Xiaomi Mi 9T review

The Xiaomi Mi 9T is a newcomer to the market. It is indeed the international version of the Redmi K20 which was presented in China a little earlier in the year.

Contrary to what its number and letter seem to indicate, it is not a new version of the Xiaomi Mi 9. We will see it later, but the device has a slightly less processor powerful.

On the other hand, its design is much more successful and more in tune with the times.

In this test, we will of course talk about this famous design, but we will also talk about the more technical part and we will therefore discuss the screen, the processor or the autonomy of the phone. To then bounce on the photo, the video and the sound… and finish with the platform.

Design & Ergonomics

If you expect the Xiaomi Mi 9T to be a simple copy of the Mi 9, then you may be very surprised. It goes much further than the latter.

In general, the recipe does not change. The Xiaomi Mi 9T is still equipped with a glass case and it is also entitled to a screen with contained borders.

The comparison stops there, however.

The case in question doesn't look the same to begin with. Xiaomi left out the iridescent look. On the black model, there is therefore a glass plate at the back with patterns imitating carbon fiber. The whole thing is very convincing. Stylish, even.

It should also be noted that the back plate is less messy than that of most terminals on the market. It will therefore be less likely to attract fingerprints.

We will particularly appreciate the small touch of color induced by the red strapping around the main lens and by the color of the power button.

The screen also goes much further than that of the Mi9. No more notches in sight, the slab has no cutouts and its borders do not exceed two millimeters on the sides and three millimeters at the bottom. On the other hand, Xiaomi did not opt ​​for a curved panel like on the OnePlus 7 Pro.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This flat panel limits the risk of handling errors when using the phone with one hand.

The front camera has not disappeared of course. It is in fact located in a moving part located at the level of the upper edge. All you have to do is launch the camera and switch to selfie mode to see it appear, or even request it through another application.

This pop up camera works well, but it's not a killer either and will need a second or two to fully deploy. This will also slow down the facial recognition process.

In this area, the Xiaomi Mi 9 will therefore be much more responsive.

Another important detail. When the front camera comes out of the shell, two red LEDs light up on each side of the optics. These do not act as notification LEDs. In reality, they turn red when the front camera is inaccessible and therefore when it is deploying or folding. When the light disappears, the Mi 9T is ready to shoot.

However, in addition, there is also an LED on the cover of the front camera and it is the latter that will act as a notification LED.

No big surprises at the button level. They are all grouped together on the right edge. The fingerprint reader is directly placed under the screen of the phone and it turns out to be quite responsive on a daily basis. On the other hand, it will be essential to show you as precise as possible to facilitate – and speed up – the identification process.

Connectivity is generous. In addition to the USB Type-C connector placed at the lower edge, the terminal has a nice jack at its upper edge and it can therefore accept headphones or wired headphones. We must admit, it is very surprising to find such a connector on a 2019 phone since it tends to disappear more and more.

The photo module is placed in the middle at the back, on a vertical axis. We will come back to this a little later, but be aware that Xiaomi offers some nice things on this side.

More generally, the phone is well in hand and it is not too slippery. Despite the beautiful diagonal of its screen, it is quite easy to handle with one hand. And the borderless side, frankly, is just awesome.

It's crazy to find such a design on a phone offered at this price and once again we can say that Xiaomi has done very, very well.

Screen, Processor & Autonomy

And the time has come to tackle the slightly more technical part, and therefore to look at the screen, the processor and the autonomy of the Xiaomi Mi 9T.

Xiaomi has been very generous in terms of screen. The Mi 9T has a 6.39-inch panel and the brand has also opted for AMOLED. The definition is very correct and it reaches FHD+, i.e. 2340 x 1080.

On its site, Xiaomi announces a contrast of 60000:1 and a coverage of 103.8% of the NTSC color gamut, but also compatibility with HDR.

On paper, the Mi 9T has everything it takes to seduce. And this is also the case in practice.

All you have to do is start playing a film or series on Netflix to see it. The image is very qualitative, with good contrasts and a colorimetry that hits the spot. Without forgetting blacks who are really black.

But beyond the very quality of the display, it is also the borderless side of the panel that reinforces the immersion. We immediately get into the videos and we even end up completely forgetting the phone.

As I said a little earlier, the Xiaomi Mi 9T does not compete with the Mi 9 in terms of power.

Unlike the latter, it does not use the Snapdragon 855 and has a Snapdragon 730 instead.

This chip is a little less well known than its big sister, but it still has some solid arguments to make.

Based on the Kryo 470 architecture, it has no less than eight cores clocked at a maximum of 2.2 GHz. And if we are to believe AnTuTu, then it does not lack a respondent since it obtained no less than 207,000 points.

In fact, I did not notice any latency during these few weeks of testing. The platform remained fluid in all circumstances, even on the most complex tasks. It will thus be quite possible to play gourmet titles on the phone.

PUBG Mobile will thus turn to small onions, with all the details thoroughly. Once again, no latency will spoil your pleasure, even in the busiest scenes.

Now, if you prefer big chips, then know that the Redmi K20 was presented alongside a Redmi K20 Pro when it was made official.

A Redmi K20 Pro which is powered by a Snapdragon 855.

As of this writing, Xiaomi has not announced an international version for this device, but several certifications have been spotted online, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro emerge. in the more or less near future.

On the autonomy side, Xiaomi has also seen wide and the Mi 9T is therefore equipped with a 4000 mAh battery, a battery compatible with fast charging at 18 W.

For mixed use, without too many games, the terminal easily lasts the day. By being careful, we can hope to last a day and a half or even a little more. And indeed, if the fast charge is not the fastest on the market, it will still allow us to quickly restore color to its battery.

To be as representative as possible, I ran PC Mark on the terminal and the benchmark devoted to evaluating its autonomy reached 12:34.

It now remains to evaluate the modem of the device. As always, I relied on Nperf to complete this task.

The Xiaomi Mi 9T reached 136 mbps in reception and 10 mbps in transmission, with a latency of 29 ms. Score level, we reached 96% in video and 80% in web with a total score of 104,508 points.

Photo, Video & Sound

We talked about design and technical details. Now is the time to tackle everything related to photography, video and sound!

Here again, the Xiaomi Mi 9T has strong arguments to make. It indeed embeds a rear module composed of three cameras.

The main sensor reaches a definition of 48 million pixels and is crowned with beautiful optics opening at f/1.75. To support it, Xiaomi has on board its phone a second 8 million pixel sensor accompanied by a telephoto lens opening at f / 2.4 and offering a 2x optical zoom. Finally, as a third camera, there is a 13 million pixel sensor crowned with ultra wide-angle optics opening at f / 2.4.

To top it off, the Xiaomi Mi 9T also features a dual phase and contrast detection focusing system and a monochrome flash.

You will have understood that the key word here is flexibility. Thanks to these three focal lengths, the Mi 9T will be able to adapt to your expectations. A logic that we now find with a lot of manufacturers, such as Huawei, Samsung or even OnePlus.

In theory, it's not bad, but you're probably wondering how good the Mi 9T's camera is in the field

When the light is there, everything is fine. The Mi 9T is indeed capable of producing very good quality shots with a nice feeling of sharpness and a colorimetry that falls fairly well overall, even in the most difficult scenes.

The dynamics are as always quite perfectible, but it will be enough to activate the HDR to benefit from a slightly wider dynamic range and recover details in the shadows. The AI ​​is also quite fair and it will not tend to oversaturate the colors of our photos.

I was obviously very afraid that the quality would drop drastically indoors or after dark. And indeed, we lose a little in detail.

In absolute terms, however, this is not surprising. All smartphones encounter the same weaknesses in this field and you really have to look at the very high end to find phones capable of shooting after dark without too many losses.

Now the Mi 9T didn't completely disappoint me either and it even surprised me quite a bit in terms of white balance and noise.

The AI ​​makes it possible not to end up with photos that tend to be brownish and it also limits the appearance of artifacts in the shadows. I really did not expect that from a phone positioned in this price segment.

I mentioned it a little earlier, but the main particularity of the Mi 9T is that it has a photo module made up of three sensors and three different focal lengths. It is therefore possible to go from wide angle to ultra wide angle or telephoto in just a few seconds.

First observation, in all three cases, the colors remain the same. Regardless of the focal length used, the photos will always be calibrated in the same way.

More surprisingly, I didn't notice a big drop in sharpness from one focal length to another, even in the most difficult light conditions. If the photos taken with the ultra wide angle and the telephoto lens are a bit more noisy than those taken with the wide angle, the difference is not obvious either, despite the difference in aperture between these three focal lengths. Again, I expected very different results… and much worse.

It's time to talk about video. In this regard, the Xiaomi Mi 9T offers four different recording modes. It can shoot 4K at 30fps, 1080p at 60 or 30fps, and 720p at 30fps.

Unsurprisingly, the Snapdragon 730 does not allow it to reach 60 frames per second in 4K. Rest assured, however, because it will always be possible to make slow motions in post production using a dedicated software such as Final Cut or Premiere Pro.

On the other hand, what pleasantly surprised me was the quality of the sequences captured through it. The videos are sharp, with beautiful colorimetry and the most correct dynamics. And then, above all, the stabilization really works miracles and you can even film while walking without fear of unwanted tremors.

It's really stunning and the only small flaw I noticed is a slight pumping effect in the focus on certain scenes. But you really have to have a good eye to spot it.

So far, it's almost flawless, but there is still one point on which the Xiaomi Mi 9T left me a little unsatisfied: the sound.

In this field, the Mi 9T does not particularly shine. It is indeed equipped with a single speaker and it will therefore not be able to reproduce three-dimensional sound, which will of course affect immersion.

To make matters worse, the one and only speaker is placed on the lower edge and it is not unforgettable. The bass is not very present and the mids are a bit too loud for my taste. I don't think music lovers will find anything there.

Fortunately, they will have the option of switching to a helmet to improve the situation. Here, they can also opt for wireless or a wired connection, which is quite nice. And of course, the sound will be much better, especially if you use good headphones behind. Personally, with the QC35, my ears were delighted.

Platform & Functions

For the final chapter of this test, the time has come to take a serious look at the platform and the functions of the Xiaomi Mi 9T.

If you've had a phone from the brand in your hands recently, then you won't be caught off guard. The Mi 9T is delivered under MIUI 10 and therefore with the same version as that on board the Mi 9 or even the Redmi Note 7.

This version is of course based on Android 9.0 Pie, but it is ultimately closer to iOS in terms of its interface. It ignores the application drawer and includes very stripped down and very minimalist visuals.

Like the Apple platform, there is also a screen on the left, a screen that lists several widgets such as recommended applications, contacts to call or even news to read.

Overall, this interface is quite simple to grasp, but it will undoubtedly disappoint purists who swear by Android.

This is not his main problem, however. For me, the real concern with MIUI is all the bloat wares that are installed by default and which considerably weigh down its interface. Even more in the absence of a drawer. I would have really liked Xiaomi to have a little less heavy hand in this area.

Nothing to say about the functions, we find all the usual bits and pieces and in particular a navigation system by gestures which will save us a little space on the screen.

Always on the good news side, we can also mention the integration of a night mode which will allow us to extend the autonomy of the phone a little further thanks to its AMOLED screen.

Afterwards, in a more general way, it should also be noted that the platform options are quite dense and this does not make them easy to read.

In reality, there are a multitude of options spread over an incredible number of menus and you will therefore have to start by opening each of them in order to take your marks.

Now, despite these few flaws, we can still salute MIUI for its performance. In two weeks of testing, I did not notice any latency.

In Conclusion

So we come to the conclusion of this test. As I said from the outset, the Xaomi Mi 9T was a real favorite for me. I actually did not expect to find such a complete phone for such a price. A price currently hovering around 290 € in the 64 GB version or around 320 € in the 128 GB version.

On the design side, nothing to say, it has everything of a great and its beautiful borderless screen is clearly one of its best assets. No notch in sight, you can enjoy your multimedia content in the best possible conditions.

The spec sheet is solid for its part, and the Snapdragon 730 will be more than enough for most people. The others can anyway turn to the future Mi 9T Pro.

I expected to be disappointed with the photo, but this is not the case. Without equaling a P30 Pro, the Mi 9T will be able to take beautiful photos. Same thing for video, where it will also benefit from the most convincing stabilization.

MIUI, for its part, is a little dated, it's true, but the interface at least has the merit of being very accessible and anyone should therefore be able to find their bearings... provided they are well heard to ignore the bloat wares which spoil the view a bit.