Competition is starting to heat up once again, and it's not just between Apple and Samsung. Chinese company, Xiaomi, has joined the smartphone race to dominance with the introduction of their powerful but budget-friendly devices including the Mi Note Pro. Here is how the Xiaomi device compares to the new Galaxy Note 5.

Design

The Galaxy Note line has long been regarded as the king of phablets. And this year, its latest offering received a design overhaul with Gorilla Glass 4 added to its front and curved back panels. In addition, it comes with an improved S Pen Stylus which can be clicked and ejected from the device. It also has a fingerprint scanner. As for colors, there are four options, black, white, gold and silver.

As for the Mi Note Pro, it does not have a stylus and a fingerprint scanner but its build features a metal frame and has a slightly curved Gorilla Glass 3 on its front and back. In terms of colors, it has three options, white, black and gold.

Display

There is a similar 5.7 inch display on each device, though the Note 5 uses a super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a density of 518 pixels per inch. The Mi Note Pro, on the other hand, has an IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels and a density of 515 pixels per inch.

Specs

The hardware in the each of these devices is extremely good as they have the best chipsets released this year. However, the SoC in the device from Samsung has proved to be faster in tests. In the Note 5 is the Exynos 7420 chipset, an octa-core CPU comprised of four Cortex-A53 cores and four Cortex-A57 cores and a Mali-T760MP8 GPU. As for the Mi Note Pro, it has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset, an octa-core CPU with four Cortex-A53 cores and four Cortex-A57 cores along with an Adreno 430 GPU.

Memory

There is no memory slot on the Note 5 and the Mi Note Pro, therefore external storage cannot be added. As for RAM, each has 4 GB onboard.

Camera

The camera on each of these devices comes with optical image stabilization; however the Mi Note Pro has a 13 megapixel version while the Note 5 has a better 16 megapixel shooter.

Battery

There is a similar 3000 mAh battery on each of these devices, which cannot be removed.

Price

The Mi Note Pro, in its unlocked form, costs $530 while the 32 GB Samsung Galaxy Note 5 costs $249.99 with a two-year contract.