Xiaomi Mi 10 is among the four models Xiaomi released in the Mi 10 flagship series. The handset was announced alongside Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro back in February 2020. The series also includes Mi 10 Lite 5G and Mi 10 Youth 5G, which are two mid-range smartphones featuring Snapdragon 765G chipset. Overall, the Mi 10 & Mi 10 Pro are pretty similar to each other. They share the same design and nearly identical set of specs, except for cameras and battery. Of course, the Xiaomi Mi 10 5G is arguably not as good as other flagship devices like iPhone 11 Pro, Galaxy S20 Ultra, or OnePlus 8 Pro. However, for a starting price of Rs. 49,999, you can’t really get a better deal than the Mi 10. 

Display

The Xiaomi Mi 10 rocks a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED panel, supporting FHD+ resolution and HRD10+. The display also features a layer of Gorilla Glass 5, 90Hz refresh rate, and 19.5:9 ratio. It covers 89.8 percent of the front panel and has very thin side bezels as well as a small chin at the bottom. Just like its siblings, the Mi 10 features the popular punch-hole style with the cut-out being placed at the top left corner. 

Even though it doesn’t have a 120Hz display like the OnePlus 8 Pro or Galaxy S20 series, the 90Hz screen is still a significant improvement over the traditional 60Hz one. Under certain conditions, the brightness can get up to 1,200nits. All of those contribute to a great display. It is bright, colorful, and pixel rich. You will have a great time playing games, watching videos, browsing the web, or scrolling through social media. The animation is much smoother with the 90Hz refresh rate.

For security, there is a fingerprint scanner placed underneath the display. While I’m a fan of the under-display scanners, the one on the Mi 10 is not really that reliable and fast. You can also use the Face Unlock feature, which is more consistent but not as secure as the 3D-based solutions.

Chipset

The Mi 10 is powered by the Snapdragon 865 SoC, which is Qualcomm’s most-powerful chipset at the moment. Well, it is also arguably the most powerful one in the world, slightly ahead of Apple’s A13, Exynos 990, or Kirin 990. With this chipset, you won’t have to care much about the phone’s gaming performance since it is capable of running the most demanding games out there. In everyday use, the Mi 10 with Snapdragon 865 runs very smoothly. At no time did the phone feel sluggish or slow. Obviously, it won’t offer better experience than those gaming-centric smartphones out there due to the lack of dedicated gaming features. However, if you are looking for an all-around phone, the Mi 10 is a much much better option.

Memory configuration

The Xiaomi Mi 10 is offered in three memory configurations, including 8GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 256GB storage, and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. While we would recommend getting the top-end 12GB RAM option, don’t worry if you can only get the 8GB RAM one. Even for PC, 8GB RAM is the amount many people would suggest getting and it is enough for most of the tasks. Not just that, the 12GB RAM option isn’t available in India, so the only option is to get 8GB RAM. As for storage, Xiaomi uses UFS 3.0 storage on this phone, which will certainly contribute to a performance increase. 

Battery

The handset is packed with a 4,780mAh battery, which is even larger than the Mi 10 Pro (4,500 mAh). However, it only supports 30W fast charging tech, which is significantly less than its Pro sibling (50W). Other than that, both models support 30W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging. In terms of battery life, this phone lasts longer than most of its rivals and recharges very fast as well.

Screen-on time often surpasses 6 hours for a solid mix of use, including watching YouTube videos, benchmarking, taking photos, and checking email. In comparison, most of the current flagships also manage to last around six hours for the same usage. The Mi 10 usually last around a day and a half or sometimes even more. It is not as good as the two-day battery life that Xiaomi promises, but it is still very impressive nonetheless. 

Even though vanilla Mi 10 doesn’t support amazingly-fast 50W fast charging tech like the Mi 10 Pro, it still recharges very quickly. When plugged in the 30W charger, it takes 25 minutes to get the 4,780mAh battery charged from zero to 50 percent and slightly over an hour to reach 100 percent. 

Camera

Moving to the camera department, the Mi 10 is equipped with a single 20MP selfie camera on the front and quad rear cameras at the back. The selfie shooter supports multiple features such as HDR, AI Beautify, AI scene detection, AI portrait mode, 30fps video recording, palm shutter, and more. As for the rear camera cluster, it includes a 108MP main sensor with OIS, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle lens with a 123-degree viewing angle, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. Camera features for the rear setup are AI scene detection, AI portrait mode, Pro mode, 8K video recording, 720p/1080p slow-mo video recording @ 120fps, dual-LED flash, HDR, and more.

Overall, the camera quality of the Mi 10 is fantastic when pitting it against other phones like Galaxy S20, OnePlus 8, or Huawei P40. However, that doesn’t mean that it is perfect. Despite having quad cameras at the back, it wasn’t able to take a single usage shot using the macro camera and I don’t really get the idea of why the company decided to pack that camera on the device in the first place. I don’t really mind phone makers using a macro camera on their smartphones. What I mind is the fact that they add the 2MP lens that is useless of the time just to say that the phone has a quad-camera array.

It is capable of recording 8K video at 30 fps and you also get OIS for video. That is a big deal when you consider the fact that Samsung does not offer optical stabilization for 8K video. The 108MP f/1.68 main sensor on the Mi 10 is one of the biggest on a smartphone available on the market and you also get four-axis OIS. The device uses 4-to-1 pixel binning to produce 27MP photos. Due to the pixel benign and large sensor, you will get great shots in pretty much all lighting conditions. You can also record 4K video at 60fps with OIS.

For low-light conditions, there is a dedicated Night Mode that allows the phone to capture mode detail in the dark. It is a shame that other sensors on the camera setup are not as good as the main one, but the Mi 10 still has one of the best camera setups in this category. Its 108MP sensor is as good as advertised and I’m happy that Xiaomi can deliver a camera that can compete against Google and Samsung.