The first Redmi gaming phone is coming next week
Recognition: Gary Sims / Android Authority
- Redmi has announced a launch date for its gaming phone on April 27th.
- The new device seems to be called Redmi K40 Gaming Edition.
- It looks like the phone has Black Shark style shoulder buttons too.
Redmi confirmed earlier this year that it was working on a gaming phone, suggesting the device will be powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor. Now the sub-brand Xiaomi has announced that the device will be launched next week.
The company announced a launch date for Weibo on April 27th and, according to machine translation, gave us the name Redmi K40 Gaming Edition. The post also featured a tantalizing look at the new phone, revealing a triple rear camera system and a pretty interesting right-hand side. Take a look at the picture below.
We assume that Xiaomi takes a page out of the Black Shark 4 game book by adding shoulder buttons that can be extended and retracted using the slider button. Chances are there’s another slider and shoulder button combo on the phone for more console-like input. Either way, retracting the shoulder buttons would give users the best of both worlds as you have a clean design most of the time and can open those buttons when you actually need them.
The Redmi K40 Gaming Edition has reportedly already been certified in China and apparently delivers a 5,000 mAh battery with 67 W cable charging, a Samsung E4 OLED screen with a centrally mounted hole-punch cutout and a refresh rate of 144 Hz.
The integration of the Dimensity 1200 chipset should also provide Redmi’s phone with solid support for grunt and software-based ray tracing. However, the processor has an older, less powerful, paper GPU than the Samsung Exynos 1080, Huawei Kirin 9000, and Snapdragon 888. Hopefully the new phone is reasonably priced when compared to other gaming-focused phones on the market.
We asked Redmi if the new device would be available outside of China and will update the article when we get a response.
