Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro

Top-end phone for mid-range budgets

Don’t tell Xiaomi, but they’re selling a £700 phone for £399. With a huge screen, a fast Snapdragon 855 processor, triple camera and 128GB of storage, the Mi 9T Pro clearly has the wrong price tag.

It ought to have a cheap plastic case, but no – the glass back comes in black or a choice of iridescent colours. The screen should be on the coarse and dim side, but it’s sharp, reasonably bright for an AMOLED (which benefits more from making black pixels darker), and covers the full SRGB colour range.

They’ve at least made some attempt to

SPECIFICATIONS

6.39in 2340x1080-pixel screen • 48, 13 and 8-megapixel rear cameras • 20-megapixel front camera • 128GB flash storage (no microsd) • 802.11ac Wi-fi • Bluetooth 5.0 • 3G/4G/5G • 157x74x8.8mm (HXWXD) • 191g • One-year warranty www.snipca.com/33062 spoil it with Xiaomi’s annoying version of Android, but everything runs so smoothly you’ll hardly care. The main camera, with 48 megapixels, doesn’t capture quite as much detail as Google’s 12-megapixel Pixel 3a, and colours look slightly duller, but it works nearly as well in low light, and you get ultra-wide and optical zoom.

With the screen filling the entire front, the selfie camera pops up from the top when required, taking well-balanced shots. Fingerprint reader? Built into the screen. Battery life? Just under 19 hours in our standard video-playback test. There’s no wireless charging, though.

When we put the Mi 9T Pro in our basket on Xiaomi’s website, it added a set of Mi True Wireless Earphones (£80) for free. That’s just a ridiculous deal. Even if they end it, the 9T Pro is easily one of the best phones you can get for under £500.

VERDICT With features ranging from good to unheard-of for the price bracket, this is a great buy ★★★★★

ALTERNATIVE

Oneplus 7T £549 Many similarities and a superior HDR screen, but much pricier, with camera teething problems