Three to stock Xiaomi Mi8 and RedMi 6A smartphones from Friday

UK debut for Xiaomi on Three will come with free Band 3 fitness tracker

The Three mobile network is to stock the Xiaomi Mi8 and RedMi 6A smartphones on contract in the Chinese smartphone maker's UK debut - a move that had been telegraphed as far back as May.

The devices will also come with a free Xiaomi Band 3 fitness tracker, which normally retails for £29.99.

The Xiaomi Mi8 was unveiled in May 2018 and has been described as an iPhone X copycat, while the RedMi 6A is a budget smartphone line.

The Mi8 is a high-end device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, which comes coupled with an Adreno 630 GPU. It includes 6GB of LPDDR4X memory and comes with 64GB, 128GB or 256GB of storage. The 1,080x2,248 display offers 402 pixels per inch, while the 3,400mAh battery ought to provide all-day power.

The RedMi 6A, meanwhile, features a 5.84-inch, 1,440x720 screen, powered by a Mediatek Helio A22 quad-core CPU based on the ARM Cortex-A53, coupled with Imagination Technologies' PowerVR GE8100 to handle graphics. It comes with a skimpy 2GB of LPDDR4X RAM and a paltry 16GB of storage. However, it does come bundled with Android 8.1, with Xiaomi's own MIUI 10 smeared over the top of it.

The Mi8 will be available on a 24-month contract from £22 (for an inadequate amount of data, with £19 required upfront) all the way up to £46 on an all-you-can-eat data contract.

The RedMi 6A, meanwhile, can be yours from £19 upfront and £12 per month.

"We have been watching Xiaomi for a while and are really excited to be the first network to bring them to the UK. The partnership will enable us to offer our customers a wide range of innovative products and we are looking forward to working with them," said Katrin Calderon, head of hardware at Three UK.

The devices will be available to pre-order from Friday 9 November. Contract-free, the Mi8 will have a retail price of £499 and the budget RedMi 6A will cost £99.

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