This is it! We are almost toward the end of the year, and normally at this point of time, Xiaomi drops in something real good and this time its a remake of the somewhat disappointing Mi 9 Flagship. The Mi 9 Pro 5G is a total makeover of the Mi 9 which included a lot of new features under the hood. Be it from processor to battery to charging options, it has took quite a leap forward into well the year 2020. Stay with me as I make a full review of the Mi 9 Pro 5G!
Tech Specs of Mi 9 Pro:
- · Qualcomm SDM855+ Snapdragon 855+ Octa-core processor Octa-core (1×2.96 GHz Kryo 485 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 485 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 485)
- · Adreno 640 GPU (700 MHz)
- · 8GB/12GB of RAM LPDDR4x
- · 6.39-inch Samsung AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, (~90.7% screen-to-body ratio)
- · 1080 x 2340 pixels FHD+ (~403 ppi pixel density), 60,000:1 contrast ratio, 19.5:9 Ratio
- · DCI-P3 color gamut, high color saturation, 430nit, Corning Gorilla 6
- · Pearl White, Titanium Black
- · 128GB/256GB/512GB of storage
- · 48 MP, f/1.8, 27mm (wide), 1/2″, 0.8µm, PDAF, Laser AF Sony IMX 586
- 12 MP, f/2.2, 54mm (telephoto), 1/3.6″, 1.0µm, PDAF, Laser AF, 2x optical zoom Samsung S5K3M5
- 16 MP, f/2.2, 13mm (ultrawide), 1/3.0″, 1.0µm, PDAF, Laser AF SONY IMX481
- · 20 MP front camera, f/2.0, 0.9µm, 3D Beauty, Mirror Function, Portrait Mode, Front HDR
- · On Screen Finger print scanner 7th Generation
- · Dual SIM (nano sim size)
- · 3G, LTE, 4G+ Carrier Aggregation, VoLTE Calls, 5G
- · Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, DUAL Band GPS Phone, A-GPS, NFC
- · 4000mAh battery, Quick Charge 4.0 Supported, 40 Watts Fast Charging, 30W Wireless Fast Charge, 10W Reverse Wireless Charing
- · 2×2 MIMO Technology to support MU-MIMO
- · Sensors: Ultrasonic distance sensor, Ambient Light sensor, Gyro, Vibration Motor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Electronic
- Compass, Hall Sensor
- · Android Pie 9, MIUI 10
- · USB-C port, UFS 2.1
- · 157.21 mm x 74.64 mm x 8.54 mm
- · 196 Grams
Design
I honestly liked the Mi 6 design from back then, It was probably one of my favorite design from the Mi Series line up so far, but the Mi 9 did amazed me with its all edge curved design because it was designed by the one who is behind the structure of the Mi 6 no wonder. The Mi 9 Pro 5G did carried over the same design of the Mi 9, only 2 changes, the Xiao AI button went missing, and the thickness increased by 1mm, the rest maintained status quo. The Mi 9 Pro 5G does sport a 2.5D screen and it was quite slippery when we let it sit flat on a table (especially on marble or glass surface). The notch improved from the Mi 8 significantly as it now sports only a teardrop notch, hopefully it will be gone comes Mi 10 flagship next year. The Pearl White and the Black are both elegant in their own ways, therefore making it a worth flagship to land in my hands.
Unboxing
Display and Audio
We were expecting a lot from the display side as we discovered that its sporting a Samsung AMOLED, tho this is already a norm for Mi Series since the Mi 8. The Full HD display did blew me away with its awesome rendering of photos and videos, and probably one thing that is not good with AMOLED is the burn in problems like those on the Samsung Galaxy Flagship Series that we have heard about. We watched several movies and I can say its pretty crisp and detailed especially playing 4K quality movies. The sound was excellent, we have no problem kicking the sound to the max inside a small room and it can fill the room with sound. The loudspeaker supports stereo mode as the sounds comes from the bottom of the phone as well as from the earpiece just above the front camera, and chew on this, the sounds has improved greatly from the Mi 9 itself, making it more immersive to play games. Bluetooth connectivity of headset is also no problem on this unit. Playing games like PUBG and COD at highest mode was definitely not a problem, just dont forget to access the game mode inside the security app.
Specs of Loudspeaker
1217 super linear speaker
Smart PA large volume external release
1.04cc large sound cavity design
Supported Audio Output
MP4 | M4V | MKV | XVID | WAV | AAC | MP3 | AMR | FLAC | APE
Supported Video Output
Supports first-generation video codec technology/HEVC, H.264, MPEG4, VC-1, VP8, VP9 and other video formats;supports high dynamic range display when playing HDR10 video content
Snapdragon 855+
The Snapdragon 855 SoC is a workhorse, it has 8 cores and can run up to 2.96Ghz of computing speed ready to feed those power hungry applications that need this speed. Now of course powered together with the powerful Adreno 640, and of course a generous serving of 8GB or 12GB of RAM, it will definitely turn your device into a beast! Not mentioning that it can run even the most graphics hungry games like PUBG, COD and NBA 2K20. This latest flagship by Qualcomm is a overclocked chipsent from the SD 855 and we ran several stress test on this unit and we did not see any lags nor any slowdown on the opening of any apps in the Mi 9 Pro 5G, multitasking was a breeze. So good graphics, good multitasking plus fast processing makes Snapdragon 855+ probably one of the most premium SoC in the market at the moment.
And like any gaming phones out there with the SD 855+, the Mi 9 Pro 5G scored almost at par with them, garnering a total of 465,865 Points from the AnTuTu Benchmark.
Connectivity
The Mi 9 Pro 5G supports 14 different LTE bands and 4 different 5G Bands! So much for celebration, 5G is still on its infant stage for most of the Asian countries and Philippines is no exception. Its just a moment of time that we need should it be rolled out, this depends on the network operator, we do hope to test it out pretty soon! It’s pretty easy to switch to LTE network inside the settings, and it also supports Dual 4G mode as well. You can freely choose which sim you want to use your LTE data, since this is a Dual LTE, Dual standby smartphone. Wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac is also smooth and it also supports Wi-Fi Direct. Wireless screen mirroring is also available via the Miracast protocol, tethering data is also working perfectly. Bluetooth 5.0,GPS, and GLONASS are all present, NFC (Near Field Communication) is also present to support Mi Pay, Android Pay and it enables you to send data to a fellow NFC user with just tapping your phones together. Transfering data from older phones using Mi Mover was also a breeze as well. Dual GPS is also working perfectly as well, except sometimes No GPS when traveling under the bridge or inside the tunnel.
Supported Bands:
5G NR: Mobile n41, n79, Unicom n78, Telecom n78
4G: FDD-LTE: B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B7 / B8 / B12 / B17
TDD-LTE: B34 / B38 / B39 / B40 / B41
Note : LTE B41 (2496-2690 194MHz)
3G: WCDMA: B1 / B2 / B4 / B5 / B8
TDSCDMA: B34 / B39
2G: GSM: B2 / B3 / B5 / B8
support 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology | HPUE | HO RxD
Camera
The Mi 9 probably is one of my favorite cameras of all time, and the Mi 9 Pro 5G has took it up a notch as well, being able to use it as a vlogging device is another upgrade on this one. The EIS and OIS are working a lot better as well as it is a lot less shaky as well, for me it is one of the best camera that Xiaomi has released as of presstime. We have by far tested it in all angles and all conditions be it well lit, semi dim, dark mode. We can see that in most of out shots its very vivid and crisp, Im very happy with the results especially with the stable EIS which I was able to shoot good videos while moving a lot. Face Unlocking was no problem as well as the on screen Fingerprint Scanner which unlocks the phone pretty pretty fast!
Sample Shots:
Selfies:
Sample Video
Mi 9 Pro 5G Battery and Benchmark:
The Mi 9 Pro 5G supports the Qualcomm Quick charge 4.0, not only that, it can charge up to 40W, and take this, it has 30W wireless charging support and there is more! 10W Reverse Charging is equipped! This means you can charge someone else’s phone while on the go! We tested charging the phone from 15% to 100% and it took just an amazing 40 minutes based on the supplied cable and charger! If you want to charge it from zero to 100, it takes 48 minutes based from Xiaomi official website. We recorded a 14 hour 17 minutes endurance test under the PC Mark battery stress test, this is 2 hours more than the Mi 9 which only packs a 3300mAh, for me an additional 2 hours means a lot already.
Reverse Charging
More Benchmarks
Verdict
The Mi 9 Pro 5G for me is probably the bomb for 2019, Xiaomi almost release the best at the end of the year. Imagine you get the goodness of the Mi 9 Flagship with more juice, faster charging, reverse charging, faster processor as well as a more revolutionized back cover. Everything is here and you dont need to find it anywhere else, its even future proof as it already sports the 5G network inside the shell. Probably the only thing that I dont like here is the teardrop notch on the front screen, otherwise its already a perfect device for me!