Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review UK

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Overview & Price

So you are interesting in the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite?

Well, you are in the right place! In this Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite review we will be going over everything you need to know about this device.

Specifications, camera, battery and more. As well as this we even showcase the best Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite contract deals in the UK today.

Here is some of what you can expect from this phone;

• 6.26-inch IPS LCD display
• Snapdragon 660 chipset
• 4GB RAM
• 64GB storage
• Dual camera set up

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite specs are impressive, offering a strong chipset with plenty of RAM and internal storage.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite is currently priced at £249 here in the UK, making it a super affordable smartphone.

Check out these Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite deals…

Xiaomi is not as well known here in the UK as they are in India, but boy do they make some impressive handsets like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7.

Let’s take a closer look at the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite…

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Design & Display

When it comes to the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite design, it looks a lot more premium than it actually is.

The phone comes in either Aurora Blue or Midnight Black, we were lucky enough to get our hands on the Midnight Black version of this phone for our review.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite weighs in at 169g, making it lightweight but heavy enough to feel good in one hand.

The phone is a combination of metal and glass, with two plates of Gorilla Glass 5 keeping the phone protected from scratches or damage.

Unfortunately like all phones that have a glass design, the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite is an absolute fingerprint magnet, so we highly recommend investing in a case and screen protector for this handset.

On the right-hand side of the phone is where you will find the volume rocker and power button, both with metal buttons that feel great to press.

Over on the left-hand side of the device is the SIM tray, and then down at the bottom is the USB-C charging port.

Neighbouring the port is the dual speaker grills, which work surprisingly well when gaming or listening to music.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite is absent of a headphone jack; however they do provide an adapter in the box should you want to stick with your wired headphones.

You may be wondering is the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite waterproof?

Just like most low-mid range Xiaomi phone, the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite is not waterproof.

There is no IP rating on this device. This means that you will need to be super careful when using this phone around any water, as even a splash in the wrong place could critically damage the phone.

Flipping the phone over will reveal the dual-camera set up in the top left-hand corner, more on this later.

There is also a well-placed fingerprint sensor; this is great for storing passwords or bankcards on your device.

Further down the back is the ‘Mi’ branding, overall the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite design is pretty basic, we love the minimalist approach as it makes the phone easy to love and use.

When it comes to the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite display, the phone has a 6.26-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD panel; it’s not going to give you a breathtaking media experience like the more impressive OLED panels will.

However, the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite display is good enough for the average user to binge-watch Netflix and YouTube without any problems.

Brightness levels are great on the phone, making it easy to use and read from when in direct sunlight.

The Mi 8 Lite does have a notch, something we have learned to embrace here at Device Dictionary especially in the low-mid end phones.

This notch isn’t huge, and it is easy to hide when digging into the settings if it’s really is getting on your nerves.

The display has a 2280 x 1080 resolution, with a 19:9 aspect ratio and 403ppi density.

This combination is great as standard but you can play around with things like colour temperature and contrast levels in the settings.

Throughout this Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite review, the display of this phone continued to amaze us, although it is an LCD it is excellent for gaming and media.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Performance

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite runs on Android 8.1 and MUIU 10.0, which is unfortunate, as we would have loved to see Android 9.0 Pie in this device.

This means that there is no app drawer either, so everything will need to be kept on your home screen and can look a little cluttered when it gets full of apps.

See Related:

*Xiaomi Mi 8 Review*
*Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro Review*
*Xiaomi Mi 9 Review*
*Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Review*

The Mi 8 Lite offers gesture navigation; this means that you can navigate around the UI with a couple of easy to use swipes.

For example, swiping down from anywhere on the screen will bring up the notification shade, swiping up and holding will bring up the recent apps.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite features a neat security app, this allows you to scan your phone for any potentially damaging apps that could cause some issues.

At the top of the display hidden in the notch, you will find a notification LED, this is perfect for those times that you may be in a meeting, and don’t want your phone to go off.

Instead, the LED will flash and let you know that you have a notification.

Dual Apps is a cool feature that allows you to set up two accounts on the same application, this is great for us as we have our personal Facebook and Instagram account, as well as our blog accounts.

Pressing and holding the home button can activate Google Assist, this feature is great for checking the weather or keeping an eye on the football score.

When it comes to the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite performance aspect, we were impressed.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite specs are strong, with the Snapdragon 660 processor, alongside an Octa-core CPU with four 2.2GHz Cortex-A73 CPU cores.

This allows the phone to run graphically demanding games smoothly with no fps drops or lag. The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite also offers either 4/6GB of RAM depending on the model you choose.

This performance combination ensures that browsing social media, YouTube and gaming all run as best they possibly can.

We tested the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite on a couple of our favourite games, the first being PUBG.

We were delighted to find that the game ran smoothly, no lag, no fps drops and thanks to the great LCD display we found ourselves immersed in gameplay for long periods.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite comes with either 64 or 128GB of internal storage, this is generally enough for the average user, however, if you do tend to use a little more space.

Then there is the option of adding a microSD that will allow you to top right the way up to 256GB.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite camera setup is also pretty impressive, the hardware on this phone is second to none and it really shocked us with just how well it performed.

On the back of the phone you will find a 12MP f/1.9 main sensor alongside a 5MP depth sensor.

This is actually the same camera set up as what you will find on the Xiaomi Mi 8 SE.

When shooting in daylight the camera performs well, and the set up is more than capable of pleasing the average user.

We found there to be almost no shutter lag whatsoever, allowing you to capture images of moving objects with little to no blur.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite camera features a neat ‘AI Mode’ just like is seen on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, we typically find that most AI modes oversaturate images and we find ourselves turning it off, as we normally don’t agree with the AI tech.

However in the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite we found the AI mode to work exceptionally well, enhancing all of the images we took. Depending on the setting, we did find the ‘Scene Recognition’ feature to be rather annoying, as often it would oversaturate some colours and make the shot look a little photoshopped.

This mode can be disabled in the settings easily. Dynamic range is pretty limited on the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite, however, the HDR mode does help with this a lot.

The 5MP depth sensor lens does a great job at producing some stunning Bokeh images; this is perfect for taking portraits and will result in an Instagram worth shot immediately.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite camera isn’t the best when it comes to low light photography, images often come out with a fair bit of noise and a lack of detail.

Because of the phones not having any OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) this means that you best have a tripod or an extremely steady hand if you want to avoid blurry images.

Around the front of the phone, you will find a strong 24MP selfie-cam; performance of this camera is a lot better than expected. The selfie camera takes great selfies, even when in low light situations.

This strong selfie cam is perfect for bloggers or those who tend to rely on their front-facing camera a little more.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite can capture video in up to 4K at 30fps, quality is decent but it won’t blow you away. There is some noise, and it does struggle with contrast.

The phone does support EIS (Electronic Image Stabilisation) meaning that you won’t need the steadiest hand to capture footage.

As a whole, the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite camera is impressive, perfect for the average user but for those photographers out there you may want to check out something with a little more clarity.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Battery Life

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite has a 3350mAh battery; this performs decent and will easily last the average user a full day of usage.

We did some tests, and found that 6 hours of screen on time tends to be the sweet spot for this phone.

Of course, this depends on how you are using the phone, as using the phone to stream HD video and gaming intensely will drain the battery quicker.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite does support Quick Charge 3, however, there is only 10W charger included in the box.

This charger will get you from 0-40% in around half an hour, but investing in a charger that is compatible with Quick Charge 3, will get you another 10-15% in the same time frame.

All in all the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite battery is decent, it won’t get you 2-3 days like some of the more expensive flagship devices, but it is good enough for the average user and if you invest in a compatible quick charger, the increase is rather dramatic.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Summary

So should you spend your hard-earned cash on the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite?

Well if you are looking for a unique device with a well-built design, stunning display and decent specs then yes.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite specs are impressive, plenty to get your breezing through some graphically demanding games from the play store.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite camera is strong too, capable of producing some stunning shots and recording in 4K.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite, Dual Sim, 4GB RAM and 64GB Storage 6.26-Inch Android 8.1 UK Version SIM-Free Smartphone - Blue (Official UK Launch), 21121 

This phone really is a great all-rounder, and for the price tag we were impressed with its overall performance.

Unfortunately, the Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite is not waterproof, meaning you need to be very careful using this phone around water.

We hope you have enjoyed our Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite review, feel free to check out our Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 review if you are looking for a cheaper alternative.

If you Mi 8 Lite is not your thing then they do also offer a Xiaomi Mi 8 which is a little more powerful yet more expensive.

You can also find the cheapest Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite contract deals in the UK at the top of this post.

Xiaomi Mi 8 Lite Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2018, September

Body:

• Dimension: 156.4 x 75.8 x 7.5mm (6.16 x 2.98 x 0.30 in)
• Weight: 169g (5.96 oz)
• Build: Front/back glass, aluminium frame
• Sim: Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Display:

• Type: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 6.26-inches 97.8cm² (-82.5% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2280 pixels, 19:9 ratio (-402ppi density)

Platform:

• OS: Android 8.1 (Oreo), upgradable to Android 9.0 (Pie); MIUI 10.2
• Chipset: Qualcomm SDM660 Snapdragon 660 (14nm)
• CPU: Octa-core (4×2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4×1.8 GHz Kryo 260)
• GPU: Adreno 512

Memory:

• Card slot: microSD, up to 256GB (uses shared SIM slot)
• Internal: 64/128GB, 4/6GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 12MP, f/1.9, dual pixel PDAF
  – 5MP, f/2.0, depth sensor
• Features: LED flash, HDR, panorama
• Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60/120fps, 1080p@30fps (gyro-EIS)
• Single:
  – 24MP
• Features: Auto HDR
• Video: 1080p@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker: Yes
• 3.5mm Jack: No

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, LE
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• Radio: No
• USB: Type-C 1.0 reversible connector

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass

Battery:

• Non-removeable Li-Pro 3350mAh battery
• Charging: Fast battery charging 18W (Quick Charge 3.0)

Misc:

• Colours: Midnight Black, Aurora Blue or Twilight Gold (China)
• Price: As seen in above post

Tests:

• Performance: Basemark OS ||: 2769 / Basemark OS || 2.0: 2338 / Basemark X: 21269
• Display: Contrast ratio: 1453 (nominal), 2.862 (sunlight)
• Camera: Photo / Video
• Loudspeaker: Voice 67dB / Noise 77dB / Ring 77dB
• Audio Quality: Noise -93.5dB / Crosstalk -35.4dB
• Battery Life: Endurance rating 77h