Announced as the ‘Hongmi’, the Xiaomi Redmi made waves in the Chinese industry as the cheapest quad-core smartphone from an international brand. At the time of its launch, the Redmi came with the 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589T CPU, but things have changed since.
The market is now driven by speed, and the demand for LTE is the perfect example for this. The Redmi lacked LTE, but Xiaomi swapped the MT6589T for the MT6582 + MT6290 LTE chip, and bam, the Redmi is now an LTE compliant phone.
Interestingly, the Redmi LTE will go for the same, lucrative 699 CNY ($113) price, making it a really affordable LTE phone. It has the same 4.7-inch screen as the Redmi 1S. For the price tag, the 1280 x 720p resolution on the 4.7-inch screen makes the phone a winner.
Xiaomi will be launching the Redmi 1S along with the Redmi Note in India later this month. The Mi 3 has been a sellout so far, and the Redmi series is expected to perform in a similar manner.