The Xiaomi Mi9 Review: Flagship Performance At a Mid-Range Price
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 13, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Xiaomi
- Snapdragon 855
- Xiaomi Mi9
System Performance
Following our Snapdragon 855 device overview, we should be relatively familiar with how the Xiaomi Mi9 performs. The chipset is by now a very well known component and various devices with the silicon will only ever differ by the software stack implementation by the vendor.
In Xiaomi’s case in the Mi9, I didn’t see anything particularly standing out for the phone, performing quite well but also not particularly distinguishing itself as being among the best nor worst performers amongst its Snapdragon 855 siblings.
Overall in PCMark, we see the Mi9 also perform averagely but very much within the top tier devices this year. It’s not quite as fast as the Galaxy S10 (S855) or the odd device like the RedMagic 3, but it performs better than say the LG G8.
Similarly, to the PCMark results, the Mi9 ends up quite in the middle of the Snapdragon 855 pack in the web browsing JS tests.
Overall, my subjective experience with the Mi9 was excellent. Xiaomi seemingly very well integrated the OS-side boosters and the phone is very responsive when opening or switching between applications. Again I have to mention that while this performance doesn’t really stand out much amongst other flagship devices this year, it’s an incredible showing at the price range that the Mi9 is at. Other mid-range phones in this bracket, such as say the Pixel 3a and similar just can’t really compete with the Mi9.
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Shlong - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Then disable your adblocker. Hard to pay the writers, server bills, when 70% of your users are ad blocking.PeachNCream - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
If a hypothetical 70% of your audience is blocking ads on the site you run, maybe it says more about the advertising than the site's visitors.valinor89 - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I used to periodically disable the adblocker for this site, but each time I had to reenable it because sometimes it has obnoxious ads, autoplay videos, pop ups that hide content and what not.s.yu - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
Does this really work? Are you sure that it's the displays not the clicks that generate revenue? If it's the clicks might as well click all the ads once in a while and block them all when reading.Shlong - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
So which sites don't have annoying advertising? I use adblock but for sites I frequently visit, I disable, like at Anandtech, Ars-Technica, and others.FunBunny2 - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
"Then disable your adblocker. Hard to pay the writers, server bills, when 70% of your users are ad blocking."that's a great gulp of Flavour Aid. think about it, for just a second. will folks who choose to conserve bandwidth (both on the innterTubes and their brains) by ad blocking be likely to ever, ever, ever click on such ads? the answer, of course, is never, never, never. IOW, the ad revenue driven sites are scamming the ad buyers, by 'selling eyes'. which is exactly the same way that print media went. and the innterTubes sites proclaimed that they were oh so new and disruptive. right.
sites have the tech to sell click-throughs, rather than eyes, but they're scared shitless to do that since the number is minuscule. not to pick on AT specifically, of course. all these sites have the same problem. if they did sell click-throughs then ad blocking is a non-issue, of course.
Qasar - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
sadly i use an ad blocker as well, i tried disabling it once, and man.. the ads are EVERYWHERE, makes most of the site practically unreadable. and the auto playing videos, are MOST annoying.Shlong - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
They are annoying but if people continue to block the ads, Anandtech and similar sites won't be around for that much longer.Korguz - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
then they should tone some of them down, or like some have asked, switch to a paid version with no ads.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
"Anandtech and similar sites won't be around for that much longer."once again: sell based on click-throughs and be done with it. selling 'eyes' is a total scam. in fact, selling click-throughs just might, might lead to better ads, not just more obnoxious ones. :)