Xiaomi Mi 9 - a powerful flagship for little money

Meet the new Xiaomi Mi 9! Its release took place just a few hours ago, and we have a lot to discuss.

The new product exceeded all expectations, the phone is not similaron its competitors, which means it has a great chance of conquering the mobile market, given that its price — mere pennies compared to the same iPhone. Let's start the review…

Review of Xiaomi Mi 9

Products from Xiaomi without exaggerationare attracting more and more interest from the user community. Mi 9 was no exception, and its release was highly anticipated. Looking at him, you immediately understand that he is special — different from its predecessors.

First look, design

The back panel of the case immediately attracts attentionthanks to a new glass panel that has subtle curves on the sides. Thanks to new laser engraving holographic technology, the case has a unique reflective surface. In a word, impressive and stylish. In addition, the triple camera in a vertical orientation, which is protected by sapphire crystal, immediately catches your eye from behind.

Camera

Since we're talking about the camera, I immediately want toto say that the main camera in the center boasts an impressive 48-megapixel resolution and an f/1.75 aperture. Combined with a laser autofocus system and AI technologies, this should lead to major improvements in photo quality.

Also here is an improved12-megapixel telephoto lens that supports 2x optical zoom. And the plus is the new 16-megapixel sensor, which is connected to a wide-angle lens. This gives users the ability to capture much more in their photos.

Improved screen

Let's turn our attention to the front sideflagship — There are also improvements worth mentioning here. New 6.39-inch AMOLED display supplied by Samsung. Thin side panels and thin chin. The notch (upper cutout) has become noticeably smaller and its shape resembles a drop of water. A 20 MP front camera is hidden here. The screen-to-body ratio is impressive — 90.7%.

A waterdrop notch on top of the screen, of course.looks much more aesthetically pleasing than before, but the manufacturer had to make sacrifices for this change. Due to lack of space for integrating sensors, 3D facial recognition technology had to be abandoned. But there is an alternative solution in the form of an optical fingerprint scanner, which is also present inside the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and OnePlus 6T, but it is not as accurate as the ultrasonic scanner that will be presented in the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+.


Climb under the hood

Let's take a deeper look… Here we are waiting for the mostToday's best processor is the Snapdragon 855 from Qualcomm. Plus 6 GB of RAM. And this is all combined with 64 GB or 128 GB of internal memory, depending on customer preferences. MicroSD support is provided for memory expansion.

Let's move on… 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and IR Blaster. There is also a 3300 mAh battery that supports fast charging technology. An 18W charger is included in the package. In addition, there is support for wireless charging up to 20 W — This is the fastest version we've seen so far. Operating system — Android 9 Pie with MIUI 10  straight out of the box.

Mi 9 Transparent Edition

There is a version of the Mi 8 Transparent Edition, whichоснащена прозрачной стеклянной панелью сзади. Это обеспечивает возможность взглянуть на некоторые элементы под капотом. Но на самом деле компоненты, которые вы видите, не являются настоящими.  Это просто алюминиевая пластина, покрывающая реальные, менее фотогеничные детали.

The external changes of this version have been listed, now it’s time for the internal differences. Namely, the RAM is doubled here to 12 GB, the internal memory is also increased to 256 GB.

Start sales and price

The cost of Mi 9 for the various versions is listed below:

  • Xiaomi Mi 9 (6GB RAM / 128GB) - $ 446
  • Xiaomi Mi 9 (8GB RAM / 128GB) - $ 490
  • Xiaomi Mi 9 Transparent Limited Edition (12GB RAM / 256GB) - $ 594

First, sales of new items will begin only in China from February 26, then a smartphone will appear in Europe. In the US, the smartphone will not be sold.

By the way, Xiaomi also introduced Mi 9 SEmid-range with a more compact 5.97-inch screen and a Snapdragon 712 processor, 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, retailing at RMB 1,999 (~$300).

All technical specifications

  • 6.39-inch display, resolution 1080 × 2280 pixels, Full HD+ Super AMOLED, 600 nits, Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection
  • Snapdragon 855 7nm chip (1 x 2.84GHz Kryo 485 + 3 x 2.42GHz Kryo 485 + 4x 1.80GHz Kryo 485)
  • Graphics Adreno 640 GPU
  • 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM
  • Built-in memory — 128GB / 256GB (Transparent Edition)
  • Two sim cards
  • Android 9.0 (Pie), MIUI 10
  • Triple main camera: 48MP, 1/2.0″ Sony IMX586 sensor, 0.8μm pixel size, f/1.75 aperture, LED flash, Laser autofocus, PDAF, CAF, 12MP 1/3.6″ Samsung S5K3M5, telephoto lens with f/2.2 aperture, 1.0μm pixel size, 2x zoom, 16MP 1/1.3″ Sony IMX481 wide-angle lens 117 degrees, f/2.2 aperture, 1.0μm pixel size.
  • 20MP Selfie Camera
  • Fingerprint reader built into display
  • Bluetooth 5, NFC, USB Type-C
  • 3300mAh battery, 27W fast charge, 20W wireless charge.