Xiaomi unveiled its newest high-end smartphone — the Mi 9 —
at an occasion in China this week, setting the prospect for its imminent crop
of 2019 flagships. The company’s penchant for aggressive pricing continues with
the Mi 9, and while that may put the phone in the “reasonable flagship”
category, it won’t be out of place amongst far more expensive competition.
Price is no longer as clear an suggestion of performance and
features as it used to be, thanks in big part to the Pocophone F1 . The
Snapdragon 845-toting smartphone from the Xiaomi sub-brand gives lower-specced
mid-range devices a run for their money, undercutting even the reasonable Mi
family’s prices by a decent margin.
In this quick glance at the Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Pocophone F1, we
find out how Xiaomi’s newest and best compare to its unsurprising hit of 2018!
Design
The Xiaomi Mi 9 is a superbly designed phone with two glass
panels sandwiching a metal frame. Instead of relying on gradient colors like
other Chinese phones, the curved rear of the Mi 9 gives off a holographic vibe,
with color that shifts depending on how the glow hits it. Up front is the more slight
waterdrop notch that absolutely seems like the superior design choice if you completely
have to go the notch route.
On the other hand, the Pocophone F1 may be tricky to pick
out from an arrangement of last year’s mid-range devices with its big iPhone
X-like notch. The polycarbonate back seems to be the compromise keeping the
price as low as it is, and even the “premium” Armored Edition isn’t much of an improve.
It’s not badly designed or constructed, it just seems out of place when still
ultra-affordable phones are coming with metal and glass builds.
Pocophone F1
The Xiaomi Mi 9 is also thinner, narrower, and a touch
lighter than the Pocophone F1, and the only genuine similarity between the two
phones can be seen at the base of the two, with two speaker grills flanking a
USB-C port. It’s no surprise the Pocophone F1 loses the design fight to the
Xiaomi Mi 9, which is explicable considering it costs at least $200 cheaper.
Display
Xiaomi Mi9
Things get a lot more even on the hardware part of things.
The Xiaomi Mi 9 display is a 6.39-inch AMOLED panel with Full HD+ (2,340 x
1,080) resolution and 19.5:9 aspect ratios, while the Pocophone F1 features a
5.99-inch IPS LCD display, also with a Full HD+ (2246 x 1080) declaration and
an 18:9 aspect ratio.
Pocophone F1
Unfortunately, neither are best-in-class displays. The
AMOLED display of the Mi 9 has a leg up over the LCD display of the Pocophone
F1, providing richer and additional vibrant colors and deeper blacks. The F1
appears to get a feel brighter, when you crank up the brightness.
Hardware
The Pocophone F1 is a $300 phone power-driven by the
Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, backed by either 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 64GB
or 128GB of built-in storage space. Having a flagship processing package and
more RAM than competition twice or triple its price is cause enough to go for
the Pocophone F1. Many premium mid-range phones flaunt flagship-like speeds,
but you get accurate high-end presentation with the F1.
Of course, the Xiaomi Mi 9 once again has the benefit over
the Pocophone F1, and every other 2018 flagship, by being one of the first
smartphones to come with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor. Bump in
performance aside, the Mi 9 also comes with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB
of built-in storage space. There’s also a special China-only edition with a
whopping 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space.
Xiaomi Mi 9
The Xiaomi Mi 9 now uses a Goodix in-display fingerprint
scanner that can also be used to access three shortcuts with a long press.
These shortcuts are locked to scanning a QR code, performing a web search, and addition
a calendar even for now, but a future update will permit you to remap them. The
Pocophone F1 keeps a established
capacitive fingerprint sensor on the back, which has established impressive.
The Pocophone F1 has a couple of compensation over the Mi 9.
It comes with a headphone jack, unlike the Mi 9, which forces users to rely on
the 3.5mm to USB-C adapter to use a standard pair of headphones. The F1 also
comes with a superior 4,000mAh battery than the 3,300mAh unit of the Mi 9.
Xiaomi Mi 9 speaker USB-C port
What is thrilling about the Mi 9 is how fast you can accuse
the phone. Xiaomi introduced a latest battery charging tech called Charge
Turbo, which supports up to 27W wired charge and 20W wireless charging with
supported chargers. This means you can fully charge the phone in just over an
hour when plugged in, or approximately an hour and forty minutes with wireless
charging. You get a standard 18W wired charger in the box and the 27W charging
brick is existing separately.
Camera
Pocophone F1
The Pocophone F1’s dual back camera arrangement has a 12MP
main sensor with an f/1.9 aperture and a 5MP depth sensor. Smartphone
photography isn’t the F1’s strength and is somewhat inconsistent. It is capable
of taking some exceptional photos as long as the lighting circumstances are
right.
It’s definitely not a bad camera system, particularly for
the price. However, in the Xiaomi family, the camera presentation of the F1 is
more in line with the Redmi Note series than the flagship Mi range.
Xiaomi Mi 9
Xiaomi went all out with the camera arrangement of the Mi 9.
It’s the first Xiaomi smartphone to join the “triple rear camera” club. At the
top is a 12MP 2x optical zoom lens with an f/2.2 aperture and the third is a
16MP sensor ultra-wide angle lens. The middle one is the thrilling latest Sony
IMX586 48MP sensor with an f/1.75 aperture lens. However, you’ll have to
manually switch to 48MP shots in the settings for when you want big, detailed
shots in good quality lighting.
We can’t wait to put the camera of the Mi 9 throughout its
paces, but DxoMark already gave it a score of 107, putting it just following
the Huawei P20 Pro and the Mate 20 Pro. The Pocophone F1’s above standard score
of 91 doesn’t hold a candle to it.
In the markets where it’s obtainable, the Pocophone F1 is
starts around the $290 mark and goes up to the $400 mark for the higher-end 8GB
of RAM and 256GB of storage space version. At the launch event, Xiaomi only exposed
the Chinese price for the Mi 9. The device is priced starting at 2,999 yuan
(~$445), with the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space version setting you
back 3,299 yuan (~$490). Xiaomi will reveal the global pricing and at its MWC
event next week.
Conclusion
The Xiaomi Mi 9 is definitely the superior phone, unless not
having a headphone jack or expandable storage is an absolute deal breaker for
you. The beautiful design, colorful body, more influential processor, better
display, and far enhanced camera setup are hard to argue against.
The Pocophone F1 gets a bad wrap because of the anticipation
its high-end processing package sets. If you take the phone for what it is, a
mid-range device with blazing speedy, flagship performance, it blows the competition in its price range
out of the water. The Pocophone F1 also set a precedent — we could potentially
see a sub-$400 smartphone power-driven by the Snapdragon 855 at various point
this year, which is incredible.
All said and done, both the Xiaomi Mi 9 and the Pocophone F1
offer incredible bang for your buck and will continue to shake things up in
their individual categories.
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