The Android One phones from Xiaomi have a huge fan following, and 2019’s Mi A3 is not an exception. The Chinese OEM reintroduced the mighty 3.5 mm headphone jack as well as bumped the battery capacity to spice up the competition. However, the low resolution (albeit AMOLED) display of Mi A3 ignited many controversies.
Like its predecessors, Mi A3 is nothing a but a rebranded version of an existing Xiaomi phone running MIUI. This time they opted for the CC9 lineup, and picked Mi CC9e as the foundation. In fact, we speculated that long before the official release of Mi A3.
Xiaomi enthusiasts are hoping for a ‘Pro’ edition of the Mi A3. The result of the extrapolation is quite simple as Mi CC9 (or the beefier Meitu edition) should be the automatic choice for crafting the alleged Mi A3 Pro. Alas! The OEM actually had something different in mind.
Thanks to their weird naming policy, Xiaomi already clogged up the smartphone market of Europe with tons of different phones having the ‘Mi 9’ moniker. The Redmi K20 family of phones is sold there as Mi 9T (Pro). And now they introduced the Mi 9 Lite i.e. a rebranded Mi CC9. ?
The internal configurations remain unchanged, although the global units should support more network bands than the Chinese one. The phone is fueled by slightly old but capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC and features a triple (48+8+2 MP) rear camera setup. The selfie camera is a 32 MP is shooter.
The optical fingerprint sensor is housed under the screen. Mi 9 Lite also support 18W fast charging which is crucial to fill up its 4,030 mAh battery in no time.
Due to different partitioning schemes, converting existing Mi/Redmi phones to corresponding Android One phones is kinda difficult. However, you should easily replace the firmware of Mi CC9 to make it a Mi 9 Lite in no time (at least in theory). The situation is now feasible, as Mi 9 Lite is getting its first update.
The changelog is quite generic, which is common for day-one patches. You can download the firmware from the following section, which should be helpful to flashing your phone manually or revive it from a brick.
- Device: Mi 9 Lite
- Codename: pyxis
- Channel: Global Stable
- Version: V10.3.1.0.PFCMIXM
- Android: 9.0
I like to thank my friend yshalsager and the Xiaomi Firmware Updater project for tracking the OTA update URLs.
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Kingshuk De
896 Posts
I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.
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