Xiaomi Mi 9T/Redmi K20 Review

Rear cameras, photo and video samples

On the back of Xiaomi Mi 9T, there's a triple camera module, that's vertically aligned in the centre of the upper half of the body. The top camera is separate from the other two and has a fuchsia-coloured ring around it. This is the 8MP telephoto shooter, which features an OmniVision OV8856 sensor and a 5-element lens with an f/2.4 aperture, 52 mm focal length (35 mm equivalent), 44.6° angle of view. It shoots photos with a resolution of 3264 x 2448 but you can't shoot videos with it. It offers 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom.

The other two cameras form a module by themselves. The top one is the main shooter, which combines a 48MP Sony IMX582 sensor and a 6-element lens with an f/1.75 aperture, 26 mm focal length (35 mm equivalent), 79° angle of view. This sensor has a 1/2" optical format and 0.8 μm pixel size, which due to the 4-in-1 pixel binning technology becomes 1.6 μm. By default, this camera shoots 12MP photos and you have to select the 48MP shooting mode in order to get 8000 x 6000 images. This camera records up to 4K videos at 30 fps and up to FHD videos at 960 fps. None of the cameras is optically stabilized and here video shooting is backed by EIS. PDAF and CAF are enabled as well.

The third shooter is a 13MP ultra-wide one. It employs a Samsung S5K3L6 ISOCELL sensor that has a 1/3.1" optical format and 1.12 μm pixel size. The sensor is coupled with a 5-element lens with a 124.8° angle of view and an f/2.4 aperture. The 35 mm equivalent focal length is 15 mm. Below the three cameras, a dual-LED flash resides.

Front camera, photo samples

Xiaomi Mi 9T features a pop-up mechanism which houses the 20MP front-facing camera. This sensor has a 0.8 μm pixel size and is paired to an f/2.2 lens. The camera shoots photos with a resolution of 5184 x 3880 pixels and 1080p videos at 30 fps. It supports AI portrait mode with background blur, AI smart beauty and face unlock. The pop-up mechanism has a downward pressure detection, emergency drop detection and protection by quick retraction. It has been tested to withstand 300,000 pop-ups.

Camera app

Xiaomi Mi 9T arrives with the company's own Camera application, which is adjusted to each particular model to address its shooting capabilities. As usual, the main screen of the app has a circular shutter button at the bottom's centre with a shortcut to the list of photos and videos to its left and the camera switch to its right. Above those buttons, you will see the list of shooting modes - Photo, 48M, Portrait, Video, Slow Motion, Short Video, Night, Panorama, Pro. You can switch between them by swiping lef/right. Above them, you get the 0.6x/1x/2x zoom icons which correspond to shooting with the wide, main and tele camera, respectively. At the top of the screen, you get additional options depending on the shooting mode. They may include beauty mode, HDR, aspect ratio, flash on/off and a hamburger menu that opens the camera settings. The Photo Mode is the default shooting mode. It offers advanced beautification options and a big set of filters. When you tap on the hamburger menu, you also get access to Google Lens, Square mode, Tilt-shift, Straighten, Timer and photo shooting settings. With this mode on, you can shoot 12MP only. The following mode is dubbed 48M and allows you to shoot with the full resolution. The Portratit mode has an option for shooting in full body mode and provides a number of studio lighting effects. Of course, there's a beautfy mode but not as advanced as the one on the Photo mode. The Night mode works only with the wide and main camera. The Pro mode allows you to adjust the white balance, f-number, ISO, and shutter speed. From here, you can also manually switch between the three cameras to choose which one you want to use for a particular shot. The three different video shooting modes are quite simple. The slow-motion one has a toggle for the fps on the top of the screen. The hamburger menu opens settings that are specific for the shooting mode in question. The Camera settings are one and the same for the front and rear cameras and include toggles for geotagging, camera sounds, location info saving, pocket mode, save the previous mode, mirror the front camera, add a time stamp on photos, device watermark, show grid lines, correct distortion in ultra-wide shots, correct face distortions on group selfies, focus and shoot, scan QR codes, etc. You can also customize the watermark, choose the picture quality and auto-exposure settings, etc. When shooting videos, the settings allow you to set the resolution and fps, the video encoder, time-lapse interval. The other options are the same as for the photo shooting. The interface for the front camera is identical to the one for the rear cameras. Whenever you choose a mode that's not supported by the front shooters (the Night mode, for example), the device simply switches to the rear cameras. The beautification effects under the Photo Mode are further enhanced by adding makeup effects. The Portrait (no full-body mode), Short video, Slow motion, Video modes are the same as for the rear cameras. When you open a photo with the Gallery app, you can edit it by applying a beautification effect depending on the scene (food, portrait, landscape and so on), cropping, adding filters and/or stickers, doodling, placing text, adjusting the brightness, sharpness, contrast, saturation, vignette, etc.