"India screws up again!" could be the title of the article, and I'll explain why below.
This time, it's not boycotting factory apps that use Chinese servers (and leaving them out of MIUI India), but once again introducing a device with the same name but different, which may cause some headaches for less up-to-date fans.
Last week, the Redmi 9 was unveiled, which you can find in Europe as the Redmi 9C. To make some difference, the memory has been increased to 4GB compared to the Redmi 9C's 2-3GB, and Indian buyers can get up to 128GB of storage.
The two devices (the Indian Redmi 9 and the global Redmi 9C) are identical in every way.
Mediatek Helio G35 eight-core processor (removed on global mi.com and left the G25 used in the Redmi 9A in the specs), 6.53″ HD+ display, plastic casing, 5000mAh battery and MicroUSB. Yes, compared to the predecessor Redmi 8A (which already had a USB-C port), the Redmi 9A and 9C also return the MicroUSB port.
The Global Redmi 9C
The vast majority of Redmi models are manufactured and assembled in India. In recent years, there have always been models that have been sold there with a different suffix, after some hardware modifications. In the past, there were models with an "i" or "Y" ending, but there were also Redmi Note 7 Pro models. In the last couple of years, however, they have been less bothered about the different designation, usually marketed in the same way or with a "Max" / "Pro" / "Prime" suffix. The latter, the Indian Redmi 9 Prime, is the equivalent of the Global Redmi 9.
For those who don't follow the xiaomi news, the brand is fresh to them, and it's not an easy time. Especially because more and more people are ordering from foreign webshops, or from dubious Hungarian (language) webshops where they literally deceive the customer. (We have seen Global Mi 10 Ultra models on Ali...lol...)
But why is it such a problem if someone sells/buys the Indian version?
Whoever is selling it is not doing it legally (no CE certification, no Hungarian menu - although we have seen Hungarian menu language in the Indian MIUI - and no warranty that the manufacturer or its contracted partner has anything to do with). In Europe, the operators use different frequency bands, so it is easy for an Indian model to be able to connect to 1-1 operator's network only in big cities or not at all. But let's look at a concrete example:
- supported frequencies for the Redmi 9 in India:
GSM
B2/3/5/8
WCDMA
B1/2/5/8
LTE-FDD
B1/3/5/8
LTE-TDD
B40/41
- supported frequencies for the global Redmi 9C:
GSM
B2/3/5/8
WCDMA
B1/2/4/5/8
LTE-FDD
B1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20/28
LTE-TDD
B38/40/41
You can see how much spectrum has been missed, of which we are interested in 3 for 4G. B7 is most likely to be missed by Telenor customers, while B20 affects customers of all three operators. B3 is there, but is not used by Vodafone, for example.
But not only the Indian versions, but also the Chinese versions can have similar problems. In fact, the Chinese is either only available in English/Chinese, or in cooked ruins, which is worse.
So it's worth being aware of what you read in the various news sources, what the smaller (larger) online shops have to offer, but also if you're ordering a case for your existing Redmi 9 from AliExpress.
The rear camera unit on the Indian Redmi 9 (like the Global Redmi 9C) is located in a rounded square at the top left, while the Global Redmi 9 has a similar centrally located sensor below the one on the Redmi Note 8 Pro, and the other specifications are different. You can have a nice look at the full range of this year's models on more well-known international comparison sites, as well as on the updated Xiaomishop Hungarian web store.
If you see the phone shown in the picture and the specifications on other sites, that version was not made for us and is not fully usable in Europe.
But if you like the shape and the orange colour, you can order it from the above-mentioned webshop from the beginning of September (grey and blue are already available)
NFC
In contrast to the proliferation (or non-proliferation) of wireless models, for example, the number of NFC-enabled Xiaomi models is fortunately increasing. The global Redmi 9 has been the cheapest model so far, but the NFC-enabled Redmi 9C has been quietly released (although only on the global side), so by autumn you can get an NFC-enabled Redmi smartphone for around 50.000 HUF.
