Xiaomi is going offline-only with the Redmi 3S+ in India

Xiaomi is famous for bringing top end specs to their smartphones and sell them at half or even less than the similarly powered smartphones from the big boys like Samsung, HTC or Sony. However, all of its smartphones are usually available via online retailers and their own websites only. Xiaomi is about to change that trend with the Redmi 3S+, which according to the company, is going to be an offline-only device. What this means is that the mid-range smartphone priced at Rs 9,499 ($140 approximately) is not going to be sold online anywhere, but will only be available in actual brick and mortar stores under the Make in India initiative.

The decision was apparently taken by the Chinese OEM in order to reach Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the country, where online shopping is not very feasible or popular yet. We can clearly see that it is actually a pricier variant of the Redmi 3S/3S Prime without any real improvements. The higher price is obviously a result of offline retailing expenses, but the phone still offers decent value for the price. Check out the major specifications below.

Display: 5-inch 720p
SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 (1.4GHz) Octa-core 64-bit processor
RAM: 2GB
Internal Storage: 32GB
Rear/front camera: 13mp/5mp
Battery: 4,100mAh
Misc: Fingerprint scanner, VoLTE, etc.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)