Redmi smartphone with Snapdragon 855 in works, Redmi GM confirms it isn't Redmi Pro 2

Redmi smartphone with Snapdragon 855 in works, Redmi GM confirms it isn't Redmi Pro 2

Redmi's GM Lu Weibing has confirmed there isn't a Redmi Pro 2. However, the company is working on a Snapdragon 855-powered Redmi flagship.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Redmi GM has denied anything about the Redmi Pro 2 leaks with a pop-up selfie camera.
• The company is working on a Snapdragon 855-powered smartphone with a different design.
• The Redmi flagship could offer a triple camera setup from the Xiaomi Mi 9.

After Xiaomi announced the Redmi Note 7 Pro a few months ago, the world of smartphone rumours has been baking up a superior Redmi device with flagship specifications. There have been rumours of Redmi working on a phone with a Snapdragon 855 chipset and some flagship features borrowed from the XIaomi Mi 9. A few days, an alleged leak broke out suggesting a pop-up selfie camera and a true fullscreen display. While the leak was quite believable, Redmi's GM denies any such phone to be under works.

Lu Weibing, Redmi's GM, has confirmed on Weibo that the company isn't working on a phone that looks like the one leaked via renders. That means that Xiaomi isn't jumping on the pop-up camera bandwagon yet. So far, Xiaomi's flagship Mi 9 still comes with a waterdrop style notch while the Mi MIX 3 goes for a true fullscreen display with the help of a manual sliding screen. With this post, Redmi is ruling out the possibility of a pop-up sliding selfie camera.

While Weibing denied any claims for Redmi Pro 2, he did confirm that the company is indeed working on a smartphone that will come with a Snapdragon 855 chipset. The smartphone is expected to be the flagship offering from Redmi and could be one of the cheapest Snapdragon 855-powered smartphones. He didn't give out any additional information about this mysterious smartphone.

Last year, Xiaomi pulled off a similar trick with its Poco F1. The company offered the Snapdragon 845-powered smartphone for the price of a midrange smartphone under a different sub-brand. At Rs 20,999, the Poco F1 was substantially cheaper than the OnePlus 6 and offered additional features such as liquid cooling, a bigger 4000mAh battery and an IR-based facial recognition system. Compared to other Xiaomi smartphones, the Poco F1 has been regularly receiving software support and has been promised with an Android Q update in the future as well.

It is speculated that the Snapdragon 855-powered Redmi smartphone could come to India as the Poco F2 and could offer more premium features than the Poco F1. It is expected that this phone could get a glass body, a Xiaomi Mi 9-derived waterdrop notch, a bigger battery and improved cameras. Redmi could also go a step ahead and eliminate the notch entirely in favour of a punchhole-style camera this Redmi phone.