Samsung continues to release smartphones with the best quality it can produce every year while Xiaomi counters with great and powerful handsets for a much affordable price. With their respective budget versions of flagship devices out in the wild, which do you think is the more reasonable buy — the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE or the Samsung Galaxy S10e?
Advantages of Xiaomi Mi 9 SE
Advantages of Samsung Galaxy S10e
Samsung Galaxy S10e photo by TechRadar
Starting with the design, both are sporting glass and metal combination but the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE stands out with its reflective-rainbow design while the Samsung Galaxy S10e makes it more appealing to look at and use due to the display that continuously flows to every side. Speaking of the display, only the Samsung handset comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for back and front while Xiaomi variant has it applied on the front only.
Diving into the display, both again are using AMOLED screens for saturated colors and high contrast ratio but the Galaxy S10e takes it up a notch with its new Dynamic AMOLED panel that paves the way for HDR10 playback. Furthermore, you have its Always-on Display feature.
As for the performance, well, it’s pretty obvious.
Cameras can get a bit tricky for the two. The Mi 9 SE has a triple camera set up on the back featuring both ultrawide and telephoto lens along with the massive 48MP. But do take note it originally captures images at 12MP and applies pixel binning to digitally achieve that MP count. In comparison to the 12MP + 16MP of the Galaxy S10e, it’s considered to be the advantage due to its post-processing quality of images and the ability to record super slow motion and 60fps at 4K.
The selfie camera of Xiaomi features a large 20MP but caps at FHD video recording while the 10MP wide of Samsung can go up to 4K with auto-HDR on.
In the sound department, everything goes to the Galaxy S10e with its 32-bit support, stereo speakers, and Dolby Atmos with AKG earphone tuning for better overall quality. The same goes for the new Wi-Fi 6 providing better consistent connection and the faster USB Type-C 3.1 port.
Moving to biometric security, Xiaomi takes the lead in innovation with its on-screen fingerprint scanner while Samsung folks might need a bit of getting used to with the side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
Battery-wise neither has a big advantage in capacity but it’s worth noting that you’ll top up faster on the Mi 9 SE with its 18W. However, the Galaxy S10e features 15W wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging.
The official price of the Samsung Galaxy S10e starts at Php39,990 while the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE is estimated to arrive for Php15,999 up to Php18,999 for the 128GB variant. Obviously, you’ll get more features for more money on the former. But the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE holds a few key advantages like faster charging, triple camera, gradient hue design among others while matching some flagship features like a Super AMOLED display and Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
As for this comparison, it goes down to your budget and preference since both are great devices at their respective price points. But if you can’t spend twice the amount for a flagship handset, the Xiaomi Mi 9 is worth looking at.
Read:
| Specs | Xiaomi Mi 9 SE | Samsung Galaxy S10e |
| Display | 5.97-inch Full FHD+ Super AMOLED screen, teardrop notch, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 | 5.8-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O, 438ppi 19:9 ratio, Corning Gorilla Glass 5, HDR 10, Always-on Display, IP68 water and dust resistant |
| Dimensions | 147.5 x 70.5 x 7.5 mm, 155g | 142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm, 150g |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 712 octa-core AI processor (10nm) | Exynos 9820 Octa (8 nm) – EMEA, Qualcomm SDM855
Snapdragon 855 (7 nm) – USA/LATAM, China |
| GPU | Adreno 616 | Mali-G76 MP12 – EMEA
Adreno 640 – USA/LATAM, China |
| Memory | 64/128 GB, 6 GB RAM + dedicated microSD, up to 256GB | 6GB or 8GB RAM
256GB or 128GB + dedicated microSD, up to 512 GB |
| Main Camera | 48 MP, f/1.8, 1/2″, 0.8µm, PDAF 13 MP, f/2.4, (ultrawide), 1.12µm 8 MP, f/2.4, (telephoto), 1.12µm, PDAF |
12 MP, f/1.5-2.4, 26mm (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS + 16 MP, f/2.2, 12mm (ultrawide) |
| Front Camera | 20 MP, f/2.0, 0.9µm | 10 MP, f/1.9, Dual Pixel PDAF, up to 4K @ 30fps video recording |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, hotspot, BT 5.0, LE, USB Type-C | 4G LTE-A, Bluetooth 5.0, LE, GPS, NFC, WiFi ax, USB Type-C, audio jack with 32-bit support |
| Battery | Non-removable Li-Ion 3070mAh battery (15W charging) | 3100 mAh, 15W wired and wireless charging, 4.5W reverse charging |
| OS | Android 9.0 (Pie) with MIUI 10 | Android 9.0 (Pie) with One UI |
| Official Price | $300 or Php15,999 and $340 or Php18,999 (128GB) | Php39,990 (128GB) |
ManilaShaker is a tech media producing insightful and helpful content for our local and growing international audience. Our goal is to create a premier Philippine digital consumer electronics resource that provides the most objective reviews and comparisons globally.
