Xiaomi Mi 9 review

Xiaomi Mi 9 review

The Xiaomi Mi 9 is a fantastic all-round device, offering many of the bells and whistles of high-end phones but without the price tag.

FOR

• Affordable price
• Impressive camera setup
• Powerful chipset

AGAINST

• Gets hot rather easily
• Odd-looking UI
• Low battery capacity

Xiaomi is still fairly new to the mobile market outside of China – the Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro was the first phone launched in the UK for example, in 2018 – but it’s posing some serious competition to establish brands with the Xiaomi Mi 9, its newest flagship device.

The Mi 9 looks like a fantastic jack-of-all-trades device; it has a powerful processor, impressive camera setup, and supports up to 20W fast charging – and on top of that it’s a whole load cheaper than phones with a similar spec.

It’s not without drawbacks – Xiaomi has clearly had to cut some corners to get a fantastic chipset and camera array into the handset at such a low price, and its attempt at designing its own UI for the Mi 9 likely won’t please everyone.

Since release competitors to the Xiaomi Mi 9 have come out, most notably the Huawei P30, a three-camera photography powerhouse with a sleek design and impressive chipset, and it sits at a price-point only slightly higher than the Mi 9.

But generally the Mi 9 is an impressive mid-range device, with internals that are surprisingly good for its relatively low price – so are this phone, and the Xiaomi brand in general, a serious threat to established mid-range Android players like Huawei and OnePlus.