Xiaomi Mi 10T comes with an LCD display.
Xiaomi is known for launching budget smartphones in the market, and while many believe that’s the end of the road for Xiaomi, people forget that there are premium smartphones as well. The Xiaomi Mi 10 proved to us that the company can do premium smartphones.
The Xiaomi Mi 10T and the 10T Pro are a company's attempt to make a flagship killer. It's basically a showcase at the best Xiaomi has to offer, in a package that the company is positioning as more affordable in comparison to their other flagships. So let’s find out how good the Xiaomi Mi 10T really is?
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Specifications
Xiaomi Mi 10T sports a 6.67-inch IPS LCD display with an aspect ratio of 20:9. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor paired with 6/8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. The storage is non-expandable. It runs on Android 10 based MIUI 12 out of the box. All of this is backed by a 5,000mAh battery.
On the optics front, the Mi 10T features a triple rear camera setup including a 64-megapixel primary camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and a 5-megapixel macro sensor. Upfront, there is a 20-megapixel selfie snapper.
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Design and Display
The Xiaomi Mi 10T looks and feels premium in hand. You can definitely feel its super heavy 218-gram weight and it feels even bulker with the included case. The biggest design change compared to the Mi 10 is the flat LCD in place of a curved AMOLED.
It sports a matte finish back design.
The rear is nothing special except the huge camera bump house, the triple camera setup along with flash and a place for a lens which is left blank. This is very much like the blank switches in cars. It may be done to offer a symmetrical design at the back.
On the front, the Mi 10T sports a 6.67-inch panel with a punch-hole camera to the left side. It has thin top and bottom bezels offering a seamless display experience even with the punch hole camera. There is also a tiny LED that sits between the display and frame of the phone that lights up for charging. Considering its an LCD display, there won’t be any Always On Display, so the LED can be used for notifications which sadly isn't the case here.
As for the placements, Mi 10T sports a USB Type-C port on the bottom edge surrounded by the speaker grille and the primary microphone, and a sim card tray. The right edge houses the power button and volume buttons. The left edge is completely cleaned, while the top edge has a secondary microphone, IR blaster and a secondary speaker. Overall, the ergonomics of the phone are really good and it feels premium in hand. The phone is not top-heavy despite what the really large camera bump makes it seem.
Xiaomi Mi 10T also comes with an IR blaster.
Coming back to the display, it is a 6.67-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels. The panel is flat and supports up to 144Hz. It can be locked in 90Hz or 60Hz to save the battery life. The HDR10 capable panel looks good whether you are playing games or watching a movie on Netflix. The colour accuracy just isn't there considering its an LCD and not an AMOLED panel.
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Performance, Software and UI
Xiaomi Mi 10T is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor paired with 6/8GB of RAM. Ours came with 8GB of RAM. With the phone being priced at under Rs. 40,000, we expected no less than the provided specs. During the review period, the phone ran without any issue. The 144Hz refresh rate of the display makes the smartphone feel faster than it is. This combined with the top of the line specs, the phone performed as expected for the price range.
It features a hole-punch design.
The Mi 10T runs on Android 10 based MIUI 12 out of the box. The software is well built, to take advantage of all that power to provide a smooth experience. However, MIUI did have its fair share of annoyances on the Mi 10T. Despite the amazing amount of customizations and features packed into the device, the amount of bloatware, the ads is a big issue for me.
Also Read: Xiaomi Mi 10 5G Review: Better than OnePlus 8 Pro?
However, the company made a lot of changes compared to the MIUI 11. The MIUI 12 is way better than the MIUI 11 and the company seems to be on the right track. The UI is a bit less colorful, the new animations are smoother, the stock google dialer, messages, contacts app is a welcomed addition.
The biggest change is the separation of the notifications and shortcuts dubbed into notifications and control centre, which looks and feels like iOS.
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Cameras
Xiaomi Mi 10T sports a triple-camera setup at the back. The setup comprises a 64-megapixel primary camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and a 5-megapixel macro sensor. Upfront, there is a 20-megapixel selfie snapper.
There is a triple-camera setup at the back.
The camera app is straightforward and offers a good amount of features. It's easy to navigate through and is the same as other MIUI based phones. During our tests, the Mi 10T managed to click some great shots. By default, it shoots 25-megapixel shots from the main sensor, but you can set it to take full resolution 64-megapixel shots. Under good lighting conditions, the phone managed to lock focus quickly and even picked up the natural colours. You could easily notice the over-sharpening of images. At the max 64 megapixel mode, you can notice slight graininess in the shadows.
You can see the software in play when you try to take HDR shots, with heavy sharpening, noise reduction and weird shadows. The Night mode shots are good, but not as good as a Pixel or Huawei at the same price. The 5-megapixel macro sensor is the one I was interested in testing and as expected, it was surprisingly usable. The Macro mode is not one of the camera modes. It could be turned on from the quick camera settings menu.
The selfie camera was good enough. You can notice a lot of smoothening in the image with the beauty mode turned on by default and cannot be fully toggled off. Most people will like the results that the software tuned photos provide.
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Battery
The Mi 10T comes with a massive 5,000mAh battery. During my time with the device, light to medium usage got me around a day and a half of usage. With my usage, the battery lasted around a day of usage. The MIUI software optimizations killing apps in the background and force stopping services help achieve this number.
The smartphone also supports 33W fast charging with the included wall adapter. The smartphone also has 10W reverse charging which is good on paper, but in reality, it struggled to keep my Note 20 Ultra charged due to it disconnecting every now and then. The company claims that the smartphone can charge from 0-100 in less than an hour which is sort of true. When the smartphone is off, that number is true. In normal situations, the phone takes around an hour and ten-twenty minutes to fully charge which is still really fast.
Xiaomi Mi 10T Review: Verdict
Xiaomi Mi 10T feels like a budget flagship in hand. Starting at Rs 35,999 for the 6GB variant and priced at Rs 37,999 for the 8GB variant, it matches the prices of other budget flagships. It brings the same experience as the Mi 10 but with some compromises. The flat LCD instead of curved Amoled being the biggest.
The 144Hz panel along with a great camera setup and it gives the IQOO 3 and the Realme X50 Pro a run for their money. I would recommend upgrading to the companies Mi 10T Pro or the OnePlus 8T. However, if you don’t want to spend that much money, the Mi 10T won’t disappoint you.
