Xiaomi Mi 8 review

Notched 1080p Super AMOLED, 6.21 inches of it

Xiaomi doesn't like QHD screens - the Mi Note Pro in 2015 was a one-off in the company's 8-year history. So, it's no surprise then that the Mi 8 comes with a 1080p resolution on its 6.21-inch display. It's in an 18.7:9 ratio (so 2,248x1,080px) and pixel density is about 400 ppi.

In our testing, the Mi 8's display proved to be a top performer, pumping out a very respectable 624nits when in auto mode and exposed to bright light, and 458nits when manually setting the slider all the way to the right. There was a minor illumination of the blacks with the auto boost on, but it's barely detectable by the testing equipment, and certainly not the eyes. The minimum brightness of 1.2nits is also excellent.

The Mi 8 did really well in our sunlight legibility test, posting virtually the same score as the Huawei P20 Pro. It's a noticeable improvement over the Mi 6, though it was to be expected - the old model used an IPS LCD. Even so, the OnePlus 6 is superior under direct light.

Sunlight contrast ratio

Color reproduction can also be very accurate if that's your thing. Going for the 'Standard contrast' mode you'd be getting an average DeltaE of 1.8 (when compared against an sRGB target) and the most accurate whites of all modes, though they are still a little off with a slight shift to green. Out of the box, the Mi 8 is in 'Automatic contrast' mode with Default selected in the Default/Warm/Cool setting. That gives an average DeltaE of 4.0 (more than decent, actually) but with added punch in the reds and greens.

Audio quality

The Xiaomi Mi 8 went off to a flying start here, delivering outstandingly loud output with an active external amplifier. The clarity in this case was as clean as we’ve come to expect from smartphones these days with no nasty surprises either.

Plugging in a pair of headphones didn’t drop the volume a bit, making the Mi 8 arguably the loudest phone we’ve tested this year. As far as quality degradation is concerned - we saw an average increase in stereo crosstalk, but that was mostly it. An impressive performance by the Xiaomi flagship, no matter how you look at it.

Xiaomi Mi 8 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.

Speaker test (old, new one below)

The Mi 8 has a single loudspeaker - only so much stuff you can fit in that notch, so no earpiece/second speaker combo. The lone bottom-firing driver pumps out plenty of decibels to get a 'Very good' rating in our test (a couple of dB short of 'Excellent'). It's of the better sounding speakers we've heard, with clean and full-bodied output.

Speaker test (new)

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Xiaomi Mi 8 battery life

The Xiaomi Mi 8 packs a 3,400mAh battery - the same capacity we saw on the Mi Mix 2S, which didn't perform too well in our testing. We may be missing the days of the 4,000mAh power pack of the original Mix, but, in all fairness, the 3,400mAh is quite in line with what you could expect to find elsewhere - the Galaxy S9+ (6.2 inches, 3,500mAh), HTC U12+ (6.0 inches, 3,500mAh), and OnePlus 6 (6.28 inches, 3,300mAh) are all in the same ballpark. There is an outlier though - Huawei P20 Pro does come with a 4,000mAh cell to light up a 6.1-inch display.

Unlike the Mix 2S, the Mi 8 did actually post excellent numbers in our tests. Fourteen full hours of looping videos should be enough for all but the longest transcontinental flights, while the 11 hours of browsing the web over Wi-Fi matches or beats most other flagships this year, the outlier being again the same. For those who still care about voice calls, we clocked 22:37h on the Mi 8. This used to be an average result, but as recent phones go, it's shaping up to mean 'pretty good'.

In the end, the overall Endurance rating of the Xiaomi Mi 8 works out to 86 hours.

Our endurance rating denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Xiaomi Mi 8 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the sma