Mi 8 Pro Review: Under Display Fingerprint
by mitch002
After the huge success of the debut of Mi 8 and then Mi 8 Explorer Edition, Xiaomi didn't stop at there, it further increased the number of siblings to the Mi 8 family. Today we welcome the Mi 8 Pro and the Mi 8 Lite! The Mi 8 Pro is a almost similar version of the Mi 8 Explorer Edition, while Mi 8 Lite is the affordable version of the Mi 8. We are going to take on the Mi 8 Pro shall we?
Tech Specs of Mi 8 Pro:
What's in the Box
Classic Black Box with a Gold Engraved 8 on it
Protective Case, Mi 8 Pro, USB C Cable, QC 3 Charger, Manual, USB C to 3.5mm Converter, Sim Ejector Pin
First Glance at the Gold Version of the Mi 8 Pro!
Design
I honestly like the color of the Mi 8 Pro, the black version tho is nothing really special, but the gold variant does create a lot of attention. With its mirror like finish on a gradient gold to pinkish color, it is probably one of the more modern and attractive phone in the market at the moment. Now loaded with the fingerprint under the display, the back is now plain and elegant without the ceramic fingerprint slot on it anymore.
Side by side the Gold and Black Variant, we can see the gold one catches more attention
Front screen is the same black bezel.
Dual Camera is still protuded, when can Xiaomi perfect it to be on the equal surface as the back case?
USB Type C Slot, Mic in and Loudspeaker at the bottom
Dual Camera and Dual LED Flash
Dual Sim Slot (Nano + Nano) on the left side
Noise Cancellation Mic on Top
Volume rocker and power button on the right side
Video Unboxing
Display and Audio
We were expecting a lot from the display side as we discovered that its sporting a Samsung AMOLED, only in the Mi 8 Series Xiaomi has used this display, the nearest one was the Mi Note 2 sporting a OLED back then. The Full HD display did blew me away with its awesome rendering of photos and videos, and probably one thing that is not good with AMOLED is the burn in problems like those on the Samsung Galaxy Flagship Series that we have heard about. We watched several movies and I can say its pretty different from Mi MIX 2S as it displayed it better. The sound was excellent, we have no problem kicking the sound to the max inside a small room and it can fill the room with sound, actually the loudspeaker is louder than any other Xiaomi phones I have ever reviewed on. Bluetooth connectivity of headset is also no problem on this unit. I can say that the loudspeaker is pretty loud on this one as I am a frequent use of voice message in WeChat and this one definitely I have to volume down just to put it in a non scandalous way of listening to voice messages.
Here are the supported audio and video file format by the Mi 8 Pro
Support H.265/HEVC (Main profile), H.264 (Baseline/Main/High profile), MPEG4 (Simple profile/ASP) and other video formats, Support PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, MP3, AMR-NB and WB , FLAC, APE, WAV and other audio formats
Support HDR10 when playing HDR10 video content
Playing games is such a breeze on a flagship like this one, we played all the heavy games on this unit and it didn't even break a sweat. NBA 2k18 and PUBG was played on this phone on High Settings and its just as easy as a pie.
Snapdragon 845
One of the few devices that sports the latest chipset from Qualcomm is Mi 8 Pro, the Snapdragon 845 SoC has 8 cores and can run up to 2.8Ghz of computing speed. Now of course powered together with the powerful Adreno 630, and of course a generous serving of 6GB RAM, it will give you the best experience in gaming up to date. Not mentioning that it can run even the most graphics hungry games like PUBG and NBA 2K18. This latest flagship by Qualcomm first appeared in MI MIX 2S for Xiaomi, then followed by Black Shark and now its running inside the heart of Mi 8 Series Flagships. We ran several stress test on this unit and we did not see any lags nor any shortcomings on the opening of any apps in the Mi 8 Pro, multitasking was a breeze. This SoC is supports the 64-bit architecture which means it can compute at a very fast phase. So good graphics, good multitasking plus fast processing makes Snapdragon 845 probably one of the most premium SoC after the 835 that was present in last year's flagship.
The Mi 8 Pro scored a very good 286,862 points as opposed to the Mi8 Explorer Edition's 288,270 Points on AnTuTu out of the box, this test is done right out of the box and we still have yet to achieve the advertised 302k points, this probably is tested under MIUI 10 while its still MIUI 9.6 out of the box.
Connectivity
The Mi 8 Pro supports 15 different LTE bands (its the same as the Mi
and good news, due to persistent public demand, B20 is now present in this flagship. It's pretty easy to switch to LTE network inside the settings, and it also supports Dual 4G mode as well so both of my signals are running on 4G, I can even use mobile data during volte calls on the 2nd sim. You can freely choose which sim you want to use your LTE data, since this is a Dual LTE, Dual standby smartphone. This unit also has the 4G+ equipped, and also supports multiple carrier aggregation technology (should your network provider have this feature), you can take advantage of it. Wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac is also smooth and it also supports Wi-Fi Direct. Wireless screen mirroring is also available via the Miracast protocol, tethering data is also working perfectly. Bluetooth 5.0,GPS, and GLONASS are all present, NFC (Near Field Communication) is also present to support Mi Pay, Android Pay and it enables you to send data to a fellow NFC user with just tapping your phones together. Transferring data from older phones using Mi Mover was also a breeze as well.
Camera
The Mi 8 Series is one of the best camera that Xiaomi has released by far, getting the nod by DXOMark with 99 Points, this puts Mi 8 and its siblings together with the elites like the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. While Xiaomi has already unlocked another achievement so far, we can say that this camera performed very well under good lighting, and it has a great improvement on darker places as opposed to the Mi 6. The rear camera are both 12 Megapixels, one being the Sony IMX 363 Sensor and the other being the Samsung S5k3m3. They also incorporated the 4-AXIS OIS in this one so expect good shots in motion photos. The front snapper is a Samsung Sensor S5k3t2 with 20 Megapixel together with a Aux Camera Omnivision OV7251 is for face unlocking and it took pretty good selfies and it also sported the bokeh portrait mode. The manual mode has an exposure time of 1/2S and ISO of 3200. Face Unlocking is also present as well and is very easy to use, they have deployed the infrared to detect face even in dark ambiance. Video is using UHD 4K and its really good, check out our sample below.
Actual Photos
1X zoom
2x zoom
Without AI
With AI
Selfie Camera
Takes pretty good selfies as well
Video Sample
Mi 8 Pro Battery and Benchmark:
The Mi 8 Pro supports the Qualcomm Quick charge 4.0 but inside the box it only includes a QC 3.0 charger, and we tested it took in 5V 2.8 Amperes based on our testing using the supplied charger and cable. We charged the phone from 18% to 100% in 59 minutes as I was able to closely monitored it. We recorded a 8 hour 36 minutes endurance test Mi 8 Pro 6GB/128GB version under the PC Mark battery stress test. If these statistics are true on a normal daily use, then it's really a good sign for the said smartphone, and based on my daily usage for several days, the battery seems to last me a whole day on normal usage.
Other Benchmarks
Mi 8 Pro, Flagship Worthy Phone!
As we come to our final conclusion on this awesome flagship, the Mi 8 Pro did sported a lot of differences from the Mi8, especially the camera that it has passed DxO Mark and its not as saturated as the one rendered on the Mi8. This phone is now ranked with the elite phones, the venture toward AMOLED for me is still a questionable move, tho it rendered great display, but having burn-in problems might be problematic moving forward. The overall finish of the phone is very much elegant well except for the notch (you can hide it in the settings under full display). The Shiny Gold Cover is definitely something worth owning if you like mirror finished edition.
The Mi8 Pro 6GB/128GB retails for 3199 RMB.
The Mi8 Pro 8GB/128GB retails for 3599 RMB.
Mi 8 Pro
by mitch002
After the huge success of the debut of Mi 8 and then Mi 8 Explorer Edition, Xiaomi didn't stop at there, it further increased the number of siblings to the Mi 8 family. Today we welcome the Mi 8 Pro and the Mi 8 Lite! The Mi 8 Pro is a almost similar version of the Mi 8 Explorer Edition, while Mi 8 Lite is the affordable version of the Mi 8. We are going to take on the Mi 8 Pro shall we?
Tech Specs of Mi 8 Pro:
- · Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845 Octa-core processor (4x2.8GHz Kryo 385 Gold and 4x1.8GHz Kryo 385 Silver)
- · Adreno 630 GPU 710Mhz
- · 6/8GB of RAM LPDDR4X
- · 6.21-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, (~83.8% screen-to-body ratio)
- · 1080 x 2248 pixels FHD+ (~402 ppi pixel density), 60,000:1 ultra high contrast ratio, 18.7:9 Ratio
- · DCI-P3 color gamut, high color saturation, 430nit
- · Black, Gold and Transparent
- · 128GB of storage
- · 12 MP, wide angle lens, 4 Axis OIS, f/1.8, 1.4µm Dark Light Enhancement, Phase Detection Autofocus, Dual-LED flash
- 12 MP, telephoto lens, portrait lens, f/2.4, 1.0µm, AI
- · 20 MP front camera, f/2.0, 1.8µm, 3D Beauty, Mirror Function, Portrait Mode, Front HDR
- · In Screen Finger print scanner
- Infrared Face Unlock
- · Dual SIM (nano sim size)
- · 3G, LTE, 4G+ Carrier Aggregation, VoLTE Calls
- · Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, World's First DUAL Band GPS Phone, A-GPS, NFC
- · 3000mAh battery, Quick Charge 4.0 Supported
- · 2x2 MIMO Technology to support MU-MIMO
- · Sensors: Ultrasonic distance sensor, Ambient Light sensor, Gyro, Vibration Motor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Electronic
- Compass, Hall Sensor
- · Android Oreo 8.1
- · USB-C port
- · 154.9 mm x 74.8 mm x 7.6 mm
- · 177 Grams
What's in the Box
Classic Black Box with a Gold Engraved 8 on it
Protective Case, Mi 8 Pro, USB C Cable, QC 3 Charger, Manual, USB C to 3.5mm Converter, Sim Ejector Pin
First Glance at the Gold Version of the Mi 8 Pro!
Design
I honestly like the color of the Mi 8 Pro, the black version tho is nothing really special, but the gold variant does create a lot of attention. With its mirror like finish on a gradient gold to pinkish color, it is probably one of the more modern and attractive phone in the market at the moment. Now loaded with the fingerprint under the display, the back is now plain and elegant without the ceramic fingerprint slot on it anymore.
Side by side the Gold and Black Variant, we can see the gold one catches more attention
Front screen is the same black bezel.
Dual Camera is still protuded, when can Xiaomi perfect it to be on the equal surface as the back case?
USB Type C Slot, Mic in and Loudspeaker at the bottom
Dual Camera and Dual LED Flash
Dual Sim Slot (Nano + Nano) on the left side
Noise Cancellation Mic on Top
Volume rocker and power button on the right side
Video Unboxing
Display and Audio
We were expecting a lot from the display side as we discovered that its sporting a Samsung AMOLED, only in the Mi 8 Series Xiaomi has used this display, the nearest one was the Mi Note 2 sporting a OLED back then. The Full HD display did blew me away with its awesome rendering of photos and videos, and probably one thing that is not good with AMOLED is the burn in problems like those on the Samsung Galaxy Flagship Series that we have heard about. We watched several movies and I can say its pretty different from Mi MIX 2S as it displayed it better. The sound was excellent, we have no problem kicking the sound to the max inside a small room and it can fill the room with sound, actually the loudspeaker is louder than any other Xiaomi phones I have ever reviewed on. Bluetooth connectivity of headset is also no problem on this unit. I can say that the loudspeaker is pretty loud on this one as I am a frequent use of voice message in WeChat and this one definitely I have to volume down just to put it in a non scandalous way of listening to voice messages.
Here are the supported audio and video file format by the Mi 8 Pro
- MP4
- M4V
- MKV
- XVID
- WAV
- AAC
- MP3
- AMR
- FLAC
- APE
Support H.265/HEVC (Main profile), H.264 (Baseline/Main/High profile), MPEG4 (Simple profile/ASP) and other video formats, Support PCM, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, MP3, AMR-NB and WB , FLAC, APE, WAV and other audio formats
Support HDR10 when playing HDR10 video content
Playing games is such a breeze on a flagship like this one, we played all the heavy games on this unit and it didn't even break a sweat. NBA 2k18 and PUBG was played on this phone on High Settings and its just as easy as a pie.
Snapdragon 845
One of the few devices that sports the latest chipset from Qualcomm is Mi 8 Pro, the Snapdragon 845 SoC has 8 cores and can run up to 2.8Ghz of computing speed. Now of course powered together with the powerful Adreno 630, and of course a generous serving of 6GB RAM, it will give you the best experience in gaming up to date. Not mentioning that it can run even the most graphics hungry games like PUBG and NBA 2K18. This latest flagship by Qualcomm first appeared in MI MIX 2S for Xiaomi, then followed by Black Shark and now its running inside the heart of Mi 8 Series Flagships. We ran several stress test on this unit and we did not see any lags nor any shortcomings on the opening of any apps in the Mi 8 Pro, multitasking was a breeze. This SoC is supports the 64-bit architecture which means it can compute at a very fast phase. So good graphics, good multitasking plus fast processing makes Snapdragon 845 probably one of the most premium SoC after the 835 that was present in last year's flagship.
The Mi 8 Pro scored a very good 286,862 points as opposed to the Mi8 Explorer Edition's 288,270 Points on AnTuTu out of the box, this test is done right out of the box and we still have yet to achieve the advertised 302k points, this probably is tested under MIUI 10 while its still MIUI 9.6 out of the box.
Connectivity
The Mi 8 Pro supports 15 different LTE bands (its the same as the Mi
and good news, due to persistent public demand, B20 is now present in this flagship. It's pretty easy to switch to LTE network inside the settings, and it also supports Dual 4G mode as well so both of my signals are running on 4G, I can even use mobile data during volte calls on the 2nd sim. You can freely choose which sim you want to use your LTE data, since this is a Dual LTE, Dual standby smartphone. This unit also has the 4G+ equipped, and also supports multiple carrier aggregation technology (should your network provider have this feature), you can take advantage of it. Wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac is also smooth and it also supports Wi-Fi Direct. Wireless screen mirroring is also available via the Miracast protocol, tethering data is also working perfectly. Bluetooth 5.0,GPS, and GLONASS are all present, NFC (Near Field Communication) is also present to support Mi Pay, Android Pay and it enables you to send data to a fellow NFC user with just tapping your phones together. Transferring data from older phones using Mi Mover was also a breeze as well.Camera
The Mi 8 Series is one of the best camera that Xiaomi has released by far, getting the nod by DXOMark with 99 Points, this puts Mi 8 and its siblings together with the elites like the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. While Xiaomi has already unlocked another achievement so far, we can say that this camera performed very well under good lighting, and it has a great improvement on darker places as opposed to the Mi 6. The rear camera are both 12 Megapixels, one being the Sony IMX 363 Sensor and the other being the Samsung S5k3m3. They also incorporated the 4-AXIS OIS in this one so expect good shots in motion photos. The front snapper is a Samsung Sensor S5k3t2 with 20 Megapixel together with a Aux Camera Omnivision OV7251 is for face unlocking and it took pretty good selfies and it also sported the bokeh portrait mode. The manual mode has an exposure time of 1/2S and ISO of 3200. Face Unlocking is also present as well and is very easy to use, they have deployed the infrared to detect face even in dark ambiance. Video is using UHD 4K and its really good, check out our sample below.
Actual Photos
1X zoom
2x zoom
Without AI
With AI
Selfie Camera
Takes pretty good selfies as well
Video Sample
Mi 8 Pro Battery and Benchmark:
The Mi 8 Pro supports the Qualcomm Quick charge 4.0 but inside the box it only includes a QC 3.0 charger, and we tested it took in 5V 2.8 Amperes based on our testing using the supplied charger and cable. We charged the phone from 18% to 100% in 59 minutes as I was able to closely monitored it. We recorded a 8 hour 36 minutes endurance test Mi 8 Pro 6GB/128GB version under the PC Mark battery stress test. If these statistics are true on a normal daily use, then it's really a good sign for the said smartphone, and based on my daily usage for several days, the battery seems to last me a whole day on normal usage.
Other Benchmarks
Mi 8 Pro, Flagship Worthy Phone!
As we come to our final conclusion on this awesome flagship, the Mi 8 Pro did sported a lot of differences from the Mi8, especially the camera that it has passed DxO Mark and its not as saturated as the one rendered on the Mi8. This phone is now ranked with the elite phones, the venture toward AMOLED for me is still a questionable move, tho it rendered great display, but having burn-in problems might be problematic moving forward. The overall finish of the phone is very much elegant well except for the notch (you can hide it in the settings under full display). The Shiny Gold Cover is definitely something worth owning if you like mirror finished edition.
The Mi8 Pro 6GB/128GB retails for 3199 RMB.
The Mi8 Pro 8GB/128GB retails for 3599 RMB.
Mi 8 Pro
