They unveiled the Xiaomi Redmi 17C today. It’s a bit earlier than last year’s Redmi 15C, which came out in August. Sadly, it’s one of many phones that use a fancy design to distract you from the fact that several specs have been downgraded. This is everything we know about Redmi 17C 4G.
The design is on point. Redmi 17C looks quite premium, to be honest. Especially with that Red eco leather design and gold accents on the sides and camera module. But it’s all just eye candy. The real phone under the disguise is actually worse than last year’s Redmi 15C.
The camera setup takes a big hit. They’ve put a 13MP main camera on the 17C (vs. 50MP on the former 15C). And the selfie camera is demoted to 5MP (vs. 8MP on the 15C). There is, of course, a new Android 16 Hyper OS 3 version on the newcomer by default.
They keep using the Helio G81 Ultra chip, though. The performance is static across generations, but the new OS will definitely put more strain on this weak CPU. The phone does have the same 4GB RAM at the base level, but now the starter storage has been dropped to 64GB. The second trim has 128GB. In this article, here are Xiaomi phones price list that includes the newest Redmi, POCO, and Xiaomi flagship devices.
The screen is still an almost 6.88” massive IPS panel. 720p HD+ resolution isn’t crisp but usable, and the refresh rate is 120Hz. The phone even manages to hit 600 nits HBM brightness. The notch is still there for the selfie camera. But there’s no Gorilla Glass 3 to keep it safe this year.
The same goes for the phone’s chassis durability. They didn’t get an official IP rating for the Redmi 17C, so it may not be fully water and dustproof. The battery was hit even harder on both the capacity and charging front. Both got worse on the Redmi 17C.
The handset last year was on the right track. It showed up with a 6000mAh battery and 33W charging. They’ve now gone back to a 5160 mAh cell limited to 18W charging input on the Redmi 17C. The fingerprint reader is on the side. Just a single speaker outputs audio. CNY 799 (~PKR 32,200) is the base (4/64GB) model’s official price in China. 128GB option is CNY 899 (~PKR 36,700).
