Xiaomi Mi 9 Explorer Edition: With four cameras & transparent backside

“Same procedure as last year, Lei?”, “Same procedure as every year, Lin”. Xiaomi goes the same way as last year and not only publishes one version of the new flagship. The Xiaomi Mi 9 is also released as Xiaomi Mi 9 Explorer Edition and is equipped with a quad camera.

Xiaomi presents itself transparent again

The Xiaomi Mi 9 will already be presented on 24 February, probably also during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Last year, the Xiaomi Mi 8 and two other versions were presented at the same time: the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE and the Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition. The differences between the “normal” version and the Explorer Edition were minimal. In terms of design, the main difference was the transparent back, which turned out to be not quite “real”. The visible hardware components were not the real units on the board.

On the officially published photo you can see that Xiaomi will go the same way again. You can see the “processor” under the transparent back. Whether they learned from their “mistakes” and are really transparent this time remains to be seen.

Xiaomi Mi 9 Explorer Edition with four cameras

Much more exciting, however, is another detail or four other details. The Xiaomi Mi 9 Explorer Edition is directly equipped with four cameras on the back! While the Xiaomi Mi 9 for a Xiaomi smartphone is equipped with a triple camera for the first time, the Mi 9 EE directly adds one more. However, Xiaomi doesn’t yet reveal which functions the respective sensors fulfil. Of course, we hope for three different focal lengths (wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle and zoom lens) and a sensor for portrait mode. But a ToF sensor for AR applications would also be conceivable.

Otherwise the Specs should not differ greatly from the Mi 9. Inside, the current top processor Snapdragon 855 works, the AMOLED display measures 6.39 inches in the diagonal and in addition there is at least 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal memory. The battery that was reduced by 400 mAh compared to the normal version in last year’s Explorer Edition is still questionable here. It remains to be seen whether this is also the case here.

Evaluation

We should see the Xiaomi Mi 9 Explorer Edition next to the Mi 9 for the first time on February 24th. Then Xiaomi will hopefully inform us about the differences to the normal Mi 9 and which functions the four cameras will fulfil. The Mi 8 EE was by the way never meant for the EU, but then came out as the Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro for the global market. Whether you really need the Explorer Edition is on a completely different paper. Would you go for the Explorer Edition or is the Mi 9 enough for you?