Xiaomi Mi 8
Specifications

Secondary Camera: 20 MPix Videos @1080p/30fps
Pricecompare
Average of 16 scores (from 22 reviews)
Reviews for the Xiaomi Mi 8
Xiaomi's 2018 Mi 8 flagship smartphone is far from outdated., and it still has a lot to offer at a very low price. Time to find out how well it compares to current premium smartphones.
Source: Tech Advisor

At significantly less cost the Mi 8 is a tough rival to more familiar flagship phones on the UK high street, though it has now been updated with Mi 9. It misses a few features such as waterproofing and wireless charging, but there's a gorgeous 18.7:9 AMOLED display, 3D face recognition and some seriously powerful hardware. A beautiful design and high-quality build round off a fantastic deal. We strongly recommend purchasing the Global edition, but it is possible to install Google services even on the Chinese edition via the Mi App Store.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 05/01/2019
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Tech Advisor

It's now been updated with the Mi 9, which adds wireless charging, a faster processor, an in-display fingerprint sensor as standard (previously Pro and Explorer Edition only), and adds a larger display and a third camera lens on the rear. Regardless, the Mi 8 continues to offer astonishing value, insane performance and awesome photography. With the Mi 9 going on sale in the UK imminently we could also see a price drop.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 03/20/2019
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Pocket Lint

There's a lot that the Mi 8 does right for its asking price. While there are compromises, the experience is positive overall. It's only really the more established competition from OnePlus that poses much of an issue.
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 02/11/2019
Rating: Total score: 80%
Source: Gadgetspeak

Recently waves have been made in the UK marketplace by the company known as Xiaomi with launch events and shop-opening sessions.. Founded in April 2010 and listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in July 2018, Xiaomi has built up a reputation of being friends with its users as it developed a range of smartphones and other smart devices connected via an IoT platform. Included in the company’s range of smartphones is the enhanced Mi family of devices.
Single Review, online available, Very Short, Date: 02/05/2019
Rating: Total score: 90% price: 80% performance: 80% workmanship: 100%
Source: GSM Arena

It's interesting that the Mi 8 is now basically priced similarly to the Pocophone F1, also a very good device from Xiaomi. You get a more premium feeling build with the Mi 8, but a smaller battery. You have NFC on board, and a slightly bigger display that's AMOLED and not LCD. You get a secondary zoom lens on the back and not just a depth sensor. But, the speakers are worse than the Pocophone's. So is it a tough choice between these two? While it might feel like that, we hope this review has helped you reach a conclusion of your own.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 02/04/2019
Source: Trusted Reviews

The Xiaomi Mi 8 provides strong performance, a tidy design, a decent AMOLED display and a competent camera – all at a reasonable price. There are better options for just a little more money, but if you’re not quite willing to stretch to £500 for a Huawei Mate 20 or OnePlus 6T, this is a worthy alternative.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 01/24/2019
Rating: Total score: 80% price: 80% performance: 80% display: 80% mobility: 70% workmanship: 70%
Source: Neowin

By any standard, the Mi 8 is one of the best smartphones available in its price range. But when Xiaomi introduced the Pocophone F1 in August, I thought that it has generally the same specs as the Mi 8 for a lower price.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 12/31/2018
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Tech Advisor

At significantly less cost the Mi 8 is a tough rival to more familiar flagship phones on the UK high street. It misses a few features such as waterproofing and wireless charging, but there's a gorgeous 18.7:9 AMOLED display, 3D face recognition and some seriously powerful hardware. A beautiful design and high-quality build round off a fantastic deal. We strongly recommend purchasing the Global edition, but it is possible to install Google services even on the Chinese edition via the Mi App Store.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 11/26/2018
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Tech Advisor

We're sad to see Xiaomi not keeping up with its rivals in terms of wireless charging, waterproofing and a Quad-HD screen, and that the highly anticipated in-display fingerprint is unique to the Explorer Edition, but at this price we can hardly complain. Amazing phone, highly recommended.
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 11/23/2018
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Tech Advisor

Assessing which of these three Xiaomi phones is the best really depends on what you need. The Mi 8 Pro is technically the best, with the best specification and the fastest performance and highest amount of memory and storage out of the box, but the Mi 8 Lite is significantly cheaper and has a better selfie camera, albeit sacrificing some speed and display quality. The standard Mi 8 is, as you might expect, the best all-rounder, offering the performance, cameras and display of the Mi 8 Pro at a more attractive price, and all you really lose is the in-display fingerprint sensor.
Comparison, online available, Medium, Date: 11/09/2018
Foreign Reviews
Source: Areamobile

Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/18/2019
Rating: Total score: 89%
Source: Chip.de

Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 03/29/2019
Rating: Total score: 86% performance: 95% features: 67% display: 89% mobility: 89%
Source: Spiegel Online

Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 12/12/2018
Source: Zona Movilidad

Positive: Nice design; solid workmanship; great cameras.
Single Review, online available, Very Short, Date: 04/27/2019
Source: Cinafoniaci

Positive: Nice display; fast system. Negative: No headphone jack.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/24/2018
Source: Les Mobiles

Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 12/19/2018
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Helpix

Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 05/16/2020
Rating: Total score: 90%
Source: Mega Obzor

Positive: Good price; fast system; nice cameras; powerful processor.
Comparison, online available, Very Long, Date: 03/24/2019
Source: Zoom

Positive: Impressive fingerprint sensor; smart face ID; powerful hardware; nice AI cameras; big screen; frameless design. Negative: Short battery life.
Comparison, online available, Medium, Date: 01/31/2019
Source: Tek.no

Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 01/06/2019
Rating: Total score: 80%
Source: Alt om Data

Single Review, online available, Very Short, Date: 11/12/2018
Rating: Total score: 80%
Source: Arena IT

Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 11/28/2018
Rating: Total score: 86% features: 80% display: 90% mobility: 90% workmanship: 90%
Comment
Model: The Xiaomi Mi 8 is a flagship smartphone released by the company. The naming of the Xiaomi Mi 8 (skipping the Mi 7) is in celebration of Xiaomi Inc's eighth anniversary. The Mi 8 measures 154.9 x 74.8 x 7.6 mm and weighs at 175 g. It has an ultra-thin four-sided curved body. It is lightweight and curved on all four sides, which features amazing hand-feel and is comfortable to carry. The Mi 8’s curved-edge glass body is in a 7000 series aluminium alloy frame, which feels premium. As for color options, it comes in blue or black finish. As for the screen, the Xiaomi Mi 8 features a 6.21-inch AMOLED Full-Screen Display with a resolution of 2,248 x 1,080 pixels. Note that a phone of this size would traditionally have a 5.5-inch display. As a result of full optimization of the space available on the smartphone, it has an 18.7:9 screen ratio and 86.68 % screen to body ratio for the bigger screen. It has a wide notch on the top of the screen. For the rear camera, it has an AI dual camera with optical zoom. The 1.4 μm large pixels brighten and bring out the details of nightscape photos while SLR-quality dual-pixel autofocus allows the Mi 8 to snap photos rapidly. With seven Studio Lighting Modes, the Mi 8 is a portrait studio in the pocket. Users can instantly transport portrait to the shadow under a summer tree, or beneath a window where gentle rays shine through. The AI camera can distinguish between 206 common scenes and automatically adjusts exposure, saturation and other optimizations. Besides that, with seven AI-powered effects, users can edit, add music and mix colors to give video the feeling of Hollywood trailer.
As for the front camera, it features a 20 MP front camera, which has 3D Beautify to blur backgrounds for stunning portraits. It has powerful analytic capabilities coupled with 1.8 μm large pixel (4-in-1 Super Pixel) technology to produce clearer, brighter selfies. The newly upgraded 3D Beautify uses AI to blur backgrounds with a single camera. It's as if each shot is taken in front of a studio canvas. The processor of the smartphone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which has a clock speed of up to 2.8 GHz. It also comes with a Qualcomm Adreno 630 GPU with up to 710 MHz. It is paired with 6 GB LPDDR4x dual-channel and 64 GB or 128 GB UFS flash storage. Powering the Mi 8 is a 3400 mAh battery, which supports Quick Charge 4+. The battery is charged by plugging the included 18 W QC3.0 charger into the reversible USB Type-C port. As a conclusion, the Xiaomi Mi 8 is a rival to any top-spec flagship phone out there. Despite featuring great design and performance, it is more affordable than many other flagship phones. There is a little compromise here and there, with the battery can be more long-lasting, software being not as clean as stock, and the camera is not the greatest of its class, but it is still a great choice for the price.
Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam
Qualcomm Adreno 630: Integrated graphics card in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. According to Qualcomm 30% faster than the old Adreno 540 in the Snapdragon 835 with 30% less power consumption.
Non demanding games should be playable with these graphics cards.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
SD 845: High-end SoC for smartphones that was introduced in early 2018 and manufactured in 10 nm LPP FinFET at TSMC. Integrates 4x Kryo 385 cores (Cortex-A75) at up to 2.8 GHz (max) for performance and 4x Kryo 385 at 1.8 GHz (max) for efficiency. Furthermore offers an X20 LTE modem, ac-WiFi and a dual-channel 32-Bit 1866 MHz LPDDR4x memory controller.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
6.21":
It is a small display format for smartphones. You shouldn't be severely defective in vision, and you won't see much detail on the screen and only have a small resolution available. For that, the device should be small and handy, easy to transport.
» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.Xiaomi:
Founded in 2010, Xiaomi Corporation is a Chinese multinational electronics company and produces consumer electronics and related products, including smartphones, televisions, fitness bands, power banks, headphones, smart devices and accessories. Xiaomi offers its products under the Mi, Redmi and POCO brands.
86.83%: This is an above-average rating. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that about one fifth of all tested models receive a better rating.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.