Review of Xiaomi Mi 9 - a flagship with a 48-megapixel camera and a powerful processor

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The smartphone takes excellent pictures with three lenses, supports fast 20-watt charging and bypasses the top models of the market in synthetic tests.

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Equipment
• Design
• Screen
• Sound
• Camera
• Performance
• Software
• Unlocking
• Autonomy
• Outcomes

Specifications

Colors	Lavender Violet, Ocean Blue and Piano Black (lavender, blue and black)
Display	6.39 inches, Full HD + (1,080 × 2,340 pixels), Super AMOLED
Platform	Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855 (1 × 2, 84 GHz Kryo 485 + 3 × 2, 42 GHz Kryo 485 + 4 × 1, 8 GHz Kryo 485)
RAM	6/8 GB
Built-in memory	64/128 GB
Cameras	Rear - 48MP (main) + 16MP (ultra wide-angle) + 12MP (telephoto), front - 20MP
Shooting video	Up to 2 160p at 60 FPS and up to 1,080p at 960 FPS
Wireless interfaces	Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC, infrared
Connectors	USB Type-C
Sensors	Fingerprint sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, compass
Unlocking	Fingerprint, face, PIN
Operating system	Android 9.0 + MIUI 10
Battery	3 300 mAh, support for fast and wireless charging
Dimensions (edit)	157.5 × 74.7 × 7.6 mm
The weight	173 grams

Equipment

In a gray matte box: smartphone, black silicone case, paper clip, USB Type-C to mini-jack adapter, USB to USB Type-C cable, adapter and documentation.

Design

Mi 9 is available in three colors: black, lavender and blue. There is also an Explorer Edition with an improved camera, a larger RAM and ROM size - it has a translucent cover with decorative elements. We got a classic black smartphone.

Mi 9 looks and feels like a serious and expensive device in the hand. It is very reminiscent of the sensations of the recent Xiaomi model, which has been in the hands of a Lifehacker - Mi 8 Pro.

The cutout for the camera is drop-shaped here, it is located strictly in the middle. Personally, I see this moment as absolutely uncritical: I feel comfortable with both the iPhone's bangs and the Galaxy S10 +'s hole. But from the point of view of saving space and the logic of choosing a place for the cutout, the option with a small eye in the center seems to me to be optimal.

The case is terribly easily soiled: finger stains appear from the first touch and do not disappear anywhere else. If you have a point about this, then Mi 9 will bring you: greasy fingerprints are collected even by the silicone case out of the box.

But the cover is extremely nice here. It does not attract any attention either visually or tactilely - at some point there is a feeling that it does not exist at all.

On the left side there is a slot for two nano-SIM and a call button "Google Assistant". Above - an infrared port for controlling the smart home system. On the right is a paired volume button and a power key. The first is not very conveniently located: the finger tries to get somewhere in the space between the buttons. Below are the speaker holes and the Type-C input. There is no headphone jack.

The body seemed to me to be wide, and the side edges, in contact with the palm, are a little sharp. The second is easily corrected by a cover; the first is most likely a matter of habit. The main imperfection that I noticed relates to the peculiarities of the firmware - there is no distance between the lower edge and the keyboard. Pressing the space bar and changing the typing language with your thumb is inconvenient.

The Mi 9 does not have a specified level of dust and moisture protection - a strange decision for a flagship. It seems that they simply do not exist, and it is better to protect the smartphone from water getting into the case.

Mi 9 can hardly be called any special in terms of design. It seems that although it is stylish, ergonomic, expensive, but still the most ordinary flagship in the world. There is convenience, no emotion.

Screen

The Mi 9 has an excellent screen - detailed, well-calibrated out of the box and a selection of settings for discerning users. At maximum brightness, the image is readable even in the sun, but its autodetection is a little junk - the corresponding slider now and then rolls down somewhere.

And again about the cutout: it is optimally located, and there are no additional sensors on it - only the front camera. Mi 9, despite the slightly thickened lower edge, deserves the title of frameless - it is perceived in the same way as the Mi Mix 3 slider, which has no cutout at all.

Mi 9 supports HDR10 video playback and Always On Display mode, which always shows the time and date even on the locked screen. Judging by the results of a short test of the smartphone, this does not significantly affect the battery consumption.

Sound

The speaker of Mi 9 has a good volume headroom - and this is the only advantage that I would like to note. There are more disadvantages: there are no headphones included, and the sound lacks depth and at least some bass. And the worst part is that there is only one speaker.

It is not clear why make large smartphones with screens filling all the space and spoil the impression of watching video with the presence of a speaker on only one side.

Camera

The module consists of three cameras: a 48-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel one with optical double zoom and a wide-angle one with a resolution of 16 megapixels.

In normal mode, the camera fully meets expectations: it makes excellent shots in good lighting and a little worse in low light, giving a generally quite acceptable result.

The optical zoom works in good lighting, in low light - the main camera turns on, and the increase is achieved by the usual cropping of the frame.

A wide-angle camera that fits more objects into the picture space makes good shots even in low light. It is also suitable for macro photography.

To take pictures in poor lighting conditions, the "Night" mode is provided - judging by the properties of the image file, when using it, the camera's ISO rises slightly.

Here is a series of shots showing how the different lenses and camera modes of the Mi 9 work. We recommend clicking on the images to get a better look.

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with the main camera in the "Night" mode

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with the main camera in the "Night" mode

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode

Photo taken with the main camera in the "Night" mode

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

Photo taken with the main camera in normal mode. The hand trembled - because of the increased exposure, everything blurred

Photo taken with the main camera in the "Night" mode

Photo taken with a wide-angle lens

One of the killer features of the smartphone is a 48 megapixel camera. It's a pretty line in the specs, but it's actually a little more complicated. Firstly, shooting in high resolution takes place in a special mode, which is activated by pressing a button in the menu. And it, in turn, drops out by clicking on the "burger" in the upper right part of the screen.

Secondly, the processing of such a photo takes some time. Thirdly, in normal mode, the camera also takes good pictures - only a 48-megapixel lens produces a photo with a resolution of 12 megapixels, and an additional 36 are used when clever algorithms so wish.

Here are examples of shots taken in the separate high-resolution mode:

There are no complaints about the portrait mode in natural and good lighting - the algorithms sometimes get confused, but it is not difficult to take a good photo. But in poor lighting conditions it is almost unrealistic.

An example of unsuccessful focus detection

The front camera with a resolution of 20 megapixels takes excellent pictures in any light, the main thing is not to forget to turn off the beautification, which here, as elsewhere, only spoils everything.

Video shooting - up to 2 160p with 60 FPS. Super slow motion - up to 1,080p at 960 FPS. There is no optical stabilization.

In the standard camera application, AI works - a system of algorithms responsible for recognizing shooting scenarios and automatically adjusting exposure depending on the scene. It works imperceptibly - for the duration of the test, for the purity of the experiment, I decided to turn it off, the more good pictures can be taken without using this function.

The Mi 9 camera really has a lot of possibilities, and the interface of the standard application does not really help to understand them. It seems very overloaded, and this is one of the main disadvantages of shooting with this smartphone: you constantly have to think, is it possible to make the frame a little better by pressing a couple of buttons.

Performance

The Mi 9 is equipped with a seven-meter Snapdragon 855 with eight cores and a frequency of up to 2.84 GHz. Our sample also has 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of ROM. Mi 9 delivers record results in synthetic tests, bypassing flagships from Apple and Samsung, and in fact copes with any task you can think of. But at the same time, subtle lags in the operation of the device are found everywhere. This is probably a shell issue.

And here are the results of synthetic tests of our model. Geekbench:

And AnTuTu:

Software

The smartphone runs Android 9.0 with a proprietary MIUI 10 shell. This is an understandable system that works logically and greets the user friendly with a splash animation when unlocking.

There is no separate folder with applications - all icons are on the desktop. This is great: if you have too many unnecessary applications, you will constantly remember them. But at the same time, MIUI 10 did not borrow the same shape of the program icons from iOS, so the icons-circles and icons-squares are mixed on the screen.

Traditionally, there are a lot of pre-installed services and advertisements, most of them are annoying. In addition to Google applications and various software from Xiaomi, the system offers to install, for example, "My Talking Tom", buy something on "Yulia" and read the news that Andrei Gubin left Russia. You can get rid of all this, but the impression of an out-of-the-box device will inevitably deteriorate.

When installing applications, the system offers to "clone" them. That is, on Mi 9, you can, for example, use two Telegram accounts at the same time.

It is possible to set up gestures like on the iPhone, so that, for example, minimize applications and go to the dispatcher by swiping from the bottom up.

You can also assign different actions to keyboard shortcuts, swipes, long and double presses. In the long run, this can make your smartphone experience much easier and faster.

New MIUI 10 is a dark mode, in which the main color of the interface changes from white to black. We didn't have time to test how using it affects battery consumption, but by design it should slow down.

Unlocking

The fingerprint sensor is built into the screen here. It is located so that the finger falls on the desired point on the display. As intended by the developer, this is the main way to unlock. There are no complaints against him.

Only the front camera without additional sensors is responsible for unlocking in the face - the system immediately warns that this method of authorization is unsafe. But in any case, it works quickly and correctly, so if you have nothing to hide, then face unlocking may well become the main type of authentication.

Autonomy

The Mi 9 has a battery with a capacity of 3,300 mAh - enough for a day with active use of the smartphone and one and a half with a moderate one.

Supports fast charging with a 20-watt adapter - the battery gains from 0 to 100% charge in about an hour. From the included plug - a little slower. Wireless Qi charging supported.

Outcomes

Mi 9 is a typical flagship from Xiaomi, which evokes almost no emotions. I would like to attribute this to my professional deformation, especially since the smartphone is really excellent in most of its characteristics. The price for the version with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of ROM is 34,990 rubles, for the version with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of ROM - 37,990 rubles. Usually smartphones with comparable specifications sell for significantly more.

The Mi 9 can take great pictures, its screen feels like limitless, and the processor power of a smartphone is enough for anything. However, these advantages are overridden by disadvantages: overload of standard software, slight system lags, lack of stereo sound. How important each advantage or disadvantage of the device is, everyone decides for himself.

Pre-order Mi 9 in Russia is available from 5 to 11 April.