Redmi K50 Gaming debuts with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Mercedes-Benz logo

Earlier this week, we heard from Xiaomi that they had partnered up with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team for their upcoming gaming phone under the Redmi brand. They have since officially launched the device, dubbed the Redmi K50 Gaming. It packs all of hardware you expect in a flagship gaming smartphone, and even has a special limited edition that comes with a design inspired by the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team’s livery.

Redmi K50 Gaming specs

The Redmi K50 Gaming right off the bat has a pretty distinct look with its gamer-y aesthetic. It’s built with an aluminum frame which is sandwiched between a glass front and back, with the front glass in particular being Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The display itself is a 6.67-inch, FHD+ OLED display capable of a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and has a touch sampling rate of up to 480Hz. Xiaomi also says that it has a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut along with support for HDR10+ and MEMC video.

Under the hood, it packs the leading Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 system-on-chip, complete with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. However, the Redmi K50 Gaming Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Edition will only come in that configuration. Xiaomi adds that there will only be 10,000 units of the limited edition Redmi K50 Gaming Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Edition. As usual, the phone will come with MIUI 13 out of the box, which is a skin of Android 12. Also, Xiaomi have kitted out the Redmi K50 Gaming with a special double vapour cooling solution to keep the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip cool.

However, it’s perhaps not as strong when it comes to its cameras. The Redmi K50 Gaming will come with a triple camera setup, with its main camera being a 64MP shooter using the Sony IMX686 sensor. While it’s certainly not a bad image sensor, having been used on other flagship devices like the Asus Zenfone 8 before, it’s also definitely not cutting edge. Even Xiaomi themselves first used the aging IMX686 in the Redmi K30 lineup, which launched back in 2019. The 64MP main camera gets flanked by an 8MP ultra-wide camera and a 2MP macro lens, while on the front there’s a 20MP selfie camera using the Sony IMX596 sensor.

Other specifications of note include a 4,700mAh battery with a blazing 120W wired fast charging. There’s also JBL stereo speakers, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner as well as physical gaming triggers on the right side of the device, dubbed the Magnetomotive Shoulder Key 2.0. You’ll find support for NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and WiFi 6E too. The Redmi K50 Gaming will come in regular black, gray and blue colourways on top of the aforementioned custom Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Edition.

As for pricing and availability, the Redmi K50 Gaming is unfortunately only available in China for now. Prices start at CNY3,299 (~RM2,179.42) for the base model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, while CNY3,499 (~RM2,311.55) gets you 12GB RAM with the same storage. To get the Redmi K50 Gaming with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, that’ll cost you CNY3,899 (~RM2,575.74) with the special Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Edition priced higher at CNY4,199 (~RM2,773.93). The limited edition version will also come with a special gift box.

Seeing as the Redmi K series is typically a China-only lineup, the Mercedes fans out there will need to scour the grey market to seek out the limited edition Redmi K50 Gaming for themselves. Alternatively, there’s a chance of Xiaomi launching it globally too, albeit likely as a rebadge under the Poco brand. For more information about the Redmi K50 Gaming, you can check out its product page on the Xiaomi China website.