Xiaomi acquired Meitu smartphone project in 2018, which was considered as a clear signal that Xiaomi was going to include the youth especially females as their target customers. Meitu is the most famous software producer in mobile beauty experiences in China.
Xiaomi CC9 review video:
Appearance & design
At first glance, both the phones are the most similar if we ignore their rear colors. They both share a similar appearance mainly because of the fact that their displays and rear design are identical. Both the phones feature a 6.39-inch Super AMOLED 2340 x 1080p display up front with a waterdrop notch. The flagship-level display makes the screen-to-body ratio result to 91%. After comparing the detail of these two displays, it’s pretty sure that Xiaomi CC9 offers a flagship-level display, though nothing surprising if we look at the specs in Mid-2019.
Looking back to the rear setups, both the phones feature a triple-camera setup in an identical vertical arrangement. All these factors contribute to their similar looks. Meanwhile, the back was advertised that it uses a holographic, all-curved design, which did contribute a better hand-on feeling. But similar Mi9’s back, it is also a fingerprint collector.
The Xiaomi Mi9 was released as a true flagship and positioned as a premium product with a bargain price, while the Xiaomi CC9 has a more specific mission. Xiaomi is aiming to portray the CC9 as a fashion smartphone for youth, especially those youth who admire beautiful appearance and love taking photos. It’s also the reason for Xiaomi to call it CC series, which means Chic & Cool. In addition, Xiaomi continuously adapts its pricing strategy on the CC9 to expand its market share. But as we mentioned before, how could it please the youth who especially admire the appearance with the only Mi9 looks? Their solution here is to give more vibrant color versions. This time, including the highest MEITU version, Xiaomi CC9 has 4 color versions on the table: White Lover, Blue Planet and Black Prince for Standard versions, and a Fairy color for Meitu version.
Although Xiaomi’s product manager spent much time on introducing how complicated the vibrant-color technology is, it’s still an individual experience and preference. Do you want to have your smartphone shining all the time?
Cameras
Besides Chic & Cool, the CC has another meaning, ‘Camera & Camera’. As a typical smartphone for youth, Xiaomi boosts their back & front cameras to a top level. However, we can also see its compromise due to cost control. Rear camera setups are as below:
- 48MP SONY IMX586, 48MP, 0.8μm，f/1.79, No OIS
- 8MP Ultra-wide camera 120°, No OIS
- 200MP depth camera, No OIS
Compared to Mi9, it maintains the main camera for most photography but cuts the 16MP telephoto camera and reduces the wide camera resolution to 8MP.
The true improvement is the front camera. It is a 32MP Samsung camera that can shoot photos with a 6560×4928 resolution. So, probably Xiaomi assumes that CC9’s target users were young groups and they much value the front portrait shooting.
Compared to other flagships, Xiaomi CC9 doesn’t present a wonderful dynamic range here. so, you’d better turn on the HDR mode here to enhance it. Under high-contrast and low-light conditions, it shows a pretty good quality at color reproduction and contrast though, the poor noise control over the shadow area doesn’t lead to a satisfactory result. While under a lower-contrast scene, the noise problem is less obvious and the general image looks pretty good with much detail. At night scene with the extremely low-light condition, with an auto-exposure mode, there is nothing to praise, while with the super-night mode on, the general brightness is improved significantly.
In conclusion, it seems that Xiaomi CC9 tends to product a lower-saturation image style under low-light conditions. But, meanwhile, it does boost general brightness significantly through a high ISO, generally at a figure over 3200. As we are working on the smartphone test, more information and sample results of cameras performance are coming soon by Gizmochina video review team. Please stay watching for our latest update.
About its video shooting, Xiaomi CC9 can shoot up to 4K 30p video. In terms of a lack of OIS, the video shooting does not reach a good stabilization under most conditions,
Image & beauty features
Another feature worth talking is the Mimoji. Right now, it’s an exclusive feature for Xiaomi CC9 but not including the Meitu version. Due to the similar looks to Apple Memoji, Xiaomi has been mired in controversy of idea plagiarism. According to the Xiaomi official explanation, the Mimoji generating process is different from the Memoji. Mimoji can automatically generate a Mimoji from your real image, while you only can create a Memoji manually. But, if we compared the final effects, the animated facial expressions with various hairstyles, we have to admit that there should have some relevance between them. Most probably would regard it as stealing, while some may just call it ideal-borrow.
Back to the smartphone, Mimoji looks well with showing multiple expressions like winking, smiling, sticking tongue out, month action and so on. It is not limited to Mimoji-covered photos. It also supports a 15-second short video shooting, which is ready for social media.
Xiaomi also mentions a ‘magic sky wiper’ (not official English title) feature, which basically is to help you change the sky-type of your image with one click. The scenarios usually are about landscape photography under bad weathers, or you just want a significant sky to cover your memory. The effect is so impressive and much better than our expectation. The edges were recognized well as the whole image tone was adjusted by covering a filter (see below). But there are only several sky-types for choices now, which means that using the fixed types, you probably would be found out making a fake-sky through the software on social media.
Performance
The Xiaomi Mi9 offers a flagship processor of Snapdragon 855, while the Xiaomi CC9 is a mid-ranger with Snapdragon 710. Snapdragon 710 has proved itself as a sub-flagship processor. It can handle most phone games without problems and support a good system fluency. After playing 40min PUBG Mobile with highest graphics settings, though it fluctuated frequently, the frame rate remained at average 50fps. The gaming fluency is even at the first-tier among all the Snapdragon 710 devices, though comparing to flagships with snapdragon 855 there is still a remarkable gap.
Battery & Charging
The Xiaomi CC9 has a 4030 mAh battery which is even larger than its brother, Xiaomi Mi9. Such a large battery usually leads to a bulkier size. The CC9 is no exception. It’s 8.67mm thick, while the figure of the Mi 9 is only 7.61mm. But the CC9 doesn’t feel much heavier, as it weighs 179g. Looking at the battery life, the phone can last for around 8-10 hours under a high frequency of use (e.g. music, video, social media), while it can last for 4-5 hours as a gaming machine. In our test, the Xiaomi CC9 can charge from 10% to 47% with included 18W charger in 30min. The test results of battery are not bad but nothing surprising.
Conclusion
Some additional features like NFC and ‘infrared remote controller’ are much useful and delightful. It is not core advertised features though, these slight stuff definitely increase the user experience and provide a good impression.
After experiencing the Xiaomi CC9 as my main phone these days, it’s no doubt that the CC9 is a balanced mid-ranger. If we leave the copy controversy and the similar Mi9 design alone, we are willing to give positive comments on it. But the controversy is objectively threatening the Xiaomi brand image. These kinds of controversy have lasted for years. Some critics regard Xiaomi as a copy recidivist among tech companies. Such voices definitely are harmful to the market performance of Xiaomi CC9.
Considering some features like audio and camera experience that would be much more intuitive to show in video, we decide to put the full review with more detail in our review video. If you are interested in the Xiaomi CC9, please stay watching our YouTube channel.
