Flagship smartphones see price cuts in India

Competition across the smartphone tiers is red hot in India and this has seen a couple of high-end manufacturers cut their prices this week. Samsung kicked off the price war with drops for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, ahead of the Note 7’s launch in the country. This was quickly followed by Xiaomi slashing a chunk off the cost of its Mi 5 flagship.

Samsung has lopped Rs. 5,500 (11 percent) off the price of the Galaxy S7 and Rs. 6,000 (10.5 percent) from the Galaxy S7 edge. Each can now be bought for Rs. 43,400 or Rs. 50,900 respectively, down from their launch prices of Rs. 48,900 and Rs. 56,900. These price drops can already be found on Flipkart and Amazon.

Samsung has avoided reducing the Indian prices for its Galaxy S7 handsets so far this year, but appears to have decided to drop them now just ahead of the launch of the Note 7’s September 2nd launch date. Even though the Note 7 might be the slightly newer model, both handsets feature similar hardware, making the Galaxy S7 quite a bargain now. The phones come with a 2560×1400 resolution AMOLED display, an Exynos 8890 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot, and a 3,600mAh battery. The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge also feature a best in class 12 megapixel rear camera with OIS and PDAF, and a fingerprint scanner.

In addition to Samsung’s price cut, the Xiaomi Mi 5 is now available for Rs. 22,999 through either Flipkart or Mi.com. The phone originally retailed for Rs. 24,999 back at the end of March when it first launched in the country, so there’s a Rs. 2,000 (8 percent) saving to be had. Xiaomi looks to be be hammering home is cost advantage this month, after recently announcing a 72 percent sales increase in India.

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The Xiaomi Mi 5 doesn’t quite match Samsung’s S7 handsets spec for spec, but it’s still a very competitive flagship in its own right. The Mi 5 comes with a 5.15-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 820 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 3,000mAh battery, and a 16 megapixel rear camera with OIS. The phone is built from metal and has a fingerprint scanner on the front. That’s some excellent hardware from a phone that costs less than half that of a Galaxy S7.

Will these price drops temp you to pick up a new flagship?