The Xiaomi Mi9 Review: Flagship Performance At a Mid-Range Price
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 13, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Xiaomi
- Snapdragon 855
- Xiaomi Mi9
Battery Life
Battery life of a device is dictated by the SoC efficiency, screen efficiency and battery capacity. The Mi9 has an efficient SoC, and it should have an adequately efficient screen, however its battery capacity of 3300mAh is on the lower side compared to competitor devices this year, which are found to sport 3700-4000+ mAh units.
In the web-browsing test, the Mi9 ends up as expected on the lower half of our device database of recent flagships. The phone lands near where the G8 landed.
Similarly, in PCMark, the Mi9 ends up quite average in terms of its longevity. It’s not bad at all, but still remains as the lowest longevity of S855 devices, just a hair worse than the 90Hz mode of the OnePlus 7 Pro.
Overall while the Mi9 certainly doesn’t compete in battery to the likes of the Galaxy S10+, it should offer sufficient longevity to get most users through the day.
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Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
You're welcome to point out and name the actual tests you have problems with.Xiaomi has a history of cheating in benchmarks - I'm using obfuscated application IDs that circumvent such detection and thus the numbers published here represent the actual app performance of the phone.
Redmyth79 - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I would love to challenge you on that as I'm a 1st time buyer of Xiaomi being the Mi 9.Again I've owned Galaxy S4-S9+ Note 9, LG G2-G4, V20-30, IPhone 6plus-8plus yet the Mi 9 makes small work of all them including the iPhone XS Max in performance!
I also have posted my results on my YouTube which that can't be cheated as I even video recorded a AuTuTu 8.02 system test which I got 440,701 and sense then I've gotten higher.
No BSing there
Andrei Frumusanu - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
I accept your challenge. You play the AnTuTu card, you lose.Ian Cutress - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
AnTuTu is the laughing stock of benchmarks. The minute someone tries to justify their position with an AnTuTu score, you know not to take them seriously.Korguz - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
if you really have owned all those phones, then either, you dont take care of them, and they get broken fast, and need to be replaced, you are one of those that HAS to upgrade for no reason other then for bragging rights, or, and this is tied in with the 2nd reason, more money then you know what to do with :-)Jon Tseng - Sunday, September 15, 2019 - link
No links yet to your supposed data?Cellar Door - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
The matter a fact here is that Andrei is the best and most technical phone reviewer for the past few years - yet here you are with anecdotal at best claims, and insulting tone.NXTwoThou - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I finally gave up my Lumia 950 for a Mi9 8/256 this year for less than what I paid for my 950 back in the day. Xiaomi has some really odd things that go on as they have three main roms available and the bootloader can't be unlocked for a set period of time. Once you do unlock it, xiaomi.eu uses the china beta roms and strips out the China specific things, removes all ads, and finishes translation. My phone became a whole other beast after using the weekly xiaomi.eu roms. We got moved to Android 10 August 8th. OIS, waterproofing, and a non-slippery back are the only things I feel that need refinement.MrSpadge - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Same here, finally switched from Lumia 950 to a Mi9. I've got two points to add:- I've toned the sharpening down one notch in the camera app, as it was producing halos around edges
- I've bought the international version after reading that the Ads can be disabled. First I had none, but after using it for 2-3 months annoying Ads started to pop up. It happens less than each day on average, but when it happens it's really annoying. You tip something and the phone does not react. Brain says "WTF" and after a short break (depending on network speed) the Ad is shown, sometimes as still image and sometimes as videos with loud sound (depending on your current setting). This interrupts the work flow and maybe also the environment and really, the least thing I'll do with whatever is advertised is to buy it. Already tried different ways to turn this off, depending on forum suggestions, but was not yet successful.
NXTwoThou - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I've been on .eu rom since I was allowed to unlock. The only ads I've ever seen since are very random with the built in music app and cleaner. Neither of which I use often enough for it to be an annoyance. I don't see any sharpening settings in the built in camera app. Are you using GCam?