Xiaomi has assured us that the Mi5 is worth waiting for

People have been waiting… and waiting… and waiting for the Xiaomi Mi5 to be released, but Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun assures us that it’s worth waiting for. Many of us expected the flagship to be announced at Xiaomi’s Grand Finale event a few days ago, but obviously that didn’t happen, and Jun didn’t give us anything in the way of details. However, rumor has it that the smartphone will be announced early next year, and will be one of the first devices to feature the Snapdragon 820.

The Xiaomi Mi5 was initially aimed at an early-2015 market release, but because the Snapdragon 810 proved to be a problematic chipset plagued by overheating and throttling issues, the Chinese manufacturer decided against using it and pushed the handset’s debut forward. Or at least that’s what rumors are saying. Xiaomi’s last unveiling event of the year took place yesterday, November 24th. Both the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and the Mi Pad 2 tablet have been officially introduced during the “Grand Finale”, and yet there was no sign of the Mi5 anywhere on the horizon. After the event came to an end, the company’s CEO was interviewed by the local media, and inevitably, he was asked about the Xiaomi Mi5’s whereabouts. The CEO was not able to reveal a concrete release date, but reassured the public that the handset is “worth waiting for”. Although we have hoped to learn more about the Xiaomi Mi5 during the Grand Finale event that took place yesterday, this obviously didn’t happen. On the other hand, because the Snapdragon 810 version was scrapped and replaced by one equipped with a Snapdragon 820, and because the aforementioned SoC will not reach the consumer market before early-2016, the smartphone’s absence at the Grand Finale was rather expected.