By Tom Noda
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is living up to its market disruptive character as it unveiled in the country the Redmi 1S mid-end smartphone on Thursday, August 28, in Makati City.
Former Google executive Hugo Barra, who now serves as Xiaomi vice president of international, led Redmi 1S’s presentation to local media announcing its availability for the Philippines on September 4, selling at P5,599 ? a price more than twice lower than its smartphone rivals that bears almost the same device specifications.
Barra said the new Mi phone will be offered along with the Mi 3, Mi Power Bank, and Mi accessories.
Besides its affordability, Barra touted Redmi 1S as a high-performance dual-SIM smartphone that features a quad?core Qualcomm 1.6GHz processor and a 4.7-inch IPS display.
Xiaomi will be selling Redmi 1S through its e-commerce partner Lazada.com.ph and will be sold under four methods of payment: cash on delivery, credit card (Visa/Mastercard), ATM (MegaLink), and Paypal.
The selling includes customer support for order fulfillment and delivery as well as service and support, including the following:
? 7 service centers across the Philippines
? 53 convenient drop-off locations for those not near a service center
? A dedicated service center opening in mid-September at One Kennedy Place, Greenhills, offering two-hour repairs, and
? A dedicated customer support hotline available 9am-6pm daily, 7 days a week
Redmi 1S specifications:
?4.7-inch 1280 x 720 (HD) IPS display delivers superfine text and crisp photos.
?AGC Dragontrail scratch-resistant glass
?1.6 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with Cortex-A7 core
?1 GB RAM, 8GB internal flash memory with external microSD slot that supports up to 64 GB
?Dual SIM (Mini sized) – WCDMA slot for 3G data and GSM slot for 2G
?8MP rear camera with ?/2.2 aperture for 1080p video recording and a front 1.6MP camera
