Xiaomi's most affordable phone Google Redmi Go edition, Mi Pay debuts in India

Xiaomi has been reigning leader of the smartphone business in India for more than a year now and one of the primary reasons for the continued success can be attributed to cost-effective pricing. Thanks to aggressive pricing and street smart promotional activities it has gone widen the gap between rivals since it overtook Samsung in late 2017 and now, in a bid to further guarantees it position, announced Redmi Go for Rs 4,499, the company's most affordable phone to date.

Xiaomi's Redmi Go has already made its global debut in the Philippines last month and also available in other select regions of South Asia.

For the uninitiated, the Redmi Go sports a 5.0-inch HD screen and comes with sturdy polycarbonate shell on the back. Under-the-hood, it houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 quad-core chipset, 1GB RAM, 8 GB storage (expandable via microSD) and a 3,000mAh battery, which is enough for the device to run for a whole day under mixed usage.

As far as the photography hardware is concerned, Xiaomi Redmi Go features an 8MP primary camera with F.20 aperture with LED flash on the back and a 5MP selfie snapper on the front.

It can be noted that Redmi Go will come with a dedicated microSD card slot, meaning device owners need not compromise second SIM slot for extra storage. They can have two SIMs and also be expand the mobile's storage up to 128GB.

The notable aspect of the new Redmi Go is it runs Google's special Android Oreo 8.1 Go edition. Though it is one generation old OS, it will still be good enough for the phone to perform normal day-to-day tasks and this type of devices are largely targeted to those who are plan to migrate from a keypad-based feature to touch screen and also those planning to buy the second phone.

Xiaomi Redmi Go will be available for Rs 4,499 on Flipkart, Mi.com, Mi Home from 12:00 om, March 22 onwards.

As part of the launch offer, Reliance Jio customers will get extra 100GB data and Rs 2,200 cash back on the Redmi Go. It can be redeemed with multiple data recharge transactions.

One more thing...

Xiaomi also launched the official contact-less payment service Mi Pay in India. It has received approval from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and is powered by ICICI bank in compliance with Unified Payment Interface. With Mi Pay, users can make all online payment transactions be it buying products on e-commerce sites, pay power, cable or DTH & water bills and is supported by almost all banks in India.

Also, Xiaomi announced its commitment to the central government's ambitious initiative 'Make in India' with opening seventh mobile manufacturing plant (1 million square ft footprint), which will be managed by Flex Ltd in Tamil Nadu.

Key specifications of Xiaomi Redmi Go: