Here’s a New Year gift from Xiaomi. Xiaomi, yesterday announced their latest cellphone: The Redmi 2. It comes as the elder brother to the Redmi 1S. and will only be available in the Chinese markets. It is priced around CNY 699 (for approximately about $110) and will be available from January 9. The company did not make any announcements of its availability in India or any other part of the world but is speculated to hit the Indian markets very soon.
While talking more about the Redmi 2, the first thing that comes to our mind is the screen size. Redmi 2 has a 4.7” display with capacitive touchscreen and the resolution of 720*1280 pixels. The device gets its brains from a 1.2GHz Quad-core Qualcomm processor tagged along with a 1GB RAM and is powered by a 2200mAh Li-Ion removable battery. The look and feel for the users is covered by the company’s own MIUI 6 skin with Android 4.4 KitKat. Redmi 2 comes with an internal storage capacity of 8GB and is expandable upto 32GB.
Similar to Redmi 1s, the Redmi 2 is a dual SIM device, too. But the point to notice is that the device supports 4G LTE connectivity for both the SIM connections. Another variant to the model is the China Telecom version which impairs the second SIM to 2G connectivity. This version also has the option of 2G and 3G CDMA.
In other features, the Redmi 2 is equipped with a 8MP rear camera and the front camera is buffed to 2MP unlike the 1.6MP in Redmi 1S. Connectivity features cover almost all the basic ones like WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB and FM.
Aside from being packed up with these features, Redmi 2 comes in a wide colour palette along with new additions of ‘Lime green’ and ‘Powder yellow’ back covers.
Now looking back to Redmi 1S and comparing it with the new Redmi 2, there are only a few noticeable changes. The processor of Redmi 2 has been trimmed down to 1.2GHz whereas the Redmi 1S had 1.6GHz. One might find a void of WiFi Direct and Gyroscope which was available in the previous version. Also, Redmi 1S was expandable upto 64GB whereas the 2 is expandable only upto 32GB.
Overall, the Redmi 2 is marginally compact in size, lighter with an improved front camera and not to forget, the 4G connectivity-enabled. Also, there are considerable improvements in the software. So, in our opinion Redmi 2 looks more like some additions and some subtractions in its predecessor Redmi 1S.
