Xiaomi had a strong entry into 2015, as the company has been very active on the smartphone market, announcing and launching several new devices recently. It’s been almost a month since the company unveiled the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro, and now we’ve just seen what is claimed to be a leaked image of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi5, showing a completely bezel-free design, something that has attracted the attention of many journalists.
The company hasn’t said much about the device officially yet. In fact, the last we heard from them after they released the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro, was that they had additional hardware planned for a 2015 release, but did not state exactly what they meant with that. With that in mind, the leaked image should be taken with a grain of salt, but it doesn’t seem impossible that it’s indeed authentic.
Adding to the speculation is the fact that the device looks quite similar in design to the recently unveiled Mi Note devices. It would be more difficult for someone to produce a fake image with such a convincing design so shortly after the company unveiled the Mi Note phones, so this could add some credibility to the rumor. In the end, it looks like Xiaomi’s designers basically just took the standard Mi Note design and cut off the bezels. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, as the new design in the leaked image is indeed very sleek and stylish.
Another thing worth noting that could possibly be related to the current speculations about the Xiaomi Mi5, is the fact that the company recently received certification for a radio-capable device with the model number 2014618. That doesn’t say much by itself, sure, but it does confirm that Xiaomi have another smartphone in the pipeline, and it also shows that it’s getting close to a release stage.
Because, if the device has already passed radio certification, its design can’t be altered much after this point. So, we could possibly see another announcement by Xiaomi in the coming weeks. It’s entirely possible that the leaked picture was something else and not the Mi5, possibly even another variant of the Mi Note, and only time will tell.
In any case though, it’s great to see Xiaomi making such progress in the smartphone market, as the company initially showed great potential for offering some serious competition to the other major players, and so far they’ve been doing that quite successfully. The company has already attracted a nice following of fans, and even though they’ve only been around for less than five years at this point, they’ve already managed to climb to a very high position on the market.