Xiaomi officially announced the new Mi Band 5

After a long and exciting rumors, Xiaomi has formally announced the new Mi Band 5. The upgrades over the Mi Band 5 is significant and they’ve become the major selling points for the latest Xiaomi fitness tracker.

The Mi Band 5 has a bigger display, this upgrades its predecessor’s 0.95-inch screen to a larger 1.1-inch display on the new fitness tracker while maintaining almost the same dimensions. Unlike the early rumors, the Mi Band 5 doesn’t have the all screen display feature depicted from early mock-ups as they work the same thing as the Mi Band 4. The display itself is a color AMOLED screen with a 126 x 294 pixel resolution covered by a 2.5D tempered glass.

The display shows not just the numbers from its sensors and time but also shows notifications a stuff that we’d normally need to know including push notifications from a connected device. It can also be customized and personalized with a wide selections of new themes and watch faces to make the Mi Band 5 truly yours.

Sensors are carried out from the Mi Band 4 but much more improved including its heart rate monitor, accelerometer, barometer and gyroscope. Xiaomi also introduced 11 “professional modes” which basically are Sports modes to better track activities and automatically detect different workout and sports styles when engaging on activity.

What’s missing though was the speculated SpO2 sensor which used to make an attraction for the fitness tracker, as it seem, the current built-in sensors on the Mi Band 5 should fit perfectly enough to monitor self and daily activities. Its heart rate monitor is said to be 50% more accurate and can now detect abnormalities and notify the wearer. It also has a 5ATM water proofing which allows users to take the Mi Band 5 for a swim.

It has PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) score to give users detailed information on how one’s workout is progressing and its overall well-being and fitness. And when it comes to sleep tracking, the Mi Band 5 can also show data related to REM Sleep.

One good thing about the Mi Band 5 is that it finally has a variant with NFC for users outside of China. This feature is previously exclusive for the Chinese market and having this globally now allows more users to use the fitness tracker to make payments through the Mi Band 5 and it comes with its own AI assistant too.

Xiaomi promises 14 days battery life at least for the NFC variant and up to 20 days for the regular version of the Mi Band 5 and charging them is a lot easier than it did before as it now uses a proprietary magnetic charger that enable users to charge the Mi Band 5 without the main body removed from its rubber band.

The new Xiaomi Mi Band 5 will be available in China this coming June 18 and is priced at CNY 189 for the regular variant while the NFC-enabled version will retail at CNY 229.