The Xiaomi Mi 9 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon855 processor, with 6 GB or 8 GB LPDDR4X RAM and the Adreno 640GPU. It has a FHD+ AMOLED display. Storage options include 64 GB or 128 GB. The handset features a fingerprint scanner under the display. It features a 3300 mAh battery with a USB-C reversible connector which supports Quick Charge 4.0+. Externally, it has a smaller notch and new gradient colors, with Gorilla Glass 6 on the front, Gorilla Glass 5 on the rear and a 7000 series aluminum frame. It does not feature a 3.5mm headphone jack and comes with a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter provided in the box. The Mi 9 includes a triple camera setup with a 48 MP wide angle lens, a 16 MP ultra-wide angle lens and a 12 MP telephoto lens. The front camera has a 20 MP sensor with an aperture of f/2.0. The Explorer variant has larger storage and RAM options, a transparent back, a 7P camera lens, and an f/1.5 aperture for the main lens on models with 12 GB of RAM.
On September 24th 2019, Xiaomi announced the Mi 9 Pro and Mi 9 Pro 5G which have upgraded chipsets, faster charging, larger batteries, increased storage and RAM, and new software.
Reception
praised the Mi 9's performance, screen, design and in-display fingerprint sensor but remarked that the camera could be better and that the software needed improvement. Trusted Reviews had similar opinions, and was less impressed with the in-display fingerprint sensor and more positive of the camera, concluding that the Mi 9 had "the makings of one of the most worthwhile flagship smartphone purchases of the year". Digital Trends wrote that the Mi 9 was "a compelling, high performance smartphone that's sure to become one of the year's best" and "one of 2019's shrewdest smartphone purchases". DxOMark gave the Mi 9's camera an overall score of 110, with a photo score of 115 and a video score of 99, ranking it as their fourth best smartphone camera. DxOMark remarks that the phone "takes things to a whole new level, placing the Chinese company’s latest flagship model firmly into the big league of smartphone cameras—right up there with the heavy-hitters from Apple, Samsung, and Huawei".
Issues
The Xiaomi Mi 9 faces a handful of minor issues, however it faces major issues that are restrained to certain regions, such as the lack of facial recognition in some certain western regions, although it was fixed with a software update. The frequent display of advertisements in MIUI is no different in the Mi 9, Xiaomi defended themselves by saying that these ads help them keep their prices low.
