How to find out which processor is installed in the Xiaomi smartphone

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face the need to clarify the specifications of their device.This may be necessary when selling a gadget, buying accessories, installing custom firmware or just to satisfy curiosity. The manufacturer sometimes does not specify the exact modification of the chip in the basic settings, limiting itself to the general name of the series, which creates confusion, especially given that the same phone model can be released with different SoCs (System on Chip).

Determining the exact CPU model isn’t just a way to know the name; it’s key to understanding the real potential of your device, its ability to run heavy games or process high-resolution video. In the Chinese brand ecosystem, there are often situations where the same marketing name hides completely different hardware platforms from Qualcomm or MediaTek.

In this guide, we will look at all the hardware identification methods available, from the simplest built-in tools to professional utilities, and look at how to access hidden parts of the system and why standard menus can hide important information about cores and frequencies.

Checking through the built-in menu “About the phone”

The most obvious, but not always informative, way is to look at system settings. But in the MIUI shell or the new HyperOS, information is often presented in a condensed form. To get to the basic data, you need to open the Settings app and scroll down the list.

Here you will see the item About Phone. The menu that opens usually shows the model of the processor, but without detail. For example, you can see the word "Eight-core processor", but do not recognize its exact code name. For more information in the same section, you need to find the line MIUI version or HyperOS version and quickly click on it 7-10 times in a row.

This action will then open a hidden Extended info menu, where you can see the code name for the platform, like sm8250 for the Snapdragon 865, which is much more accurate, allowing you to identify the chipset without third-party software.

⚠️ Warning: Don't change the values in the Extended Info engineering menu unless you're sure you're doing it. While browsing is safe, accidentally changing the system flags can cause the interface to malfunction.

It’s important to understand that even an extended menu doesn’t always display real-time clock speeds or process information, and this is often not enough to analyze the CPU architecture in depth, and you have to resort to more powerful diagnostic tools.

Use of specialized diagnostic applications

The most reliable way to get comprehensive information is to install profile utilities from the Google Play store, which has been the leader in this field for many years, the AIDA64 application, which provides a detailed report on all components of a smartphone, including core temperature, current frequency and support for instructions.

Once you install and run AIDA64, select the CPU partition. Here you will see not only the name of the processor, but also the number of clusters, the maximum frequency of each core, and the size of the cache. This is critical to understanding how effectively the device will multitask. Similar functionality is provided by the DevCheck application, which often shows even more technical details.

• 📱 AIDA64 — classic choice with a user-friendly interface and detailed reports about the system.
• 🔍 DevCheck is great for sensor monitoring and detailed real-time SoC analysis.
• 📊 CPU-Z — A popular tool that clearly separates information about the kernels and displays the current process (nm).
• 🛠 Device Info HW — specialized application useful for checking not only the processor, but also the matrix of the screen and camera.

Using these software, you can bypass the manufacturer's restrictions on displaying system information, and they read data directly from the Linux kernels on which Android is based, so it's almost impossible to cheat, and this is especially true when buying a used device, when you need to make sure that there is no oversold or fake board inside.

Analysis of characteristics through Google Play Market

If you don't want to install any apps or you're in the store, you can use the built-in compatibility feature. It's simple, but it requires a Google account and Internet access. Go to the Play Market app on your smartphone.

In the search box, type the name of a popular heavy app or game, such as Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile. Open the app page and scroll down to the About app section. There'll be a block called "This app is compatible with your device." When you click on your model name, you'll go to the device page in the store.

The device page in the Specifications section often lists the processor model and RAM volume, and while the data here is less detailed than in AIDA64, it allows you to quickly check the official specifications that Google receives directly from the device, which helps you understand how the system identifies its chipset itself.

⚠️ Note: Google Play data may be updated with a delay. If you recently updated your firmware or your smartphone is very new, the information in the store may not be updated yet or display the basic model without specifying the revision.

This is a good way to speed up and not need to install third-party software, but it's not a good way to diagnose or overclock professionally, because it doesn't show the current frequencies, temperature and load on the cores in real time.

Verification of the processor through a computer and ADB

For advanced users who don’t trust screen readings or want to get raw data from the system, there is a method of connecting to a PC, USB-cable and installed drivers ADB (Android Debug Bridge: This method allows you to request information directly from the kernel of the system.

First, activate USB debugging mode. Go to Settings → About Phone and click on the build number seven times. In the menu Additional → For developers, turn on USB debugging. Connect your smartphone to your computer with a cable.

Open the command line on your PC in the ADB folder and type the following command to get a list of CPU characteristics:

adb shell cat /proc/cpuinfo

You'll get a huge amount of text, and you'll be interested in a Hardware line or a model name, and you'll have the exact code name of the platform, and you can use the adb shell getprop | grep ro.product.board, which often gives you a board name that's easy to identify in the specification tables.

The advantage of the method is that it works even if the smartphone screen is broken (provided that the connection was previously allowed) or the system is unstable, a level of access that engineers and firmware developers use to accurately identify the hardware platform.

Table of popular Xiaomi processors and their code names

When searching for information online or in hidden menus, you will often come across technical code names rather than marketing names like “Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.” Understanding the match between code and title will help you navigate the specifications faster.

Below is a matching table for popular models seen in Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices in recent years. Knowing the code, you can easily find benchmarks and reviews about your version of the chip.

Note that the suffixes in the name (e.g. -acp or -pro) may indicate a slightly altered frequency or modification of the chip for a particular manufacturer.That is why knowing the sm8250 code is more important than just the name "Snapdragon", since the same number may have different versions.

Hidden Codes and Engineering Menu

In the smartphone Xiaomi there is a set of hidden USSD-However, unlike older versions of Android, modern shells often have access to a full report of hardware through them, or require special rights.

Type in the Phone app the following code: ##64663##. This will open the engineering test menu. You can check the individual modules, but it is difficult to find details about the processor there. More information can be the code ##4636##, which opens the test menu. Select the phone information item.

Sometimes you can see a version of the baseband and other technical information on the 4636 menu that indirectly points to the platform, but for the direct purpose of knowing the CPU model, this method is less efficient than DevCheck installation in 2026-2026.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

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The fastest and most accurate way to know the processor is to install the free AIDA64 or DevCheck app. Hidden MIUI menus often give only general information, and codes can be locked in newer versions of Android.

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When buying used Xiaomi, be sure to check the processor model in AIDA64 with the one stated in the ad. Scammers often re-flash budget models from MediaTek so that they appear as powerful Snapdragon in the About Phone menu, but they can not fool AIDA64.