Techlifereviews: Xiaomi Mi 9 goes official with 48MP triple camera

After releasing a series of leaks in the weeks culminating to today, Xiaomi has finally announced The Xiaomi Mi 9 dubbed the company’s first triple camera and the fastest wireless charging of any smartphone yet.

The front of the phone is adorned by a Super AMOLED 6.39-inches Screen panel with 1080p+ resolution. According to Xiaomi there is a 90.7% screen-to-body ratio, thanks in no small part to the water-drop notch design used. The official numbers states the screen can go as high as 600nits in brightness. Additionally, an interesting alternative provided is the Dark Mode which can be used to reduce power usage by up to 83%. Xiaomi also added a nice touch to the popular Always-On Display which now supports colorful patterns. The screen is guarded by Gorilla Glass 6 from Corning while the back is the Gorilla Glass 5.

The wave of the Quad Bayer sensor is not going anytime soon in that the Mi 9 just like other recent top phones also utilize Sony IMX586 which is a 48MP module. It has a large 1/2” sensor with 0.8µm pixels, which can be combined into 1.6µm Super pixels.

Additionally, the Mi 9 also utilizes a 16MP ultra-wide camera with 117° field of view. It has 1.0µm pixels and an f/2.2 lens with autofocus, which allows it to shoot macros from 4cm distance. For telephoto purposes, there is a 12MP with 1.0µm pixels, f/2.2 lens and capable of 2x optical zoom. For selfie purposes, there is a 20MP (f/2.0, 0.9µm) camera housed in the small U-shaped notch above the display. The triple camera setup is stated to be protected by a sapphire glass lens cover.

Apart from the primary function of taking selfies, the front-facing camera also serves the purpose of Biometric through Face Unlock, though it is less secure compared to the setup on the previous Xiaomi Mi 8.

The second biometric unlock choice is the in-display fingerprint reader. It is NFC enable which makes the phone capable of being used with Google Pay. There’s also a dual-frequency GPS and an IR blaster for controlling other electronic appliances.

Apart from the improvement in fast charging (27W over USB-C) the Mi 9 also supports 20W fast wireless charging. Uninterestingly, the phone is only bundled with an 18W charger.

A fast wireless charger rated up to 20W is going to be made available in conjunction with a 27W rated wired charger and a 20W wireless car charger.

Xiaomi picked the Snapdragon 855 chipset to power the Mi 9, no surprise here. It’s paired with 6GB of RAM and you can choose between 64GB and 128GB of storage. Game Turbo mode will tune the CPU and GPU to deliver a smoother gaming experience.

A transparent version similar to the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer will also be released. This model will only be available at first in China and will be saddled with 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage.

In a first for Xiaomi, the phone is fitted on the side with a button set aside to initiate an AI assistant. In China, it will summon the Xiao AI while the international version will be the Google assistant.

Xiaomi Mi 9 goes official with 48MP triple camera

Xiaomi has officially unveiled the Mi 9 with a 48MP triple camera and the fastest wireless charging on a phone