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Interface and reliability
- Runs Android 9 overlaid with MIUI 10
- Doesn't have an app drawer
Running Android 9, the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE is in a great position from a future-proofing point of view, and that also means the phone has access to the plethora of apps available in the Google Play Store.
Less excellent is Xiaomi’s skin, MIUI 10, which is a highly customizable, but also highly clunky experience. Like iPhones and Huawei devices, Xiaomi doesn’t load up an apps tray on the Mi 9 SE by default, so forces users to organize apps into folders. And while Huawei gives you the chance to activate an apps tray, Xiaomi doesn’t.
This means, if you’re anything like us and have transferred all your old apps from an old phone to the Mi 9 SE, you’ll have 132+ shortcuts strewn across your home screens to organize into some kind of order. Alternatively, you can do what we did and install a custom launcher.
If however, you want to persevere, you have a variable number of home screens to populate, a Xiaomi 'Guide' screen to the left, with shortcuts to apps and a few tools, and a notifications bar.
There are also plenty of handy customizations in the settings, from gesture inputs through to a dark theme to truly take advantage of that AMOLED display.
So while we don’t love what Xiaomi is doing with Android, we can appreciate parts of it, and everything we didn't take to is over-ridable, provided you don’t mind a quick dip in the Google Play Store to find a great custom launcher.
Movies, music and gaming
- Great screen for videos and games
- Mono speaker and no headphone port
- Chipset is mid-range but still handles games well
With an HDR Super AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and a pixel density of 432 pixels per inch, the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE is a fantastic phone for watching content on. It’s incredibly bright, but at the same time shows dark colors really well. So while it isn’t quite a flagship screen, it isn’t far off.
Audio quality from the speaker is decent too, with ample volume and resonance. That said, it’s a mono speaker that’s very easy to cover up, and there’s no headphone jack in sight.
As for gaming, despite the fact the phone uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712, a mid-range chipset, it handled everything we threw at it brilliantly, including 3D games like Injustice 2 and Real Racing. In addition, running a custom launcher was also stutter-free, as too was 4K video playback.
Specs and benchmarks
- Solid benchmark results
- Packs an in-screen fingerprint scanner
- No wireless charging or microSD card slot
The Mi 9 SE's Snapdragon 712 chipset is coupled with 6GB of RAM, and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. The phone benchmarks well, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 5,970, which is around the same as the Google Pixel 2.
The phone also offers two-fold biometric security in the form of an under-display fingerprint scanner, which is a touch slower than flagships today, and face unlock.
While the latter is less secure, we’d recommend firing the two up in tandem if you want to get past the lock screen quickly.
Additionally, there’s no waterproofing, wireless charging or microSD card slot. The prior two aren’t norms on mid-range smartphones and aren’t featured on the pricier OnePlus 7 Pro or Oppo Reno 10X Zoom.
As for the missing microSD card support, how much that matters will come down to how much storage you need - with up to 128GB of internal storage, there’s a good chance this won’t phase most users.
