Redmi says it will launch its first flagship gaming phone this year

Redmi is traditionally known for delivering budget phones, but the Xiaomi sub-brand has switched to offering affordable flagships in recent years too. Now, it looks like the company is eyeing another segment as well.

Redmi general manager Lu Weibing revealed in a machine-translated Weibo post that the brand will launch its “first flagship gaming phone” this year at a “price that cannot be refused.” Furthermore, the executive also noted that the newly announced MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor will make a “world premiere” inside a Redmi phone, echoing previous hints of a new MediaTek-powered flagship handset.

It’s unclear whether this MediaTek-powered phone and Redmi’s aforementioned first gaming phone are the same device. For what it’s worth, the Dimensity 1200 features the same GPU found in last year’s flagship silicon, but it also offers software-driven ray tracing and 168Hz refresh rate support.

In any event, any decent gaming phone should deliver a high level of sustained performance, gaming-focused software tweaks, and physical inputs of some kind (such as shoulder triggers). So hopefully Redmi’s first device ticks all the boxes in this regard.

We’ve asked Xiaomi to confirm whether the Dimensity 1200 phone and Redmi’s first gaming flagship are the same device, and will update the article if/when they get back to us.