The Mi 5c usher in a new era of Xiaomi smartphones with its own SoC, the S1 Surge. It was during the month of February that Xiaomi’s intentions to launch a smartphone with its own SoC were clear, but very little was known about that. It was likely that this was dedicated to entry-level smartphones, not least because the benchmark results that emerged last week were not very surprising. Now, Xiaomi broke the secret and unveiled everything about its new SoC, making it the fourth smartphone maker to develop its own SoCs. It all started in October 2014, when Xiaomi started working hard on the idea of creating its own SoCs. More than two years later, in December of last year, they finally began to produce, and today they finally presented it inside a new smartphone known as Mi 5C. Surge S1 is a 64-bit Octa-core SoC that runs at a maximum frequency of 2.2 GHz, as for the graphics, it has a GPU Mali-T860. So, it is clear that this SoC is not a super SoC, as we can perceive by the specifications (image below), but the truth is that this was not what was expected either. By the benchmark results, it is noticeable that it falls within the range of SoC such as the MediaTek P20 and Snapdragon 625, which can be found in smartphones such as UMi Plus E or Huawei Nova, respectively, considered as mid-range.
Mi 5c: The first smartphone with Surge S1
The Xiaomi Mi 5c is thus equipped with the first processor developed by Xiaomi. This is a smartphone that the brand describes as ultra thin and very light, only 7.09 mm thick and weighs 132g, in a body completely constructed of metal. The screen is 5.15″ inches with FullHD resolution (1080 x 1920 pixels) and where the Xiaomi highlights up to 2048 levels of ultra-precise brightness adjustment, a possible adjustment thanks to the Surge S1. The device comes with 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. The battery, perhaps for its slim body, is only 2860 mAh. As we do not know the performance of Surge S1, we are left with the question of how it will behave in terms of autonomy, but Xiaomi guarantees a full day of use. It supports fast charging via the USB Type-C connection and is expected to be compatible with the most popular LTE frequencies worldwide. As for the cameras, the Mi 5c has an 8 MP front camera and a 12 MP rear with LED flash.
Price and availability
According to Xiaomi, the Mi 5c will be available in China from today, with the MIUI user interface already known in the colors like Golden Rose, Black, and Gold for the price of 1,499 RMB, anything like $218 which will be around Rs.14,500.
