"Not mi 5, notebooks, watches, plates, rice cookers, inflatable doll, nor bicycles, cars, aircraft, bombs, UFO," were the words of Xiaomi's president and co-founder Lin Bin, who shared a post on Weibo brushing off rumours about Mi 5's launch on 19 October.
Shortly after the Chinese budget smartphone maker confirmed the Monday's event, where it is expected to launch a new device category targeted at photographers, rumours started swirling around the web about the widely-expected release of Mi 5 smartphone. The Mi 4-successor has long been in the news but the actual release date remained a mystery.
With Bin's new post, it is now confirmed that Mi 5 will not be released on Monday, likely upsetting a vast group of Xiaomi fans.
On a brighter note, Xiaomi might release a camera. The tagline in one of the teaser images shared by Xiaomi's founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun, said, "Better lens and body separated," NDTV reported.
As for the Xiaomi Mi 5 release, the company seems to be running late in its upgrade cycle. Xiaomi launched the Mi 4 smartphone, the company's current flagship, in July last year. As all smartphone companies upgrade their flagships annually, Xiaomi's is behind the schedule for its share of upgrade.
The rumour mill has been rife with speculations about the Mi 5 in recent weeks. Based on what we have heard and read so far, the new flagship smartphone will be the first to run on Qualcomm's octa-core Snapdragon 820 chipset. A recent leak on the AnTuTu benchmark site revealed an impressive score of 73,075 for Xiaomi Mi 5, hinting at best-in-class specs under the hood.
According to the rumours, Mi 5 will sport a 5.3-inch Quad HD display, 4GB RAM, 16GB/64GB storage options, a 16-megapixel primary camera with dual-LED flash, 8MP front snapper, a fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C port and a 3,030 mAh battery.
Rumours regarding Mi 5's release suggest that the new flagship might be launched sometime later this year or early next year.
