Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite Test - Premium Quality at an Affordable Price
Amazing quality at a mid-range price, only Xiaomi can!
Introductory
This article is not just a test, but an admission of how much I was wrong about the Mi 9 Lite when I formed an opinion about it based on the specifications. I described the phone in advance, although as an objective tester it is a huge mistake, as I feel like I know what I am going to write about it the moment I unpack it. However, with Mi 9 Lite, Xiaomi gave a good lesson that I won’t forget any time soon.
Packaging and exterior
The box doesn’t hold too many surprises. It’s not ostentatious, in fact, it’s more like it wants to hide the capabilities of the product in it. If we don’t look at the quality of the cardboard, it could be that of any brand, even cheaper ones. The three cameras and the front panel flash at the top, cleverly cut so that the drop-shaped camera island is no longer visible, let’s believe the display is completely frameless. On the side we find the capacity of the memory and storage and the color of the phone, then slip, it’s over, encouraging us to tear off the transparencies quickly.
Inside we find the mobile, wrapped in a thick self-adhesive foil at the bottom, top, but even the side. The accessories are at the bottom, here we have a charger and a Type-C cable waiting for us, and above that in a smaller box we also find the silicone back cover of the SIM tray needle. Luckily we got over this quickly, let's peel the device out of the foil!
I’ve written several times before, but I have to repeat myself again. From an external point of view, then I consider a product to be appreciable, it gives the “wow” feeling that we expect on the first receipt to feel like we haven’t given our money for nothing. And Mi 9 Lite gives you that multiple times.
The quality of course Xiaomis, who has seen such a phone knows what I'm talking about, who does not, its enough to be perfect. There is simply nothing to bind.
The case is thin and light, although the battery in it is quite a combo. The edges of the Gorilla Glass 5 glass above the display are rounded, but only enough to allow a glass foil to be glued on. The back panel bends towards the aluminum frame with a delicate curve, which makes it feel even thinner than it really is.
The front is as expected, perfect. Front panel camera with 2D face recognition in the middle, in the company of an almost invisible slim speaker
On the right, the power button and volume control fit so precisely that we feel almost one with the frame, yet they walk easily but not too easily. The pressure point, the feeling of clicking is flawless. On the opposite side, in the usual place, is the SIM tray, which again can receive either two SIM cards (nanoSIM) or one memory and one SIM card (microSD + nanoSIM) in an unusual way. On the top we find a 3,5 mm jack connector, and what a pleasant surprise, we also get an infrared controller. Below the two speaker grids (one is just deception, the sound is mono) is halfway between the Type-C connector.
The back cover, as you can read upwards is nicely curved, the cover here is also glass, just like the top Gorilla Glass 5. The cameras on the left below each other at the bottom are the flash. We’ll also find the solid and familiar 48MP AI Camera caption, in line with this, and perhaps the only arguably useful capability toward the bottom of the phone is the illuminated Xiaomi caption, which takes on the role of a notification LED. Undoubtedly, it looks good, just almost invisible during normal use, so we can say the design overwrote the practicality in this case.
Of course, the phone is available in several colors. For a long time I ordered black from everything, but lately I’ve been running into the thing and now I’m saying luckily I bought the blue from the Mi 9 Lite. The varnish on the back is amazingly showy. I don’t know how they do it so that the light breaks on it not in a straight line but in a wave shape, but the result is dazzling. As we rotate the waves move, cross each other, really good. The glass is of course a fingerprint magnet, but luckily we get a silicone back cover that protects against greasy stains, but it doesn’t hide the beauty of the phone’s original back.
Hardware
Processor
The central unit, the Snapdragon 710, is not considered to be the latest piece, at least in light of the accelerated developments. That was one of the reasons I lamented the phone in advance, even though I shouldn’t have it, because I’m strong enough for everything, anyway, that I don’t have to write down the usual template text, that is, for average use. Of course, the scores obtained during the tests are also nice, but more importantly, we don’t feel like anything is missing during use. The eight cores (2-6) arranged in asymmetric clusters, the Adreno 616 graphics accelerator, and the stand-alone AI unit work flawlessly. This is reflected in the speed of the system, but is also very important when using the camera, for example, where, as you will see, you also need knowledge of strength and artificial intelligence.
The following table shows the results of measurements performed with the usual synthetic test programs:
| Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite | Notes redmi 8 Pro | redmi 8 | |
| Processor (SoC) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 | MediaTek Helio G90T | Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 |
| test Program | |||
| AnTuTu Bench. 7.x | 209577 point | 273390 points | 92880 point |
| AnTuTu Bench CPU / GPU / UX / MEM | 70944 / 54932 / 36982 / 46719 points | 97167 / 79348 / 45801 / 57074 points | 41011 / 9346 / 13762 / 28761 points |
| Geébench 5.x (score / single / multi) | 830 / 346 / 416 points | 854 / 3891 points | 848 / 4022 points |
| PC Mark Work 2.0 | 6564 point | 10247 point | 4700 point |
| PC Mark Computer Vision | 3473 point | 7927 point | 2480 point |
| PC Mark Storage | 7721 point | It stops with an error | 4812 point |
| 3DMark Sling shot / extreme opengl / Vulkan | 2693 / 1841 / 1760 points | 2940 / 2382 / 2448 points | 830 / 449 / 502 |
| 3D Mark Ice Storm / extreme | 29626 / MAX points | 34595 / MAX points | 13319/8069 |
| 3D Mark API Overhead OpenGL / Volcano | 223689 / 183272 points | 84113 / 556938 points | 66552 / 144429 points |
Display
If you’ve seen an AMOLED display before, I’m not going to say anything new with its needle-sharp, brilliant colors and brutally good contrast. The resolution is 2340 x 1080 pixels, or FHD +, and the diagonal is 6,39 inches. The image is broken only by a tiny, drop-shaped camera island at the top edge. The display is almost completely frameless, the side and top bars are very thin, perhaps only a millimeter wider at the bottom. We can’t expect more than that from a mid-range phone, in fact, I think the Xiaomi has done the job too. It is a great pleasure that AMOLED panels are already available in this cheaper category, because so the Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite was also able to get the fingerprint scanner under the glass, the speed of which is really exemplary, although it feels a bit a bit slower than the traditional, good quality backplane solutions.
Szoftver
To my great delight, right in the middle of testing, the latest MIUI system, MIUI 9, based on Android 11, has arrived. The new system has brought countless improvements, which I won't even try to list here, the topic would be worth a separate article. We got new icons, updated the user interface where we need to bold the fonts. System-level dark mode has been further developed, improving energy savings, with fast file sharing developed jointly by Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, and various effects for the camera called TikTok Magic Sticker. So, the change affects the whole system, there are places where it is clearly visible, sometimes more deep, improving the operation and speed, perhaps a good example of the latter is that the brightness of the display can now automatically adjust to the time of day.
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I may be a little biased on this topic, but I used MIUI even when Xiaomi didn’t even exist, the perfection of the system has impressed me, and since the developers were acquired by Xiaomi, everything has only gotten better, more perfect. Perhaps I can say without exaggeration, one, if not the best, Android-based solution is MIUI.
Photography
Xiaomi has put 9 cameras on the back of the Mi 3 Lite, one of which is the usual 2 megapixel depth sensor, next to which is also the well-known 48 megapixel Sony sensor main camera. Instead of a telephoto, we get an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, so the zoom on this device is software.
Wide, normal, 2x zoom:
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The second point where I successfully underestimated my mobile capabilities was photography. I've met a 48-megapixel sensor before, such as the one used by Xiaomi on the Note 7 (though it's a Samsung brand), and while it didn't have a major flaw, the 9 Lite has a noticeably better result. Whether this is due to a better lens system or software development behind the sensor I don’t know is most likely that the Sony sensor chosen instead of Samsung is better with that much. This is most noticeable in the real 48-megapixel mode, where Redmi Note 7, for example, was completely unnecessary to try, the image quality didn’t get better, only the file size and noise. With the Mi 9 Lite, it is no longer pointless to use the 48 megapixel mode, we get photos that can be used in good lighting conditions.
48 Megapixel test images:
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Although the camera is capable of capturing real 48-megapixel images (Pro mode), it shows true lion claws for pixel-merged 12-megapixel images. In good lighting conditions, especially with the help of HDR, we get very good colors that are not exaggerated either. There is essentially no distortion, perhaps, quite minimally, but in an almost unnoticed way, we can experience this at the corners, but the problem does not exist so much that I only came to this realization after a long examination of the images. Line sharpness is perfect, and you can take almost perfect pictures even in low light.
Test images taken in normal mode:
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The software finds a good balance between keeping sharpness and eliminating noise in night mode, in contrast to normal mode, details do not disappear in either dark or light areas. By enlarging the pictures, it can be seen that the noise is minimal, so we will be able to take beautiful photos of the illuminated city with our phone.
Night mode:
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I find the 8-megapixel widescreen solution a little less good, although it’s still plenty in the usable category. Nice, operating with good colors, although the end result is slightly distorted due to the angle of view. The sharpness of the lines is also worse than that of the higher resolution brother, but that’s understandable somewhere. The little details are more blurred, and in poor lighting conditions, the noise is also greater, but in general, it can still be used, and not just to share the finished works on social media.
Wide angle mode:
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The front panel self-timer camera is surprisingly large with a resolution of 32 megapixels. It works well with face recognition, but because of the resolution, we can also shoot very good self-portraits with it, and the icing on the cake is a lot of the effects we get next to it. Even without a separate depth sensor, it is almost perfectly able to separate the subject from the background, and with the help of this, we can use the lighting effects to erase everything behind us, only we can stay in the picture.
Selfie:
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Artificial intelligence also works, though it really can only minimally enhance images that are already almost perfect. Topic recognition is great, so the forest, the plants are greener, the cars are sharper, so the stuff is good, even if in many cases we have to pay close attention when intervening to see exactly what’s going on.
Panorama:
Other skills
Fortunately, the built-in wifi already works well with the ac standard, so the two-channel mode (2,4-5 GHz) is not a problem either. Of course, there is Bluetooth, 5.0, and to our great delight, the NFC capability is not left out, as is the case with many other brothers. Navigation tends to be flawless on Xiaomi devices, no different here, especially since it handles the GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou satellite systems in addition to GPS. We can't complain about the mobile data connection either, as two SIM cards can theoretically take advantage of the maximum transfer speed of 600 Mbps. It is completely unnecessary to list the sensors, maybe there is only a barometer, we will find everything else.
The battery is also worth highlighting, because here we no longer encounter the older capacity of around 3000 mAh. The akksin 4030 is the designation, and for that we also get a quick charge function (Quick Charge 3 and 4+), in addition, to our great pleasure, the charging head supplied among the accessories is also capable of 18 watts of fast charging, so you don't have to buy anything else if you want the function. use.
Summary
As I wrote in the introduction to the article, the Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite was a fallen device for me, at least on paper. Taking it in hand, using the phone, that has changed radically. It is simply amazing that Xiaomi can provide a mobile phone of this quality in this relatively low price range. The only little thing you can put into it is the expulsion of the notification LED on the back under the text Xiaomi, in addition, in turn, the device is unquestionable in all important matters!
The workmanship is simply amazing. From the outside, the phone is a strong upscale, including of course the HDR-capable AMOLED display and under-glass fingerprint sensor, and inside, they provide hardware with pleasant muscle power that can even run games, a system that includes support for artificial intelligence without error driven by.
These are bored repetitive sentences in tests of Xiaomi phones, but it is not me who can do this, but the manufacturer, who is slowly unable to get a phone out of his hands that we would resent. The Xiaomi Mi 9 Lite is as impressive as it is, so if the question is whether you dare to buy it, then my answer, if you think in this price range, is a must-see!
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If you want a different color (black or white), write in the comments!
