Introduction
The 108MP camera is the main attraction, obviously. It's a Quad Bayer unit, and it outputs 27MP photos. But the Mi CC9 has a lot more going for it in the camera department. It also comes with not one but two telephoto cameras - one for 2x zoom, and another for 5x optical zoom. There is also a 20MP ultrawide camera with autofocus and a 2MP macro shooter.
The design features a 3D curved screen - a 6.47" AMOLED panel with extended 1080p resolution.
The gaming-friendly Snapdragon 730G is in charge of everything that happens on the Mi Note 10. It's not the fastest chip there is today, but it is one of the most current ones, and its the fastest midrange option.
The Mi CC9 also comes with a massive 5,270 mAh battery that's capable of 30W fast charging, which should be able to charge the entire battery in just 65min.
Finally, the phone comes with MIUI 11 out of the box.
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro specs
- Body: Aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 5 front and back;
- Display: 6.47" curved AMOLED, droplet notch, 2,340x1,080px resolution, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 402ppi; HDR 10 and DCI-P3 compliant.
- Penta rear camera: Main camera - 108MP, 1/1.33" Quad-Bayer sensor with 0.8µm pixel size, 25mm f/1.7 lens (8P lens for the Premium edition), OIS, Laser AF; 2x zoom camera - 12MP, f/2.0, 1.4µm pixel size, dual-pixel AF; 5x zoom camera - 5M, f/2.0, saves 8MP; Ultra wide-angle cam - 20MP, 13mm f/2.2, 1.12µm pixel size; AF w/ closeup focusing Macro camera - 2MP, 1/5", 1.75µm pixel size, f/2.4; AF, 1.5-10cm focusing distance.
- Front camera: 32MP, 0.8µm pixel size, f/2.0; 1080p/30fps video recording;
- OS: Android 9 Pie; MIUI 11
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G: octa-core CPU (2x2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver), Adreno 618 GPU.
- Memory: 6GB of RAM; 64/128GB storage or 8GB of RAM, 128/256GB storage for Premium edition
- Battery: 5,270mAh Li-Po (sealed); 30W fast charging.
- Connectivity: Dual-SIM; LTE-A, 4-Band carrier aggregation, Cat.15/13 (800Mbps/150Mbps); USB-C; Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac; dual-band GPS; Bluetooth 5.0; FM radio, IR blaster.
- Misc: Under-display fingerprint reader; single down-firing speaker; 3.5mm jack
You've probably already noticed the Mi CC9 Pro comes has a 3.5mm audio jack, an IR blaster, and even an FM radio.
Well, to keep things fair, we'd have to point out that it doesn't have any increased water resistance or a MicroSD slot, or wireless charging, but some of us can live without those just to have this impressive set of cameras on the back.
We are eager to test what the 108MP camera is capable of, but before that, follow us on the next page to see what the phone looks like from up close and how it feels like to use.
Design
The Mi CC9 strikes us as being quite familiar. The only thing that stands out is the unusual symmetry in the curves of the front and back glass.
Other than that, it's a regular glass sandwich build if we've ever seen one. The Mi CC9 has got Gorilla Glass 5 panels on both its front and back and the whole thing is held together by a thin strip of an aluminum frame.
All keys are on the right side of the said frame, as well as the dual-SIM card tray. The top has the IR blaster, as usual, while the bottom houses everything else - the loudspeaker, the USB-C port, the mic, and the audio jack.
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro
We have here the Aurora Green color version, but honestly, 1/3 of the time it appeared blue rather than green. It's a really attractive color and there is a very interesting dynamically changing pattern underneath the surface.
The back is incredibly slippery, but the sides aren't, and that makes it super easy to handle with one hand even though it's quite heavy (208g).
The cameras occupy quite a lot of space on the back of the phone so we frequently found ourselves unwittingly covering up the lower two ones with our fingers. But we guess you might get used to that in time.
Even though it's heavy, the Mi CC9 Pro is not bulky at all and we find its curves very attractive. It's definitely among the better-designed smartphones out there and we really wish it had water resistance to make an even better-rounded overall package.
Display
The Mi CC9 Pro screen is a 6.47" AMOLED panel, with curved edges, rounded corners, and a small waterdrop-shaped notch for the 32MP selfie camera.
Having a curved front glass (3D display as Xiaomi calls it) has impacted the screen - it does come with accidental touch issues. Palm ejection works great and had issues in the camera app. It's tough to hold this phone without a case when capturing a photo because you have to try and not cover any of the lenses, and not touch the screen sides.
The screen resolution is 1080p+ and we didn't have any issues with it regarding sharpness. Plus, couples with the Snapdragon 730G, the 1080p resolution should provide some great framerates in games.
The Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro comes with the latest MIUI 11 on top of Android 9. We were hoping that at this point any new device should come out with Android 10 but it seems Chinese users are not as concerned about having the latest OS as Western customers are.
Xiaomi says the under-display fingerprint reader is 88% thinner than the previous-gen which has allowed for extra space for stuff such as the battery. The recognition area is 10% larger should be faster and more accurate than its previous version which we've used on the Mi 9T.
So far it's been working great. It takes a bit longer to setup up, but once that's done, this thing just flies.
Inside the Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro there is an 8nm Snapdragon 730G chipset powering the whole thing. It's certainly not a flagship processor but it's the most recent and also the top-performing midrange chipset Qualcomm has. The G in the name means it's optimized for gaming. The GPU clock has been increased compared to the vanilla SD730 bringing a 15% graphics boost.
Camera details
The back of the Mi CC9 pro looks a lot like the Mi 9's as it has a huge camera bump. It houses three of the five snappers - the 5x zoom camera, the 2x zoom camera, and the primary 108MP cam as well. Outside this arrangement, flush with the back, are the 20MP ultrawide, and the 2MP macro shooters and both have autofocus.
There are two dual-LED flashes on the back of the Mi CC9 Pro, next to the cameras. One has a clear front glass and is brighter, while the other's diffused and it is meant to provide softer fill light for portraits in dimmer light.
It's interesting to see how zooming works on the Mi CC Pro camera system. From 1.1x to 1.9x magnifications you get a crop from the main sensor. From 2x to 3.7x, the phone uses the 12MP 2x telephoto camera. From 3.7x to 50x, the go-to camera is the 5MP 5x telephoto camera. The 10x hybrid zoom uses the 5 MP sensor and stacks a bunch of images. Everything above 10x zoom is just digital zoom from the 5 MP camera.
An interesting bit is that this 5x camera utilizes an 8 MP sensor and the lens itself is not 5x, which explains its how they've managed to fit it inside the phone without employing a periscope zoom system. To achieve the 5x zooming, the camera crops the central part of this 8MP sensor and gets an effective 5 MP photo with 5x magnification.
However, for whatever reason, after that, the software upscales the 5MP photo to 8 MP and you get this as the 5x output from the camera. We guess Xiaomi assumed 5MP photos wouldn't sit well with the target audience. But then why not market the camera as an 8MP unit, to begin with? We really can't know.
Another interesting trickery concerns the phone's macro capabilities. The Mi CC9 has a macro cam with autofocus and it can focus on subjects at 2-10cm of distances. However, the phone can focus from even closer - from as close as 1.5cm - a first for a phone, they claim. For that, it uses a combination of the macro camera and the ultra-wide camera.
Camera samples
And here are the promised camera sample. The photos shot by the main cam are all taken in 27MP resolution as we were convinced this would produce the best possible results. We'll add 108MP images to the set later.
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro primary camera samples (27MP)
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro 2x zoom camera samples (12MP)
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro 5x zoom camera samples (8MP)
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro ultra-wide camera samples (20MP)
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro macro camera samples (2MP)
The Mi CC9 Pro also comes with a new camera Night Mode or, Night Mode 2.0, as they call it. Night Mode 2.0 stacks RAW frames in the ISP as opposed to JPEGs as their Night Mode 1.0 did. This should deliver better detail and improved dynamic range.
In our experience, the new Night Mode 2.0 takes twice as long as their previous version to do its processing. It's stacking more frames so that makes sense, but for the final result, we're not really sure if it's worth the extra hassle. The normal mode is already capturing pretty great night time shots so perhaps you can be the judge of its usefulness after seeing our camera samples.
None of the other cameras has Night Mode but it's supposedly coming with a future OTA to the ultra-wide camera.
Low-light primary camera samples (27MP)
Low-light primary camera samples (27MP): Normal • Night Mode
Low-light 2x zoom camera samples (12MP)
Low-light 5x zoom camera samples (8MP)
Low-light ultra-wide camera samples (20MP)
Wrap-up
The Xiaomi Mi CC9 is shaping up to be an impressive device. Its pricing is even more intriguing as it costs only 2,800 Chinese Yuan for 6/128GB (around 350 euros or 400 US dollars).
The only real caveat is that the Mi CC9 Pro will only be sold in China for the time being. There are rumors about an international launch under a different name, but we'll have to wait to learn more about that.
The key takeaway from today's event, however, is that Xiaomi is doubling down on camera development with the Mi CC9. It's unusual to have the latest in camera development on a phone which doesn't even have a flagship processor (or an obscenely high price tag for that matter). It's really an interesting approach which might pay off handsomely.
Xiaomi says it's increased its Camera Research & Development spending, which is great as this was one area in which they were a bit behind the competition before.
As a result from that, we're probably going to see more interesting camera-centric devices from Xiaomi in the future. And boy, the future can't come soon enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment