Xiaomi Mi 9T 64 GB / 6 GB

New-old flagship

The flagship Xiaomi Mi 9 turned out to be so successful that Xiaomi launched three variations of it on the market. The Mi 9T looks like the most interesting of them — it's actually a premium smartphone with powerful hardware, NFC, fast charging, fancy features like a retractable camera and a "delicious" non-flagship price tag of $400.

Pop-up selfie camera

The main feature of Mi 9T is a completely frameless AMOLED screen with a diagonal of 6.4". Where is the front camera? It was made retractable, as was already the case in some Vivo and Huawei models. It extends quickly and has protection against accidental drops and damage. According to the passport, the mechanism itself must withstand up to 300,000 opening and closing cycles.

Full frameless AMOLED screen

The frameless display itself visually looks very good, does not fade in the sun, boasts rich colours, high contrast and HDR support. According to subjective feelings, the quality here is no worse than displays in more expensive flagship models from competitors. But to say something about the appearance is difficult, frameless displays have made any reasoning on this topic meaningless. Therefore, we note only a nice back cover made of textured glass. Each colour option has its own texture: carbon on the black model, haze on the blue one, etc.

Snapdragon 730

Unlike Mi 9 SE, Mi 9T is built on a more recent processor — Qualcomm Snapdragon 730, which boasts factory overclocking, support for Wi-Fi version 5 and the ability to record 4K HDR video. It is complemented by Adreno 618 graphics, 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. In general, the filling is quite a flagship one, and the only thing missing here is a slot for a memory card.

Great dual camera

As far as the camera is concerned, the characteristics differ little from the Mi 9 SE, and the quality of the final shots too. In short, everything is good, but not great. Somewhere on the level of Huawei P20. Not "excellent" because the triple camera often misses at night and indoors with poor lighting. In general, models like the Huawei P30 Pro have raised the bar for mobile photography to new heights.

Unblock it

At the same time, the Mi 9T has no obvious weaknesses. The only thing that will have to get used to is the leisurely unlocking of the smartphone. The fact is that for unlocking there is a face recognition function, but for this you need to wait until the front camera leaves. Or use the fingerprint scanner hidden under the screen, which does not work as fast as conventional scanners in the button and on the back cover. And periodically "sticks". If you have to unlock your screen 50 times a day or use contactless payments frequently, it can be pretty annoying.