It's sort of homecoming for us that it was years since we reviewed a Redmi device (yes, as old as Redmi 1S) and with the changes that happened in the past few years, finally we got a crack of this device that only announced last January but can be comparable to another new device that launched by another R brand just minutes ago.
Meet the Redmi 9T and it was a different device compared to what you may have saw locally online.
Here is our unpacking video of Redmi 9T which unlike to others, we got the official commercial unit with box and the base 4 GB RAM/64 GB ROM version
Our experience that we are sharing will be based on MIUI 12.0.7. We got this at MIUI 12.0.4 so we got 2 system updates.
At first, it was a learning curve for us as it's been years since we played a Mi device even though we already watched a number of latest MIUI update videos particularly on their namings from location (GPS) to other things in control center. Even that we set up the animation mode at developer options at 0.5x, it was still a bit slow for us at the first few minutes. Later on, we got the hang of it and we appreciate the brand new environment of MIUI
On connectivity, very good in all things from Bluetooth, mobile data, calls, texts, WiFi and GPS with the help of still capable Snapdragon 662. One lil thing though that might irk some people at first is that if for example, you already set SIM2 as your mobile data option and you are about to disable it on the sim card option, you have to manually change the mobile data option to SIM1 unlike on others that it will automatically do the thing,
On our battery rundown test, it was a mixed bag that it only survived 35 hours on our video battery rundown test (maybe coz that we have a FHD phone compared to another SD 662-powered phone with HD reso yet it has 1000 mAh less on the tank) but using it as a daily driver in heavy mode, it was an easy 2.5 day smartphone. With it's 18 watt charger, the phone will be fully charged in almost 3 hours - not bad for a 6,000 mAh capacity.
On benchmarks, thanks to it's UFS storage, it scored over 16000 more on Antutu versus another SD 662 powered phone with only eMMC storage at over 186000. The scores were also higher when we visited Geekbench
On camera, the brand new MIUI also gave us a few minutes of figuring it out but we got it from what a high midranger can offer from pro (which is functional enough), to AI, HDR in manual or auto modes and cinema mode on photos which is a.k.a giving you a 16:9 photo. On daylight, both the normal and 48 MP camera modes were above average for the given SRP . On night, that is when you have to fully utilize between the AI and HDR modes (you can turn it on both of it but we advice to go HDR only based on out night samples). You can easily tell that it is a budget phone once we took some HD and FHD videos even on daylight which for us could have been a bit brighter output. The normal and portrait modes on selfies did a good job for us.
Redmi 9T normal, AI, HDR + AI and HDR camera comparison (night)
Redmi 9T normal to 48 MP main camera comparison
Redmi 9T rear camera samples
Redmi 9T normal to portrait selfie camera samples
Redmi 9T HD and Full HD Primary Video Camera Samples
On extras: We experienced before on some old-school smartphones but we noticed that the default volume via the 3.5 mm audio jack was very low but good thing that we found out a functioning app that made a turnaround which we will gonna reveal soon both via a blog post and video.
We will not gonna include the 6/128 version of this smartphone in our verdict. At Php 6990 for the 4/64 variant of Redmi 9T, we are getting our money's worth for IR blaster, 48 MP primary camera, four cameras, USB Type C, a nice touch of the brand new MIUI (for us), good enough for photos and 6000 mAh battery. We don't mind that much on that almost 3 hours of charging but don't expect that much in terms of video. We can also safely to say that it is a better buy compared to Poco M3 at 1,000 less and saving Php 1000 over the newly announced Narzo phone. For us, it's 4 out of 5 for Redmi 9T
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