Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite test, review and price

If you haven’t seen my other tests yet, here they are:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
Honor 8x

The Xiaomi Mi8 Lite box contains what is usually found in a Xiaomi box: the phone, a back cover, a charging cable, a power adapter, a needle to open the SIM drawer and a small USB adapter because this phone has a USB-C port. What is missing is a protective film but I have the impression that Xiaomi does not offer this kind of accessories with its phones, the Honor 8x had a protective film installed in the factory. At first contact what surprised me was that the phone is cold to the touch, the perimeter is metallic and has a rounded shaped. The level of finish is clearly of the same type as that of the Honor 8x, the two devices are equal and both outperform Note 5. The Xiaomi Mi8 Lite does not shine by its originality (it is the same with the Honor 8x) but it is a beautiful phone with an impeccable finish.

The rear glass facade is very reflective and I think it has been treated to reflect light in a slightly different way. I placed the phone under the studio lights and it is clear that the light is deflected to the sides where an Honor 8x was just mirroring. It will then be necessary to see how the phone behaves in real conditions because high reflectivity can make reading difficult when the light is strong.

The first time I turn on the phone I feel like I see the same thing as with the Redmi Note 5, the black is not quite black, the backlighting is too important. I will test this point later to see if it is just a bad configuration at startup like the Redmi or if the screen is not as good.

The Xiaomi Mi8 Lite is the thinnest of the 3 phones compared, the difference is minimal but sufficient to be noticeable. It’s the same thing in terms of dimensions, the Xiaomi Mi8 is the smallest phone despite the size of its screen (6.26 inches). This size gives it a more elongated and narrower appearance than the other two.

At the bottom of the phone there are 2 outputs for a loudspeaker but in reality there is only one loudspeaker like the Honor but the sound is much better. However, there is no longer a Jack port, so those used to wired headsets will have to adapt.

Like the Honor 8x, Xiaomi has opted for a notch with a sensor and a loudspeaker. So the device does not revolutionize today’s standards, it simply follows the trend but does it well. For the screen, it’s the same, it’s IPS but with a pixel density slightly higher than the other two devices.

Test vitesse 4G
To test the speed in 4G I used the Speedtest application and then compared the results with the other phones I have tested so far and from the first test, the result was very clear, the Xiaomi Mi8 Lite is the fastest 4G phone I have ever tested. In download I got 149Mbps and in upload 52.3Mbps with peaks at 60Mbps, I was probably not alone in using the bandwidth.

Here is the comparison with other phones:
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5: 122Mbps download / 60 Mbps upload
Honor 8x: 102 Mbps download / 44.5Mbps
Xiaomi Mi8 Lite: 149Mbps download / 50Mbps

The Mi8 did a little less well than the Note 5 in upload but as I wrote above, I saw it go up to 60Mbps for a few seconds. I think the network is limited to 60Mbps because the speed artificially peaks at that speed. On the other hand, in download mode, the Mi8 outperforms Note 5 (+22%) and Honor (+46%). Do you feel the difference in daily use? Yes, I had first used the Mi8 as a modem with my laptop and I found that the connection was more fluid, the test with Speedtest then confirmed my first impression.

What frequencies are used in Europe?

3G : B1 (2100), B2 (1900), B5 (850), B8 (900)
4G : B1 (2100), B20 (800), B3 (1800), B38 (TDD 2600), B4 (1700/2100 AWS 1), B40 (TDD 2300), B5 (850), B7 (2600), B8 (900)
This phone covers all the most commonly used 3G/4G frequencies in Europe.

Of course you should always check the specific frequencies of your provider because some European operators use different frequencies, it’s rare but it happens. Please note that the frequencies indicated below were valid at the time of writing this article, they will not be updated, so I cannot guarantee that they are correct.

I have added a few other European countries so that you can check the countries where you go on holiday, if the local provider does not support the same frequencies, you may no longer have a network.

BE

4G Proximus: 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2600Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Proximus: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Orange: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Orange: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Base: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Base: 2100Mhz

FR

4G Orange: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G Orange: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G SFR: 2600Mhz, 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz
3G SFR: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Bouygues: 2600Mhz, 2100Mhz, 1800Mhz, 800Mhz, 700Mhz
3G Bouygues: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

4G Free: 2600Mhz, 1800Mhz, 700Mhz
3G Free: 2100Mhz, 900Mhz

ES

Movistar 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Movistar 3G: 2100, 900

Orange 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Orange 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

Yoigo

Yoigo 4G: 1800
Yoigo 3G: 2100

DE

E-Plus 4G: 2600, 800
E-Plus 3G: 2100

O2

O2 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
O2 3G: 2100

T-Mobile

T-Mobile 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
T-Mobile 3G: 2100

Vodafone

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100

IT

Tre 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Tre 3G: 2100, 900

Telecom Italia 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Telecom Italia 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 1500, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

Wind 4G: 2600, 800
Wind 3G: 2100, 900

Suisse

Salt Mobile 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Salt Mobile 3G: 2100, 900

Sunrise 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Sunrise 3G: 2100, 900

Swisscom 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Swisscom 3G: 2100, 900

NL

KPN 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
KPN 3G: 2100

Tele2 4G: 2600, 800

T-Mobile 4G: 2600, 2100, 1800, 900
T-Mobile 3G: 2100, 900

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

UK

Three 4G: 1800, 800
Three 3G: 2100

EE 4G: 2600, 1800, 800
EE 3G: 2100

O2 4G: 1800, 800
O2 3G: 2100, 900

Virgin Mobile 4G: 2600, 1800 B9, 800
Virgin Mobile 3G: 2100

Vodafone 4G: 2600, 2100, 1!00, 800
Vodafone 3G: 2100, 900

External speaker audio test
The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite has two sound outputs but only one is used. The sound is powerful and rather good, you can feel the bass and treble, the sound is a little better than the Redmi Note 5 and much better than the Honor 8x which is really one step lower than the others at this level.

Bluetooth Speaker Audio Test
The Bluetooth signal is of good quality, it allows music to be played on an external source without interruption and the quality is really good. I connected the Mi8 Lite to my car and then used Deezer to stream music to my car. To complicate things, I did it at 120 km/h on a highway for about 30 km. I didn’t have any signal interruption (nor 4G nor Bluetooth). The quality was even better overall than the sound I get from traditional radio.

Antutu

Global score: 143580
CPU: 66817
GPU: 30276
UX: 38734
MEM: 7753

As a reminder, Honor 8x obtained the following scores:
Global score: 139439 (-3%)
CPU: 66989 (+0%)
GPU: 22385 (-35%)
UX: 37826 (-2%)
MEM: 122230 (+37%)

At the CPU level, the two devices are almost identical, the KIRIN 710 used by the Huawei is of the same level as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 used in the Xiaomi. At the GPU level, however, the Xiaomi with its Adreno 512 GPU far exceeds the Honor’s Mali-G51 MP4 ARM. This will probably have the effect of being more efficient in games, but I will test this aspect later in this article.

It is once again at the level of memory that the Xiaomi is overtaken by the Honor, this was already the case with the Redmi Note 5, the memory performance is far below the performance of the Honor. The memory is mainly used for temporary storage, so access to temporary storage is much faster on the Honor.

3Dmark

Slingshot Extreme OpenGL 3.1: 1362
Slingshot Extreme Vulkan: 1070

As a reminder, Honor 8x obtained the following scores:
Slingshot Extreme OpenGL 3.1: 953 points (-42%)
Slingshot Extreme Vulkan: 1127 points (+6%)

As for Antutu we see a big difference in favor of the Xiaomi and this time with a significant difference on OpenGL. Without being an expert, I think OpenGL is much more used than Vulkan. Xiaomi should then be a better choice for gaming.

I had not paid any attention to the battery during the test until I compared the battery temperature during the tests. I see that the temperature of the Xiaomi’s battery was 24°C while that of the Honor was 39°C. So the Honor is getting hotter.

The loading is quite slow but once in the game, the whole thing is very fluid, you can see for yourself on the video below. However, it should be noted that I was using a video capture application at the same time as the game, so the game performance was not optimal. The game started with average graphics.

The in-game experience was quite ok, the phone managed the challenge pretty well and showed no sign of weakness. The battery didn’t heat up either.

Test avec SteamLink

I started testing this with my old router (a 20 years old piece of hardware) but the experience was so bad that I had to wait until my new router was delivered.

Second attempt with a powerful router this time and it works much better, no more delay in display, the game Conan Exiles in 2k is completely fluid. The PC runs the game which is then streamed through wifi to the phone, it took me a while to understand how to play because the game is not designed to be played on a mobile but after a couple of minutes, you get used to it.

The basic photo application has slightly evolved from the application used by Redmi Note 5. The Mi 8 lite has AI assisted photos as on the Honor, this mode is supposed to improve the photos, we will see what it is in the following lines. The manual mode has also been enhanced, where the Redmi only offered 2 options, this time you can control white balance, shutter, focus distance and ISO sensitivity. It’s not enough yet but it’s already much better than the Redmi, the Honor offers more or less the same thing.

Testing indoors (studio)
As for my other tests, I start with a test in the controlled conditions of my small studio. I will mainly compare the Redmi Note 5 with the Xiaomi Mi8 Lite because the Honor is not as good as the Redmi Note 5. I have awarded two types of shots, one with a focus at the front on Darth Vador’s helmet, another with a focus on the Stormtrooper helmet at the back. For each of the shots, I took a picture with the brightness in automatic mode and the manual brightness.

Shot 1: focus on Darth Vador – automatic brightness (Mi8 Lite)

Shot 1: focus sur Darth Vador – manual brightness (Mi8 Lite)

Shot 1: focus on Darth Vador – automatic brightness (Redmi Note 5)

Shot 1: focus on Darth Vador – manual brightness (Redmi Note 5)

As I always say, a studio test does not reflect the quality of a camera with natural light, so the following tests will be more important.

Shot 2: focus on Stormtrooper – automatic brightness (Mi8 Lite)

Outdoor test (sun)
It took me some time to do this test because in December you don’t get a lot of light and as I was working most of the month, it was difficult for me to find time to take these pictures. To start this test, I chose a rather varied landscape with a good mix of warm and cold colors. The photo was taken in the late afternoon when the sun was already starting to fade.

With the following pictures, the differences between the two cameras will be more striking. The next picture is darker, the sun did not pierce the cloudy veil. Let’s start with the Mi 8 Lite.

Outdoor test (cloudy)
I didn’t have a holiday in an exotic country planned during my Mi 8 lite test, so I didn’t have any nice scenery to test the camera but finally it’s not a problem because it probably corresponds to the reality of everyday life for most of us. For this series of photos, there is nothing very glamorous, just a muddy countryside, big clouds, puddles and a sun that can’t break through. We start with the Mi 8 Lite.

Outdoor test (night)
I tested the Xiaomi Mi8 in December and since I work during the day, I don’t have much opportunity to take pictures during the day. This allowed me to take pictures at dawn and dusk when the light has something magical about it. These are not easy topics for a phone but you will see that the Mi8 is doing really well (like the Redmi Note 5 by the way). Here is a first picture of the great square of Ath with some Christmas decorations.

Indoor test (night)
I did some indoor tests using a Christmas tree as a subject because this type of subject presents many difficulties for a camera. It is dark, there are large differences in brightness and many different colours. I first took a sample photo from my Canon, it will be used as a reference.

These problems are not so pronounced with other video applications such as OpenCam or Freedcam. The Mi 8 also allows you to make 4k videos from third-party applications and the quality is quite good. Here is an example taken in 4k with FreedCam:

YouTube always compresses the videos a little bit, so there is a small loss in quality.

Price: Note 5
Finish: Mi 8 Lite
Fingerprint sensor: equal
Network performance: Mi 8 Lite
Device performance Mi 8 Lite
Gaming performance: Mi 8 Lite
Battery life: Note 5
Photo quality: Mi 8 Lite in manual mode, Note 5 in automatic mode
Screen quality: equality
Video quality: Mi 8 lite in 4k otherwise equal
Audio: Mi 8 Lite
Android: equality

For me the winner is the Mi 8 Lite but it may not be the case for everyone, it depends on what you do with the phone. Note 5, for example, is much better in terms of battery life.

Price: Mi 8 lite
Finish: equality
Fingerprint sensor: equality
Network performance: Mi 8 Lite
Device performance Mi 8 Lite
Gaming performance: Mi 8 Lite
Battery life: Honor 8x
Photo quality: Mi 8 Lite
Display quality: Mi 8 Lite
Video quality: Mi 8 Lite
Audio: Mi 8 Lite
Android: Mi 8 Lite
Design is always a matter of taste but there are some facts showing that the Mi8 Lite is a better device. The camera is better, the screen has a better color rendering and the Mi 8 Lite completely outperforms the Honor 8x in network download speed.

The Mi 8 Lite has become primary phone, the Note 5 is now a backup. In two months, the Mi 8 Lite never crashed, it never showed any sign of weakness and even if the battery is weaker, it can hold 2 days which is comfortable enough for me. I’m now waiting for my next target in the same price range to see if I can find a better device for more or less the same price.