The Xiaomi Mi9 Review: Flagship Performance At a Mid-Range Price

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

The Mi9’s expectations for low-light photography shouldn’t be too high: The IMX586 wasn’t a fantastic performer in any phone until now, but on the Mi9 it’s exasperated by the fact that the phone lacks OIS, a critical missing component to be able to get sharper low-light shots. Here’s to hope that the Mi9 at least managed to do adequately compared to the competition:

[ Mi9 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Reno 10x ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

As expected, things aren’t off to be a very good start here. Comparing the Mi9 to the Reno 10x with the same hardware, we’re seeing relatively similar compositions between the two phones. The difference here is that the Reno is able to capture an exposure twice as long at half the ISO level of the Mi9, which has to go up to ISO7066 in this scene. The Reno still managed to end up with a vastly sharper image, all in likelihood thanks to the OIS it employs.

Thankfully, the Mi9 does have a computational photography night mode. The mode does help the phone a lot in terms of exposure, however it just can’t too much in terms of enhancing details and lacks behind the night modes of other phones.

The wide-angle doesn’t have the option to use the night mode, and thus ends up quite disappointing and uncompetitive.

[ Mi9 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Reno 10x ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

The next shot unfortunately ends with similar results. Without night mode, the Mi9’s capture is just disastrous and reminded us of devices 3+ years old, maybe even worse. Night mode makes things passable and useable, however if we compare the night mode of the Mi9 against the automatic night mode shot of the Reno 10x, the results are just incomparable.

[ Mi9 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Reno 10x ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

Same with the next shot, night mode makes the exposure passable, but it’s just lacking in any kind of detail.

[ Mi9 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Reno 10x ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

Extreme low-light becomes a blur.

[ Mi9 ] - [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Reno 10x ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

Indoor dim lighting actually ends up better with Night Mode off for the Mi9 as at least it’s able to resolve some detail, with the mode on it becomes another unusable blur.

Low-light Conclusion - Terrible

Overall, Xiaomi’s choice of not employing OIS on the Mi9 is very costly in terms of the low-light photography results. The phone just isn’t competitive in any kind of scenario and the results are quite most terrible. Don’t expect to be able to do much at all after the sun sets.