Xiaomi is always trying to woo the consumer smartphone market. The phones just a year back we thought we’ve considered premium devices are now available up for grabs for as low as 1,200 AED which is crazy. Maybe Xiaomi is insane (in the right way). The constant hunt of innovation by the company keeps the end-user on the edge of their seats. All screen display is not something out of anyone’s reach anymore, and companies like Xiaomi are making it happen. How does it help us? The end customer? We, in turn, get the best technology in the market and maybe something more at 1/3rd cost of an iPhone Xs Max or Galaxy s10+. But does that really mean that that’s the way to go forward? Definitely yes.
The features such as pop-up selfie camera and an in-display fingerprint reader that were considered out of reach and futuristic are now being sold in Mid-range smartphones. Xiaomi’s Mi 9T main features are its pop-selfie camera, all-screen display, and Triple-camera system. In another bunch of phones boasting the above features, I think Mi 9T is arguably the best value for money. Mi 9T runs on Snapdragon 730, the newest of Qualcomm’s Semi-Premium line of chips that are a tier below the Flagship 855, but performs better than the 710. The difference is negligible, but 730 is best suited for real-time computational tasks.
In my review time, I didn’t find any hiccups while using the device, nor did I had any problem with the battery life. Talking about the battery on this, it is powered by a 4,000 mAh cell which easily lasts my full day. It used USB-C, which is also a step up when compared to its competitors who all use micro-USB.
One of the priorities for me when getting a new device is the display. Mi 9T has a 1080p display which is crisp enough for indoors and does a fair job for the mid-tier phone in outdoors under direct sunlight. The other stuff you will be found at the bottom is the single-bottom firing speaker which is not up to the expectations but get compensated by the inclusion of headphone jack.
The triple camera system on Mi9T is nothing new, but I cannot help and repeat myself talking about the price range offering again and again. You will not find a full 48-megapixel primary lens, wide-angle camera, and a telephoto lens at this price point.
The photos end result turn out excellent during the day time with little warmer color temperature. Xiaomi has been doing a great job with their algorithm at producing artificial depth-of-field blur has been excellent. Bokeh photos come out impressive consistently.
Night photography is not that consistent though, I noticed that photos came out with noise and grainy when in auto mode. The dedicated night mode helps.
The Wide-angle photos come out quite impressive as well. The only gripe is that with the wide-angle shot the lens f/2.4 does not pull in much light as the primary lens which is f/1.8, resulting in a massive difference in lighting between an auto mode photo and wide-angle photo.
The selfie photo results are not up to the mark, the camera module takes some time to elevate. The speed of elevation is evident when compared to OnePlus 7 pro and Oppo Reno. If you under good lighting the selfies come out fine, but they really start to suffer when in a dark environment, the photos can be basically unusable with bad dynamic range.
The biggest surprise is Mi 9T’s Video performance. The Electronic Image Stabilization is excellent and cannot be compared with any other Mid-tier handsets, an event too few flagships. Video quality is smooth and clean. Even the Wide-angle video recording is stable. To me, the next best thing is Apple’s video camera quality, and it’s 4 times the cost of Mi 9T.
Xiaomi’s MIUI 10 runs on top of Android 9 Pie. The skin works fine for moderate to power users like me. Long gone are the days when Chinese skins on Android were terrible. I love the system-wide dark mode and swiping gesture navigation.
Considering Chinese phone brands are launching so many devices in a month. Still, Xiaomi Mi 9T holds its ground as one of the best. In turn, I think it makes it harder for the consumer to decide which phone to get. Even a reviewer like me, the line between good and the great phone is blurring every time a new phone launches. And after one point in time, you only focus on the “newness” of the phone and forget about how it really suffice your needs. That’s what we at Absolute geeks try to focus on every time we review. Keeping the bling aside and looking at the product from more usability and general likeliness to continue use. When looking Xiaomi Mi 9T from those eyes, it is not that exciting actually. Coming from Xiaomi Mi 9, I do not know that even a single thing is new about the phone. But for an average consumer, there is a lot. It is hard not to be impressed by what Xiaomi is doing here, giving us worth premium expensive handsets just a year ago.
