With Huawei phones getting pulled from store shelves left right and center, a new budget smartphone company is bound to fill the gaps left behind, and it looks like that company could be Xiaomi.
Xiaomi has just announced the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE, a compact version of the Xiaomi Mi 9, which takes some of the impressive features of that affordable smartphone, lowers a few specs, and slashes the price tag.
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What's in the Mi 9 SE?
Like the Xiaomi Mi 9, the Mi 9 SE has a three-lens camera setup, with a 48MP main sensor, 13MP ultra wide-angle lens and 8MP telephoto snapper – these cameras have the same lenses, but slightly lower megapixel counts, to the Mi 9.
The Mi 9 SE has a 5.97-inch AMOLED display, which is slightly reduced in size from the Mi 9, and also has a marginally smaller 3,070mAh battery. You're also getting a weaker chipset in the Snapdragon 712, instead of a Snapdragon 855, but those are the main downgrades.
You'll be able to pick up the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE from June 6 in the UK, and release dates elsewhere will likely be announced soon. The Mi 9 SE will cost £349 (roughly $445, AU$635) for a handset with 64GB of internal storage and £399 (around $505, AU$725) for 128GB of memory, so it's definitely a more affordable handset than the original.
Recently Xiaomi also announced the Xiaomi Mi 9T, another Mi 9 spin-off, this time with a pop-up front-facing camera, so we'd assume Xiaomi is positioning the Mi 9T as a 'premium' version whereas the Mi 9 SE is a 'budget' phone.
We were impressed with the Xiaomi Mi 9 when we reviewed it, so we'll make sure to take the Mi 9 SE for a spin to see if it's just as worthy a phone, or if the dropped specs are too much – so stay tuned to TechRadar for that.
