In case you haven’t quite caught wind of the news, Hugo Barra himself came over to announce that the insanely-specc’d and even more insanely-priced Redmi 1S is coming to the Philippines in a matter of days. In an event for some of the members of the local tech press, Hugo ran through the specs of the device, pretending all the while that everyone in the room hadn’t been reading the spec sheet over and over while waiting for word of its arrival.
For those of you who need a refresher, the device features a quadcore Qualcomm 1.6GHz processor and a 4.7-inch IPS display, AGC Dragontrail scratch-resistant glass, 1 GB RAM, 8GB internal flash memory with external microSD slot that supports up to 64 GB of storage, dual sim slots (WCDMA and GSM), and an 8MP rear camera with ƒ/2.2 aperture for 1080p video recording plus a front 1.6MP camera.
We know you’re interested, and for good reason. You will, however, have to wait.The Redmi 1S is going to be available starting September 4, at 12 noon, vie Lazada, as is their usual M.O. YOu’d better be prepared to act fast though. We couldn’t ger any word as to how many units will be made available, though even if we have a few thousand allocated to the Philippines, it isn’t likely to last the hour.
Hugo also went on to outline Xiaomi’s service strategy. As of the moment, they have seven service centers in the country, with 53 more drop-off points for those who are a little farther away than is convenient. Their main service center, whic is to open in Greenhills mid-September, will promise two-hour turnaround times. It seems like they really want their consumers to be happy, and we’re really liking what we heard.
We managed to get our hands on a review unit, and we’ll let you know what we think as soon as we get a little more time with it. Stay tuned.