, smartphones in the under Rs 30,000 price range only consisted of mid-range devices with middling specs and poor cameras or previous generation flagships which had seen a price cut.
All this changed with the introduction of the OnePlus One. While there were few smartphones before the OnePlus One that tried to offer a flagship like experience at an affordable cost, what cannot be denied is that the OnePlus One ushered in the era of 'affordable flagships' (or flagship killers as some people like to call them) making way for the likes of the Xiaomi Mi5 and the LeEco Le Max.
Also read : 5 best premium smartphones under Rs 30,000
The Xiaomi Mi5, which was launched earlier this year quickly established its dominance over the budget flagship market and trounced the OnePlus 2, which was considered a disappointment by many.
That lasted until the launch of the OnePlus 3. The OnePlus 3 stole the glory from the Xiaomi Mi5 and snatched its tag of the best inexpensive flagship.
However, Xiaomi has now unleashed the Mi 5s , which aims to rectify this and steal the crown back from the OnePlus 3. How does it compete with the OnePlus 3? Let’s find out!
Xiaomi Mi 5s vs OnePlus 3.
1/7 Design
In a departure from previous generations, the OnePlus 3 has an extremely sleek and svelte all metal body made of anodised aluminium.
The device comes with a fingerprint sensor embedded into the home button, which is extremely quick and accurate.
The Mi 5s comes with a sleek and svelte brushed metal uni-body design. What sets it apart from most other smartphones is the new under-glass ultrasonic fingerprint sensing technology, which negates the need of a physical button for the fingerprint sensor.
Additionally, Xiaomi has traded in the glass back of the Mi5 for a metal back in Mi5s, which will definitely increase the smartphone’s appeal.
2/7 Display
The OnePlus 3 has a 5.5-inch fullHD optic AMOLED display, with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 4 and has a pixel density of 401 ppi. In the day and age of 2K displays, a 1080p display at this price point is a little disappointing.
The Xiaomi Mi5s features a 5.15-inch, 1080p LCD IPS display. The display offers good color reproduction and contrast ratio and is bright enough to offer a comfortable viewing experience in outdoor conditions.
Xiaomi has also added an Apple 3D
touch-esque pressure sensitive display on the top variant of the Mi5s.
3/7 Hardware
The OnePlus 3 is powered by the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with two cores running at 2.2GHz and two at 1.6GHz. This is paired with an Adreno 530 GPU, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
The Xiaomi Mi 5s sees a slew of noteworthy internal upgrades over the Xiaomi Mi 5. The Xiaomi Mi 5s comes with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 821 processor, 3GB/4GB of DDR4 RAM and 64GB/128GB of UFS 2.0 internal storage.
4/7 Cameras
The OnePlus 3 has a 16MP rear camera with a Sony IMX 298 sensor, PDAF autofocus and an aperture of f/2.0. It can record 4K videos at 30 fps as well as 720p slow motion videos at 120 fps. Moreover, there is a fixed focus 8MP front camera with a Sony IMX179 sensor and an aperture of f/2.0.
The Xiaomi Mi 5s comes with a new 12MP rear camera using Sony’s IMX378 sensor (also used in the Nexus 6P and HTC 10) and a 4MP front-facing camera.
5/7 Battery
The OnePlus 3 packs a 3,000mAh battery with support for OnePlus's 'Dash Charge' technology, which promises to provide a 60% charge in just 30 minutes.
The Xiaomi Mi5s comes with a 3200mAh battery with support for Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology.
6/7 Software
The OnePlus 3 runs on OnePlus's own Oxygen OS running atop Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. Oxygen OS is smooth and light, and refrains from the heavy customization followed by skins of other manufacturers.
The Mi5s runs on Xiaomi’s MIUI8 running atop Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box which comes with a major design overhaul as well as several small but significant features aimed at simplifying a user's life. You can read more about MIUI8 in our detailed feature breakdown here.
7/7 Price and availability
The Mi5s has been announced in China and will go on sale on September 29. An Indian release date is unknown as of now.
Mi5s Pricing:
3GB RAM/64GB storage: 1999 Yuan (Approximately Rs 20,000)
4GB RAM/128 GB storage: 2299 Yuan (Approximately Rs 23,000)
The OnePlus 3 on the other hand costs Rs 27,999 and is available via Amazon India.
