It won’t be wrong to say that this month, Xiaomi Mi 9 was one of the most hyped smartphones because the company shared a lot of interesting details before the official launch. Moreover, we got a ton of leaks and rumors. Today, the Mi 9 was officially launched in China, and it is yet another phone from Xiaomi that offers superb value for money.
The price starts at 2,999 Yuan which is equivalent to around $450. At this price, you get Snapdragon 855, in-display fingerprint scanner, 20W Wireless Charging, solid camera hardware, impressive design and more.
Like every flagship from Xiaomi, the Mi 9 has a premium design. There is glass on the front and the rear, along with a metallic frame. The Xiaomi Mi 9 is also pretty slim at 7.61mm and weighs around 173g. The company has concentrated on each detail as even the camera module has a double-layer structure.
So, there is aluminum on the bottom and stainless steel on top of the camera module. The camera lens protector uses the Sapphire glass as well. The company says that it used the nano-holographic pattern + double-layer nano-plating technology on the rear glass panel which helps in getting those beautiful designs when light strikes the glass panel.
Talking about the ports, there is only a USB Type-C port, and that’s placed on the bottom. The phone doesn’t have a headphone jack, and that’s not surprising since the Mi 8 didn’t have one. The volume rockers and the power button are placed on the right side while the dedicated button for Xiao AI is on the left.
The Mi 9 doesn’t have water resistant rating, so that’s a shame.
The Xiaomi Mi 9 has a 6.39-inch Samsung AMOLED panel with a waterdrop notch on top. Due to the edge-to-edge design, the screen-to-body ratio is around 90.7%. The screen also has a Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection on top, so that’s a good thing. Other screen specs include 19.5:9 aspect ratio, > 60000:1 contrast ratio, 103.8% NTSC color gamut and 600 nit brightness.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor powers the Xiaomi Mi 9 which is an octa-core 2.84GHz 7nm processor with Kryo 485 cores. The AnTuTu score of the Mi 9 is around 387K, which is way higher than that of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and last year’s Mi 8. This is not surprising since the Snapdragon 855 outperforms the Kirin 980.
There is Adreno 640 GPU, and like Huawei’s GPU Turbo, the Xiaomi Mi 9 has Game Turbo technology that uses the processor and the GPU to its maximum for the best performance. The phone has 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 storage. There is also a transparent version that has 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM.
The Xiaomi Mi 9 has four cameras in total – three on the rear and one on the front.
On the rear, there is a primary 48 MP Sony IMX 586 sensor with f/1.75 aperture and 6P lens. Unlike the Samsung GM1 sensor found on the Redmi Note 7, the Sony IMX 586 is a true 48MP sensor and can take some insanely detailed photos.
Then there is a secondary 16MP Wide-angle Sony IMX 481 sensor with f/2.2 aperture and 117-degree FOV. Not only the wide-angle shots, but this camera can take 4cm macro photos as well with superb details.
Finally, there is a 12MP telephoto camera with Samsung S5K3M5 sensor, f/2.2 aperture, and 2X Optical Zoom. It is used mainly for the portrait Mode photos and to Zoom in without losing the details.
Finally, there is a single 20MP single camera on the front with f/2.0 aperture and features like Portrait Mode, Face Recognition and more.
The Xiaomi Mi 9 scores 107 on DxOMark which means it is the third on the list after the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and the P20 Pro. Moreover, the selfie score is 99 which means it beats the Pixel 3 to get the top spot for the best selfie camera.
The Xiaomi Mi 9 also has an in-display fingerprint scanner which is an optical fingerprint scanner like on most of the phones and not an ultrasonic one that is present on the S10 and S10+.
One of the things that we missed on last year’s Xiaomi Mi 8 was Wireless Charging. That’s present on the Mi 9, and the phone supports 20W Fast Wireless Charging. Also, the phone supports 27W Fast Charging via the USB Type-C port. The battery, however, is not that big as it is a 3,300mAh unit.
Xiaomi also announced a few new products along with the Xiaomi Mi 9 like the Wireless Power Bank, Wireless Charger and Wireless Car Charger. The Wireless Power bank is priced at 149 Yuan, the Wireless Charger at 99 Yuan and the Wireless Car Charger at 169 Yuan.
Xiaomi knows that the 3,300mAh battery is not enough and that’s why the MIUI skin also gets a dark mode which will help a lot since the phone has an AMOLED panel. This dark mode reduced the power consumption by the display by around 50 or even 83%.
As we said above, there is also a Transparent version of the Xiaomi Mi 9, and apart from the different design, this version also has a 7P f/1.47 lens on the rear. It comes with 12G RAM and 256GB storage.
Finally, talking about the pricing, the Xiaomi Mi 9 with 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM is priced at 2,999 Yuan or $446. The 8GB + 128GB variant is priced at 3,299 Yuan or $490. So, the price of Xiaomi Mi 9 remains well under $500, at least in the Chinese market. The transparent version with 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM is priced at 3,999 Yuan or $595.
The Mi 9 is also launching at the MWC 2019 on February 24.