The Xiaomi Mi9 Review: Flagship Performance At a Mid-Range Price

Conclusion & End Remarks

The Xiaomi Mi9 was one of the missing flagship phones that was eager to cover this year but hadn’t had the chance to till now. Overall, I’m glad to have been able to test the device even though it’s later in the year, and it did reveal it’s still quite the good overall package and offers excellent value.

Design-wise, I actually do love the Mi9 simply because of its ergonomics that I find impeccable and extremely comfortable. Even though the phone’s screen is among the larger diameters at 6.39”, it very much feels like a smaller phone thanks to its very thin side-frame. The device is also relatively light for its size, comparable with what Samsung is able to offer in terms of size-weight ratio.

The display is very good and on par of what you’d expect of an AMOLED screen, offering excellent contrast and Xiaomi allows the panel to also get plenty bright. Colour calibration is also quite acceptable, being not great, but terrible. It should very much satisfy the vast majority of users.

Performance of the Mi9 is excellent thanks to the Snapdragon 855 SoC the company chose to employ in the phone. CPU and GPU performance that the phone is able to deliver is just beyond anything else that’s currently available in its price class, very much a Xiaomi tradition.

Battery life of the Mi9 is relatively average – the comparatively smaller 3300mAh battery capacity of the phone loses out to other devices which are in the 4000mAh class. On the other hand, Xiaomi also offers wireless charging in the Mi9, which is a bonus for quickly topping off every now and then, and the phone package bundles in an 18W charger.

In terms of cameras, the Xiaomi Mi9 surely offers a good amount versatility thanks to its triple-camera setup.

I found Xiaomi’s post-processing to be among one of the better ones out there, producing some of the best results out of the IMX586 sensor amongst the countless vendors and devices out there with the similar hardware setup. The wide-angle and zoom modules were also extremely competitive in daylight, producing sharp photos with competitive compositions.

Unfortunately, where the cameras completely fall apart in the Mi9 is low-light photography and video. The lack of OIS on even the main sensor of the phone is deadly, and the cameras just aren’t able to produce useable results. Xiaomi offers a Night Mode to help along with things and it does improve the situation, however the phone still remains plainly uncompetitive in terms of picture quality.

Other compromises of the Mi9 is in the audio department, although with a similar earpiece speaker setup as the OnePlus 7, the Mi9 lacks stereo playback and just has to rely on the bottom speaker.

Xiaomi is able to offer the Mi9 at such a low price thanks to some partnerships and advertising, in this case MIUI here and there can show ads, particularly in the post-installation screens of applications. Personally, I couldn’t care less about these ads as the rest of the UI experience was seamless – but potential buyers should be aware of them.

Overall, I think the Xiaomi Mi9 is a fantastic device with the only real and possible deal-breaking compromise being its low-light photography. I hope for the next generation Xiaomi doesn’t make this compromise again, even if the phone costs 10$/€ more.

At 400€ the phone still offers incredible value, and I think any potential buyer will be happy with their purchase.