Xiaomi has been trying to enter and make their space in the highly competitive flagship smartphone segment. The Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G is one of the smartphones from their flagship segment from the Mi 10T series to penetrate the flagship space to compete with the iPhone and Galaxy smartphone lineup.
The Mi 10T is the successor to the well received Mi 10 from earlier this year. This is the most affordable from the Mi 10T series duo smartphones which were released in November here in the UAE.
Design & Build
The Mi 10T 5G is built using Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and backside which is sandwiched with an aluminium frame. With the 218g weight, it is a bit heavier than its predecessor. Instead of the under the display fingerprint scanner, Xiaomi has gone with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner which is integrated along with the power button.
The volume rocker has placed right above the fingerprint scanner and it is very tactile and responsive. With the extra battery mAh and other hardware added to the phone, the phone feels a bit on the heavier in the hands, on the other hand, we are glad that Xiaomi did not make any major trade-off making this powerhouse runs all the day.
Xiaomi has launched 2 colour variants, Lunar Silver and Cosmic Black, our review unit was the latter. Since it was a full glass-covered device, it was a fingerprint magnet. Thanks to Xiaomi for the beautiful anti-bacterial case that shipped along inside the box.
Display
Xiaomi has put a 144Hz high refresh rate 6.67″ flat IPS LCD Full HD+ display with HDR10 certification. Many of us like the colourful saturated AMOLED displays. However, with the Mi 10T display, we found the display colourful and the highly responsive. The device also offers options for multiple colour schemes to choose like Saturated, Original color and an Advanced Option to adjust the colour gamut to set as your preferred choice.
Xiaomi has also developed a feature called “Adaptive Sync Display” which is the marketing word used for variable refresh rate based on what content playing on the screen. Hence the 144Hz refresh rate won’t take up too much juice, it has also provided an option to manually set the refresh rate to 60Hz, 90Hz and 144Hz. Despite the display has a 1080×2400 resolution with 395ppi pixel density, it has managed to produce good quality output whether it’s a photo or a video. Also, the outdoor visibility was quite good, especially under the sunlight, it can go up to 650 nits in peak.
Camera
The Mi 10T comes with a triple-camera setup at the rear side with 64 MP Sony IMX386 sensor as a primary shooter with f/1.9, 26mm wide lens, a 13 MP ultra-wide lens with f2.4 aperture with 123˚ field-of-view and a 5 MP f2.4 macro lens. On the front, the device features a 20MP hole-punch camera with f2.2 aperture and a 27mm wide-angle lens which may help you to ditch the selfie stick.
The 5G enabled smartphone can manage to capture video with a resolution of 8K with 24/30 fps, 4K at 30/60 fps and 1080p@30/60/120/240/960 fps. The 20 MP Samsung S5K3T2 sensor can take 1080p and 720p at 30 fps and 720 slow-motion videos up to 120 fps.
The Mi 10T also offers several software features for photography and videos. In the photography mode, it offers features like Six long exposure modes, Photo clones, Timed burst, Document mode 2.0, Panorama mode, Pro mode, Raw mode, Portrait mode background blurring, Night mode 2.0 AI camera 2.0, AI Beautify, AI smart slimming, AI portrait mode, AI SkyScaping 3.0, AI studio lighting AI high-resolution photos, AI scene detection, Google lens, Photo timer, Face recognition, HDR Ultra-wide angle edge distortion correction, Group photo face correction, Custom watermark, Movie frame and new photo filters: Color focus/Cyberpunk/Gold vibes/Black ice.
For video recording, the device has included features like Video clones, Dual video, Movie frame, AI Portrait video, Video pro mode, Video log mode Video Macro mode, Vlog mode, AI video colour focus, ShootSteady, 15 Seconds Short video recording and Video Beautify.
Performance
With the 5G enabled 2.84 GHz Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC under the hood paired with an 8GB LPDDR5 packs the top of the line hardware inside to deliver the best performance.
Multitasking and gaming worked like a charm with the faster UFS 3.1 storage with 128 GB and the newer RAM Module and the MIUI12 software optimization. We did face some hiccups during the gameplay like the Dream League Soccer 2021. However, we felt this issue more like poor App optimization. The device did keep it cool during the gameplay of more than 1hour, like the Asphalt 9 or the Subway Surfers.
The device also packed Hi-Res certified dual stereo speakers and the output we found it quite loud for Spotify and YouTube.
The Mi 10T is shipping with Android 10 with the Xiaomi Android Skin MIUI 12.0.7 running on top. Sadly, during our review period, the device was able to taste the latest of Android 11. There was no noticeable problem like slowness or ghosting issues with our unit. Sadly, Xiaomi has omitted Wireless charging capabilities and also did not have any IP certification for the Mi 10T.
Network & Connectivity
The primary SIM card supports 5G connectivity with the X55 modem inside and the secondary SIM supports LTE. The VoLTE supported on both the SIM cards.
The Mi 10T series supports a wide range of wireless network protocols like Wi-Fi 6. It also supports 2×2 MIMO, 8×8 Sounding for MU-MIMO, WiFi Direct and WiFi Display as well. The device also features Bluetooth 5.1 with Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo Plus feature which supports on the Snapdragon SoC 845 and above. It offers users less latency and improved connectivity. The dedicated audio chip is also designed to help reduce power consumption.
Battery & Availability
With the 5000mAh battery inside, we did not expect the device to be available the whole day with the super high refresh rate of 144Hz. We believe the Adaptive Sync Display optimization have managed to reduce battery consumption. We managed to pull off a Screen on Time of 5h+ with auto-brightness on. Considering the high screen refresh rate, the results were quite impressive in the battery test results.
During the battery testing period, we have done less than an hour of gaming, 2 hours on YouTube and Amazon Prime, 45 mins of Video Call and less than 30min of voice calling.
Xiaomi Mi 10T comes with a 33W fast charger inside the box which is capable of charge the full battery in less than an hour.
The Xiaomi Mi 10T is available for purchase on leading online retailers like Amazon and Noon and all the leading retailers.
Conclusion
Considering the top of the line hardware in the Mi 10T, it has been priced well and made it available for the masses. To keep the price-controlled, Xiaomi has made some trade-offs like No wireless charging and No earphones inside the box. The Mi 10T can be a worthy alternative for the smartphone like OnePlus 8T.
With the 144Hz IPS LCD display and impressive battery performance, the Mi 10T is quite well packaged well at a price of AED 1799. Xiaomi has also made it even sweeter for early buyers, bundling Mi Band 5 and Mi TWS earphones Basic 2 along with the smartphone and a 6-month screen protection guarantee as a limited time offer.
