The Redmi lineup initially helped Xiaomi a lot to earn their bread and butter and build the empire of cost effective phones. Increase the value proposition by providing as many features as possible was their mantra.

Redmi was eventually separated from Xiaomi, and revealed themselves as an independent subsidiary. The strategic move was needed to “accelerate Xiaomi’s global expansion progress”.

redmi_independent_brandRedmi A series phones (e.g. Redmi 5A) are the bottom most ones in the portfolio of the Chinese OEM. The Redmi (where X is a digit) phones come next and sit beneath the legendary Redmi Note series.

redmi_note_5_pro_red_front_back
Redmi Note 5 Pro, one of the most sold Redmi Note phones

Traditionally Xiaomi used low/mid range Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs in the Redmi phones. The naming scheme and countless variations of Xiaomi’s phones may be confusing, but most of them featured Snapdragon 4xx/6xx platform.

2018’s Redmi 6 was a notable exception. Xiaomi opted for the 12 nm Mediatek Helio P22 (MT6762) SoC. They also put dual rear cameras, which was a notable improvement from its predecessors.

redmi_6_black_front_back
Redmi 6

The yearly refresh, i.e. the Redmi 7, has been a favorite phone for leaksters. A number of small but useful details were spotted by the eagle-eyed Android community, long before the official announcement.

The TENAA listing of Redmi 7 confirmed a 6.26″ LCD display with 1520 x 720 HD+ resolution and a 3900 mAh battery. The model number was mentioned as M1810F6LE.

redmi_7_tenaa

After a few days, a live hands-on video surfaced on the interweb, showing the M1810F6LG variant of Redmi 7.

https://youtu.be/2-G3RnAuhSM

The codename of the phone seemed to be ‘onc’, as displayed in the video.

redmi_7_aida64_onc

Xiaomi officially unveiled the Redmi 7 along with Redmi Note 7 Pro and Redmi AirDots in China on March 18.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 SoC, Redmi 7 comes with three different RAM and storage variants – 2 GB RAM/16 GB of storage, 3 GB RAM/32 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM/64 GB of storage.

Meanwhile, another variant of Redmi 7 with model number M1810F6LI popped up under Mi India’s RF Exposure section.

redmi_7_india_rf

Amidst this sheer amount of confusions, we have got our hands on the first firmware package of Redmi 7. As always, credit goes to the Xiaomi Firmware Updater project and its developer, Youssif Shaaban Alsager aka yshalsager.

  • Device: Redmi 7
  • Codename: onclite
  • Channel: China Stable
  • Version: V10.2.2.0.PFLCNXM
  • Android: 9.0
    • Type: Recovery
      • Download: Link
      • MD5:

Readers should notice that the codename is slightly different – it’s ‘onclite’, instead of ‘onc’. The ‘lite’ variant is a definite indicator of another model with upgraded configurations. Does it signify the existence of the upcoming Redmi 7 Pro?

However, the guys over XDA Developers think that ‘onc’ will be the successor to 2018’s Redmi S2/Y2. Theoretically it should be Redmi Y3, which was spotted earlier on Wi-Fi Alliance portal.

redmi_y3_wifi
Click/Tap to zoom

First discovered by MySmartPrice, the model number of the was listed as M1810F6G. It’s the same ‘M1810F6’ group that we noticed earlier with various Redmi 7 regional models.

At this moment, Xiaomi’s obsession of rebranding and complicated naming scheme make the guessworks really hard. Things gonna be much more clearer after the global launch of the models.

Are you planning to buy Redmi 7? Let us know by commenting below.

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miui Redmi 7

Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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