Last month, an MIUI forum super moderator had claimed that Xiaomi has decided to discontinue the Mi Note line and that the Redmi 5 Plus is the spiritual successor to the company’s popular Redmi Note 4 from last year.  However, if a new rumor out of China is to be believed, Xiaomi will definitely launch the Redmi Note 5 this year. 

The rumor claims the Redmi Note 5 is being tested internally and will be released sometime in the second quarter of 2018.  Why the delay, you ask?  Well, apparently Xiaomi is waiting for Qualcomm to release the octa-core Snapdragon 632 SoC, a minor downgrade over the Snapdragon 636 chipset that was announced in October last year.  You can expect a slightly lower clock speed as well as a lower-clocked GPU.  However, the Snapdragon 632 is expected to retain the Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP, which offers better optimization for dual-camera setups than the Snapdragon 625. 

Moving on to other key specs, the Redmi Note 5 is expected to feature a 5.99-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio.  Similar to the Redmi 5 and Redmi 5 Plus, you can expect to see minimal bezels around the display.  The screen-to-body ratio on the Redmi Note 5 might perhaps be slightly higher than the Redmi 5 Plus, although this hasn’t been confirmed just yet.  In the memory department, the Redmi Note 4 successor will ship with 4GB of RAM as standard.  No word on the storage just yet, but you can expect to see 32GB and 64GB options.  On the imaging front, Redmi Note 5 will sport a dual-camera setup at the rear with two 12-megapixel resolution sensors. 

In terms of pricing, however, it appears the Redmi Note 5 will be positioned higher than its predecessor.  The latest rumor suggests the smartphone will start at 1599 yuan in China, which converts to Rs.15,600 based on the current exchange rate.  While it is too early to speculate on the Indian pricing, the more powerful Snapdragon 632 SoC and 12MP dual-camera setup certainly justify a premium over the Redmi 5 Plus.