After teasing Malaysians, the latest addition to Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 9 family is here—the Mi 9T Pro. If you’re looking out for a flagship-level device minus wallet-burning properties, this one’s for you folks. The Mi 9T Pro will be on the shelves starting 30 August 2019.
I’m all for consumer choice and Xiaomi throws in yet another option in their expanding Mi flagship series. Just two months after the Mi 9 made a debut, Xiaomi introduced the Mi 9T, a repackaged Redmi K20 that literally obliterated everything in its class with its price-performance. Power users though knew to hold out a little longer.
And now the time has come. Hello, Mi 9T Pro.
Think of the Mi 9T Pro as the “tock” upgrade of the Mi 9. It’s not a huge upgrade, but still an upgrade nonetheless. You’ll get all the bells and whistles of a flagship device, but in true Xiaomi style, won’t cost you a pretty penny to own.
Right off the bat, you’ll be hard pressed to find aesthetic differences between the Mi 9T Pro and its more affordable sibling. the Mi 9T. You’ll find the same sleek chassis, beautiful four-sided curved glass back with a unique flamed texture that’s protected by Gorilla Glass 5. Offered in Flame Red and Glacier Blue, the device is also available in a classier Carbon Black and Pearl White (6GB RAM + 64GB storage only) colour variants.
The Mi 9T Pro features a true full-screen 6.39-inch AMOLED FHD+ display which boasts a 91.9 percent screen-to-body ratio. It’s an impressive display, boasting 600 nits of maximum brightness, support for Netflix HD and HDR. It’s also equipped with a 7th generation in-screen fingerprint scanner which Xiaomi says has an increased sensor size, improved unlock success rate an faster fingerprint recognition speed.
In terms of the camera system, it’s identical to the one found on the Mi 9T. It touts an AI-assisted 48MP f/1.75 main shooter, 13MP f/2.4 ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8MP f/2.4 telephoto shooter with 2x optical zoom. Xiaomi has updated the camera software, now capable of UHD 4K video capture at 60fps.
On the front, you get the familiar 20MP f/2.2 pop-up selfie camera that engages as quickly as in 0.8 seconds.
Under the hood is where the Mi 9T Pro stands out from its little “Terminator” sibling. In place of the Snapdragon 730 found on the Mi 9T, the Pro uses a Snapdragon 855 consisting of an octa-core CPU clocked at 2.84GHz couple with the new Adreno 640 GPU. Xiaomi claims CPU and GPU performance improvements of 45 percent and 20 percent respectively. In addition, keeping things cool is a new 8-layer graphite stack and bi-directional cooling system.
Game enthusiasts can expect silky smooth gameplay with Game Turbo 2.0, which optimises the phone’s touch response, display, audio quality, network, and in-game calls. The device’s touch response rate is increased to 180Hz, reducing response times by approximately 70ms.
A couple of key advantages of the Mi 9T over the Mi 9 is a bigger 4,000mAh battery that supports 27W fast charge over USB-C. You get an 18W charger in the box, though. Xiaomi claims a 58 percent charge in just 30 minutes, and a full charge in 73 minutes.
What Xiaomi removed from the Mi 9, it put back in the Mi 9T Pro—3.5mm headphone jack.
It also features multi-functional NFC, and dual frequency GPS.
Price and availability
The Mi 9T Pro will come in two configurations: 6GB RAM + 64GB storage and 6GB RAM + 128GB storage priced at MYR1,599 and MYR1,799 respectively. Both versions will be available online at Lazada and Shopee as well as Authorised Mi Stores starting from 30 August 2019.
If you don’t need flagship-level power, the Mi 9T is a fantastic buy!
A Pearl White option will be available in 6GB + 64GB storage version at Authorised Mi stores only.
