Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Great Phone With Great Value & Powerful Features

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is Xiaomi’s flagship in 2020, featuring an impressive specs sheet. But how do those specs perform in real life? Find out in our Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra review. Sadly, the ph0ne hasn't made its way to India, but we expect the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra price in India to be around Rs. 57,000.

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra: Design & Display

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is a pretty big phone, nearly as big as the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra. Therefore, you might need to consider its size before making the purchase as it can be cumbersome for those who have small hands. Moreover, it would require deep pockets to carry around as well.

Xiaomi goes for the glass sandwich design on this phone with curved glass on both sides. On the front, there is a large display with a punch-hole cut-out at the top corner. The right side is where a power button and volume rocker are located while the left side is blank. At the top, there are two microphones and an IR-blaster. At the bottom edge, you can see a USB Type-C port, the main speaker, a dual-SIM tray, and a microphone. You will find a big camera bump placed at the top left corner of the back panel.

Moving to the display front, the brand goes for an OLED panel with a FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Yes, it is slightly disappointing that Xiaomi doesn’t offer QHD+ resolution, but it should be a big deal considering the other specs that the device has. If you need Quad-HD+ resolution, you might need to consider OnePlus or Samsung offerings. 

Overall, the display has deep contrast, vibrant, and smooth. If you are not a fan of the adaptive colour setting, there are a few other options in the settings menu. The brightness is great, and the handset is even viewable under direct sunlight. Its peak brightness is around 480 nits, which is higher than the 412 nits of the Galaxy Note20 Ultra 

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra: Performance

Instead of going for the Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset, Xiaomi chooses the regular 865 on the Mi 10 Ultra. However, that doesn’t mean the handset is not powerful. It is very fast and could be even faster with 16GB of RAM - the unit we are reviewing has 12GB RAM. I had absolutely no performance issue with the phone. I took lots of photos, played many games, and multi-tasked a lot as well. Even with all that, the handset still refused to stutter.

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra: Cameras

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra rear camera setup is pretty impressive. The primary 48MP main sensor supports PDAF, Laser AF, and OIS. It is paired with a 48MP periscope telephoto lens, OIS, 5x optical zoom, and 120x digital zoom. The other two units are a 12MP telephoto lens with Dual Pixel PDAF, 2x optical zoom and a 20MP ultra-wide lens with PDAF. On the front, it gets a 20MP camera for selfies and video calls. 

The device takes contrast-heavy and punchy photos with a good amount of dynamic range. In the day, there is only a slight difference between the four rear cameras in terms of quality. Colours are quite consistent, but slightly oversaturated. The device also seems to be pretty good at capturing white balance. I didn’t see anything that looked inaccurate in all of the photos I took. 

In low-light conditions, the phone also delivers good results. It boosted exposure to get more detail for the shots. Even in a dark scene, the handset still managed to capture photos with not much noise.

Here are some camera samples:

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra: Battery

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra’s 4,500 mAh battery is pretty average in the price range. It is in charge of fueling a power-hungry chipset, a large display with a 120Hz refresh rate, and 5G connectivity. Thankfully, Xiaomi’s software does a good job of killing apps and optimizing power usage. I could use the device for around two days before having to charge it. For regular usage, the phone would last around one and a half days.

Battery life is not the one that helps the Mi 10 Ultra shine, but it is its charging capabilities. With the 120W fast charging technology, you will only have to wait around 24 minutes to charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent. This is definitely the fastest charging smartphone that I have ever seen. It is achieved by charging two battery cells at the same time as Xiaomi splits the 4,500 mAh battery into two cells. You hate wired charging? Well, the 50W wireless charging technology is also impressive as it takes only 40 minutes to complete the charge. 

However, it does come at a cost. You will see the phone gets pretty hot after finishing charging via both wired or wireless charging. As for wired charging, you might need to be careful when holding the phone after it has just finished charging. With that kind of heating, I would say it will certainly damage the longevity of the battery and that is something that you should keep in mind.

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