Xiaomi's Lei Jun speaks at a product launch in Beijing. (Photo : Getty Images)
The Mi 5S Plus is Xiaomi's effort to compete with Apple. The new smartphone has most of the iPhone's features and only sells for 2599 yuan.
"We were aiming to challenge Samsung and Apple in camera capability. With the Mi 5S, I believe we beat both of them," co-founder and chief executive Lei Jun said.
Xiaomi released the Mi 5S Plus in September. Consumers are impressed with the phone and for its cheap price and high-end specifications.
It is big in size with 5.7 inches has one of Qualcomm Inc.'s speediest processors with 6 gigabytes of memory.
The phone has a screen that detects pressure like Apple's 3D Touch and 13-megapixel dual cameras. Its display uses IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen which can even compete with Samsung's AMOLED screen.
Faced with tough competition from Oppo and Huawei, Xiaomi aimed to impress consumers with the Mi 5S Plus with 2.35GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and 4GB of RAM. The phone packs 64GB of internal storage.
Other specifications include a dual SIM slot that accepts two nano-SIM. Users can connect using Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, 3G, and 4G networks.
The phone has a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope.
Nicole Peng, China research director at Canalys, said, "The price tag of the Mi 5S Plus made the device very competitive. With all the upgrades, the device is only a few hundred yuan pricier than the Mi 5. We think the new product will be very popular."
The phone can be bought from major parts of the world. In the U.S., Xiaomi intends to break the market through online marketing and sales.
The company's CEO said, "Xiaomi already has a strong online sales channel, but we are also trying hard to build our offline sales network so more customers can try out our products in real life."
