Xiaomi Mi CC9 Pro Full Review: Should You Buy This 108MP Beast?

Mi CC9 Pro which is also known as Mi Note 10 in the European market is the world’s first phone to come with a 108MP camera sensor. It packs a Penta camera setup on the back. It’s a camera-centric smartphone by Xiaomi for photography enthusiasts but from display to battery life, everything is top-notch! Xiaomi India has started teasing “#108MP Is Coming” and most likely we will get the CC9 Pro in India very soon. Checkout our Mi CC9 Pro full review which will solve your queries. We have added Mi CC9 Pro camera samples in the article, so checkout 108MP camera samples as well. Now, without further ado let’s jump into the review.

Mi CC9 Pro Full Review

Box Contents:

• Mi CC9 Pro
• 30W charging adapter
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• TPU case
• SIM Ejector tool
• Quick start guide

A Beautiful Design

Mi CC9 Pro comes with the Gorilla Glass 5 on the front as well as back which makes this phone premium. The metal frame seamlessly blends with the glass which feels premium in hands. Due to the curved display, the phone looks sleek. It’s a solid well-built phone with a weight of 208 grams. Unlike the Redmi K20 series, the Mi CC9 Pro does not have eye-catchy back but it comes with a clean glossy back which is again a fingerprint magnet but it looks beautiful.

The power button and volume buttons are present on the right side which is easily accessible and tactile. The SIM card tray lies below the power button and the left side of the phone is almost clean. On the top, you will find an IR blaster which is very rare nowadays but Xiaomi offers in their budget phones. The secondary noise cancellation mic present beside it. Luckily, a 3.5mm audio jack is there at the bottom alongside the speaker and USB Type-C charging port. Beautiful is the right word to describe the design!

First Curved Display by Xiaomi

The display of the Mi CC9 Pro is curved from both sides just like the OnePlus 7 Pro. It is the first smartphone by Xiaomi with a curved display. It is a 6.47″ FHD+ AMOLED display with a small U-shape notch on the top. The display quality is amazing! The colors are vibrant and thanks to the AMOLED panel the blacks are deep which makes the media consumption experience a lot better. The sunlight visibility is also good with a peak brightness of about 422nits. The display is HDR+ and HDR10 certified.

We have a Chinese unit so we haven’t tested the Widevine certification details but the phone will definitely come with the Widevine L1 certification in India so you will be able to stream HD content on Amazon Prime and Netflix. The display is curved which is both Pro and Con. The curved display looks stunning but on the other hand, many people are not used to it and some accidental touches are expected.

Sound

Talking about media consumption, the audio output via a single bottom-firing speaker is loud and clear. Although the bass is not very high and the stereo speakers are missing but what’s not missing here is a headphone jack. Despite packing a massive 5,260mAh battery, the phone has a headphone jack and the sound output via it is good too.

Biometrics

Mi CC9 Pro comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor which measures 7×9mm, bigger than the previous-gen 7×7mm. It is very fast and accurate. The face unlock is also present which uses the front camera and unlocks the phone very quickly.

108MP Penta Camera

Undoubtedly the USP or a unique selling point and the center of attraction of Mi CC9 Pro is the Penta camera setup especially the primary 108MP sensor. It’s Samsung Isocell Bright HMX sensor with the pixel size of 0.8µm which is the same as the 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor. However, the sensor size is 1/1.33-inches which is quite larger than the IMX586’s 1/2-inch sensor. The sensor is coupled with an f/1.7 wider aperture and it also has OIS. It also has a 12MP 2x telephoto lens which is really useful for the portrait shots. The 5MP 5x telephoto lens comes with OIS for better zoomed-in shots. There is a 20MP Ultrawide angle lens with the field of view of 117 degrees and at last, there is a 2MP dedicated macro lens for close up shots.

That’s enough about the numbers, now let’s just jump into the actual camera quality. Let’s put the 108MP beast on the test!

Mi CC9 Pro Camera Samples

All the five lenses of Mi CC9 Pro performs very well in broad daylighting conditions. There is a color-shifting going on among the lenses but except that the quality of each lens is very good. The ultrawide angle lens with 117-degree FoV creates a new perspective and the image looks nice with natural color reproduction and on par sharpness and dynamic range. The primary lens shoots 27MP by default and images turn out with a lot of details and good color science. We did not face oversaturation in the image which is a good thing. The dynamic range is also good and in certain conditions, the HDR mode helps to get better results. Sometimes, in harsh lighting conditions, the image looks a bit overexposed. The 2x Telephoto lens is primarily used for the portrait shots. Both 2x and 5x telephoto lenses capture a good amount of details and natural colors.

108MP Camera Samples

The primary 108MP sensor capture a lot of details in the good lighting condition. As you can see in the below images the text on the board is clearly visible after zooming in and there is no noise as such. The size of 108MP images are more than 16MB and the resolution is 9024×12032. As we mentioned earlier, the photos are captured in 27MP by default but you can capture in full resolution with the dedicated 108MP mode. However, there is not a huge difference between them, 108MP images just have a bit extra amount of details.

Indoor Lighting Condition

The performance of 108MP sensor decreases a little bit in low light condition. Due to the wider aperture, the images in low lighting conditions turn out bright and the sharpness is also good. The dedicated night mode helps further to improve quality.

Macro Samples

The last lens of the Penta camera setup is a dedicated 2MP macro lens. Now, this is just a 2MP sensor we can not expect some good quality output from it. However, you can go up to 2cms close to any subject using this lens and if you use it wisely then you can get some pretty interesting results.

Front Camera Samples

The notch houses a 32MP front camera which captures a good amount of details. The skin tones are natural and overall image processing is also good. The edge detection and background blur is on par in the selfie portraits.

Let’s now conclude all the camera-related things. Mi CC9 Pro Premium Edition and Huawei Mate 30 Pro are the best smartphone cameras of 2019 with 121 DxOMark score. Yes, we agree with this. The versatile camera setup allows you to choose a different resolution and a different perspective for certain condition. All of the lenses perform very well and the primary 108MP lens capture some of the best photos. The cameras of Mi CC9 Pro will not disappoint any mobile photography enthusiasts.

Performance and Software

Unlike the flagship camera specs, Mi CC9 Pro is not powered by a flagship chipset. A midrange chipset by Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G is present under the hood which is a fairly powerful chipset. It is based on 8nm architecture. The day to day life performance is excellent. We did not face any issue in opening apps, browsing, scrolling through social media and gaming. The gaming performance was very good, we tried Asphalt and PUBG Mobile and did not face frame drops.

However, for the asking price brands like Realme and Redmi itself offers flagship snapdragon processor. It is worth noting here that this is a camera-centric device and the Snapdragon 730G is not bad in terms of performance. You will get up to 8 gigs of RAM and up to 128GB of UFS 2.1 Storage. Keep in mind, there is no external microSD card support just like the Redmi K20 series.

The phone runs on MIUI 11 on top of Android 9.0 Pie. We can expect the Android 10 update very soon and Xiaomi might launch the Mi CC9 Pro in India with Android 10 out of the box. MIUI comes with a lot of functionality and MIUI 11 offers a clean UI which we liked. The navigation gestures are handy and responsive.

A Massive Battery & Fast Charger

Mi CC9 Pro comes with a huge 5,260mAh battery. Very few brands offer such larger capacity batteries in smartphones, for example, Asus 6Z has a 6,000mAh battery. The big battery combined with an AMOLED display, battery efficient MIUI and Snapdragon 730G offers excellent battery life. The phone will last for 1.5 to 2 days for light users and 1 day for the heavy users. The charging speed is also impressive. The 30W charger charges the 5,260mAh battery in around 1 hour and 30 minutes. Kudos to Xiaomi for packing this big battery!

Conclusion: Should You Buy The Mi CC9 Pro / Mi Note 10?

Mi CC9 Pro sales for 2,799 Yuan in China which roughly translates to Rs. 28,000 and at this price point it’s an interesting smartphone. The phone has a 108MP sensor and extra 4 sensors, a massive battery with fast charging, a curved AMOLED panel, premium look, beautiful design and what not! However, if your priority is the performance and you want a gaming smartphone then Mi CC9 Pro is not the right option for you. Xiaomi is targeting a completely new audience with this phone. All the photography enthusiasts will love the Penta camera setup, so it seems like an easy recommendation for them. The overall package is kind of perfect!

Mi CC9 Pro Specifications

That’s all in our Mi CC9 Pro full review. Share your thoughts on Mi CC9 Pro camera samples in the comments down below.