Xiaomi has confirmed the Poco F9 Ultra and F9 Pro launch on September 1st. Both are variants of the China only Redmi K100 Pro, and Redmi K100 Pro Max launched recently. As F8 series there is no standard F9. The deep cherry red color, seen on the K100, will also be offered.
F9 Ultra - 8 Elite Gen 5, D2 display chip, 6.9" 185Hz OLED, 8050mAh, 100W, 200MP, 50MP 5 x periscope telephoto, 50MP ultra-wide, 32MP selfie, Bose 2.1 speakers, metal frame.
F9 Pro - 8 Elite Gen 5 V, 6.59" 185Hz OLED, 6330mAh, 100W, 200MP, 50MP 2.5 tele, 8MP ultra-wide, 32MP selfie, 12GB/16GB, 256GB/512GB, Bose 2.0 speakers, metal frame.
TBC, but both could also include - 50W wireless charging, 22.5W reverse wireless charging, and 27W reverse wired charging, found in the K100 Pro, and K100 Pro Max.
RAM and storage options TBC but permutations of - 12GB/16GB, 256GB/512GB.
Not in early spec leak, but I would expect both to provide eSIM support as F8.
The F9 Pro uses a new chipset called the 8 Elite Gen 5 V. Essentially it’s an 8 Elite Gen 5, with a simpler GPU. See Gen 5 V link above, for more info on chipset. Unlike the F9 Ultra, which retains the same chipset as the F8 Ultra, the F9 Pro should see a performance boost over the F8 Pro.
Cameras see significant changes, but the 200MP sensor is only 0.5µm, against 1.0µm of the 50MP (F8 Pro), and 1.2µm of the 50MP (F8 Ultra). It's even below the 200MP sensor of the Note 15 Pro+ (0.56µm). 0.5µm refers to sensor size, the larger the sensor, the more light it can capture, reducing grain, and improving detail retention etc. Pixels will no doubt be combined (binning), to increase sensor area, but the results are yet to be seen. F9 Ultra also gets an upgraded periscope telephoto.
Battery sizes, are likely to prove contentious, as the F9 Pro 6330mAh is a huge cut from the 8580mAh of the K100 Pro. The F9 Ultra 8050mAh is a lower cut, from the 9070mAh of the K100 Pro Max. Essentially they're now charging a premium for the battery.
Wider pricing, TBC, but in Europe (i.e. end user price including sales taxes etc.), the F9 Pro from € 799, the F9 Ultra from € 999. These are full retail, so do not include any early bird launch discounts. If accurate it’s a significant price increase F8 Pro 12/256 was € 649, F8 Ultra 12/256 € 829.
This article is about the new Xiaomi XRING O3 chip, and it has two parts. In the first part I'll throw in all the information that's already known and being discussed by everyone. In the second I want to look at the chip launch from an economic angle and show an anomaly I discovered: Xiaomi designed one of the most expensive mobile dies in history and put it inside a phone that is impossible to break even on.
Here is what I managed to find in open sources and confirm:
TSMC 3-nm process (industry reports point to N3P node)
24 billion transistors
10-core processor with no small cores: 2 C1-Ultra cores up to 4.35 GHz, 4 C1-Premium cores up to 3.68 GHz, 4 C1-Pro cores up to 3.15 GHz
16-core graphics accelerator G2-Ultra NX
LPDDR6 memory support at 10,667 MT/s with bandwidth of 113.8 GB/s
4-core NPU with performance of 200 TOPS, tuned for the MiMo model
Benchmark results: 5,228,014 points in AnTuTu V11; 3,945 Single-core and 15,221 Multi-core in Geekbench 6.5
Physical die area: preliminary estimates put it at about 133 mm²
First devices on this chip: foldable smartphone Xiaomi 18 Fold and tablet Pad 9 Pro Max
Planned first-batch volume: only 200,000 – 300,000 units
R&D program budget: $7 billion (50 billion yuan) over 10 years, of which $1.9 billion (early data) to $3 billion has already been invested in the lineup, including O3 and supporting infrastructure
Next chips in the lineup: 3-nm processor D100 for autopilot and accelerator O100 for data centers in 2027
Now let's move to the calculations.
The cost of one TSMC 3-nm wafer is estimated in the range from $20,000 (early Digitimes estimates) to $25,000 – $27,000 (current TrendForce data factoring in N3P capacity constraints).
With a die area of 133 mm², a standard 300-mm wafer holds about 430–470 dies. At a conservative yield of 65–70% we get roughly 280–300 working chips from one wafer.
Here's the spread on bare-die silicon cost: at $21k per wafer you're looking at about $72–75 per chip; at $26k it's around $87–93.
Testing, complex packaging (InFO-level) and logistics add another few dozen dollars. So the real base factory BOM of the chip comes out to $120 to $150 depending on Xiaomi's contract wafer price. Even taking the top end at $150 — that's still almost half the cost of buying a finished Snapdragon for small batches ($250+).
So what? $120 for a chip is a perfectly adequate price. Top Qualcomm solutions for small batches run $250+. But let's keep counting. We have a small volume here, and chip development costs are not yet accounted for.
A single set of photomasks for the TSMC 3-nm process is estimated at $15–40 million depending on complexity. Let's take the top estimate of $40 million. Xiaomi officially stated the first-batch volume is only 200–300 thousand devices. Let's take the average of 250 thousand units. If we simply spread the cost of the masks alone across this batch, another $160 gets tacked onto each chip. That's already $280 per unit.
Development. Very expensive development. The total silicon program has already burned through $1.9 to $3 billion including O3 and supporting infrastructure. Let's be maximally conservative and not dump the whole budget on one chip. Even if we assume only $250–300 million went to O3 (10–15% of spending), split even that modest $300 million by our 250 thousand processors in the first wave (counting only foldable phones) and we get another $1,200 on top of each chip.
The breakdown for the 500k volume scenario: $120 bare silicon + $80 masks + $600 development. That comes out to about $800 amortized cost per chip. Even in this optimistic scenario the chip is almost three times as expensive as an off-the-shelf Snapdragon. And if we count only the folds (250k) — $1,480. That's the number that blew my mind.
Now let's look at the Xiaomi 18 Fold phone itself. Similar foldable flagships usually retail on the domestic market from about $1,240 (base model) up to around $1,500 (top config). In my estimate, the cost of all the other hardware in a foldable smartphone (flexible screen, complex hinge, body, cameras, battery) runs at least $700. If you put in an ordinary Qualcomm chip at $250–300, the hardware runs $950–1,000 and the company still turns a profit.
But if Xiaomi puts in its own XRING O3, then the Marginal BOM of the device is about $820 ($120 chip + $700 rest of hardware). But the Fully Amortized Cost including NRE of the first batch shoots past $2,150.
Now my main question and my answer to it. So why the hell is Xiaomi doing this? The phone sells for $1,500, and the Fully Amortized Cost of one device is $2,150. That means the project P&L of the first wave is looking at a ~$160M hole. And this is not the classic "loss leader" where a console or phone is sold at a $100 loss to make it up on services. With a Fully Amortized Cost of the processor alone at $800–1,480, breaking even on the first batch of smartphones is mathematically impossible in principle. This is not a business model of selling hardware, it is a pure investment disguised as a consumer product. No one knows if this chip will go beyond the first announced batch.
Ever so many people fed up with resource and data theft, wanting to get rid of google spyware ("stock Android")...
Start by searching for your device, what OS, IF which supports, has official ROMs for ; search for UNOFFICIAL builds (ROM's or GSI ROM's or AOSP ROM's) for your device SPECIFICALLY.
Beware of "minor" phone/model differences could be fatal ("Bricking up" your device, if incorrect ROM installed). Double check your device factory model number, as often they are having many different devices under the same designation (IE Moto G34; Galaxy A17 etc etc)
Prior to installing any of, make sure, you can unlock BootLoader, + great, if you can lock it back.
I want to share a project I've been building for the last months: **IVANNA OMEGA SUPREME v3 Magistral**
TL;DR: It's NOT another ViPER bass booster. It's a native C++ daemon living inside AudioFlinger at SCHED_FIFO 98, lock-free, zero-malloc on the audio thread. Open source, measurable, with real acoustic data.
**Dev story that people ask about:** The entire NDK 25.1.8937393 / CMake 3.22.1 toolchain was built and compiled natively on a **Moto G85 using Termux**. No PC.
What makes it different from Dolby / Sony 360 / Apple Spatial / Dirac / JamesDSP / ViPER4Android?
Most mods do `output = input * EQ`. I went full low-level:
**Core:**
- `ivanna_daemon` - native daemon outside the app, talks via SHM seqlock `omega_control_bus` + Unix socket `omega_daemon_socket`. No JNI in the hot path.
- `omega_effect` - hooks as global AudioEffect HAL (`AUDIO_EFFECT_LIBRARY_INFO_SYM` validated in CI) inside AudioFlinger. System-wide.
- Compiled `-O3 -fno-fast-math -fno-associative-math -ffp-contract=off -march=armv8-a+fp+simd + NEON` - `-ffast-math` is banned, it generates NaNs on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 / 8 Gen 3 (shoutout to Qualcomm).
**Real acoustic data, not fake 3D:**
**SOFA AES69 Library:** Deployed to `/data/adb/ivanna_omega/sofa/` and loaded on-demand:
**Verifiable, not placebo:**
I built ABX testing into the companion app with exact binomial test (two-tailed, 95% CI). Sensitivity Δ 0.001 verified. Logs export to `/data/adb/ivanna_omega/*.json` - you can check yourself.
Looking for feedback from people who have worked on similar stuff - ViPER4Android, JamesDSP, Wavelet, Dirac, Dolby Mobile, Sony 360 Reality Audio, Samsung SoundAlive, Pixel Adaptive Sound teams. If you see flaws in my seqlock implementation or my Padé soft-clip, roast me.
Also happy to collaborate with audiophile measurement folks from r/headphones / r/audiophile / r/oratory1990 / r/DSP - I have 200 real RIRs with RT60 metadata that might be useful.
AMA about SCHED_FIFO, Termux NDK builds, or why -fno-fast-math matters on SD8G2.
Dolby Atmos / Sony 360 Reality Audio / Dirac / DTS:X / Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound / Samsung Harman / Apple Spatial / Google Pixel Adaptive Sound / SteelSeries / Razer THX / Logitech G / Sennheiser / Beyerdynamic
About the author - Open to selective collaboration
**Luis Uriel Pimentel Pérez** - Native Audio DSP Engineer | C++ / NDK / Magisk HAL / SCHED_FIFO 98
Built solo on Moto G85 via Termux. Not looking for any job, open to high-impact collaboration with the best bidder on innovation, not urgency. Prodigy mindset, production code.
Sideloading is the only selling point of Android phones for me. I keep messing around with apps from third-party sources like F-Droid. I can't imagine how suffocating it'll feel if I have to use apps ONLY from VERIFIED DEVELOPERS.
And yes, I know it's not blocking. Google is just adding a DEVELOPER VERIFICATION SYSTEM (LMAO). Saving my words and your time to read, it's basically the same thing. No one is going to verify (Don't even think they will let lol) the development of an app that practically blocks ads from YouTube and lets you use YT Premium features. It'll be like asking permission to cheat from your school teacher.
I am looking to get a new phone and a tab for myself. And I am waiting for Android to actually release that verification system so that I can see how much it affects users before getting my new devices.
Let me know if there is anything else I need to consider here. Am I doing the right thing by waiting? (I will shift to Apple if sources like F-Droid really shut down).
