Bracelet Connecté Xiaomi Mi Band 6

TechRadar Verdict

Xiaomi'south Mi 10 is a great phone cheers to its seriously premium pattern, a gorgeous 90Hz screen, and a nippy chipset. That said, its value for coin fails to smash it out of the park, with similarly priced phones similar the OnePlus viii Pro and the Huawei P40 winning out from a camera indicate of view, and Realme and Oppo offering a more than agreeable interface feel at a similar price.

Pros

+
Premium blueprint and finish
+
Punchy and smoothen 90Hz screen
+
Powerful Snapdragon 865 internals

Cons

-
No telephoto camera
-
You can become more for less
-
Xiaomi's UI is a bit clunky

Two-minute review

The Xiaomi Mi 10 is a great-looking phone. Shiny, curved glass around the back, a cool metal frame at the sides, and a bold, zingy, 90Hz screen on the front - what's not to love? Not much, really, at least when it comes to its pattern and screen. Xiaomi'southward come a long way, and the Mi 10 serial is its best-looking to date.

The Xiaomi Mi ten isn't the newest flagship phone from the brand, non since the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 11, and even the Xiaomi Mi 10T improves upon information technology in a few ways. But the Mi 10 is nevertheless 1 of the meliorate phones from the visitor.

That said, its interface is still occasionally questionable. For instance, information technology withal doesn't give you the option to activate an apps tray, and its virus scan feature interrupts whatever you're doing every time an app installs, so the interfaces found on phones from the likes of OnePlus are more polished.

The Xiaomi Mi 10's camera is also not quite as practiced as information technology could be, given the £799 / AU$i,699 (roughly $990) request price. The primary 108MP sensor is a solid performer - nosotros've seen it practise not bad things on the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and the Xiaomi Mi Note 10.

That being said, it can't quite stack upwardly to the 50MP main camera on the Huawei P40 Pro, and more than to the bespeak, the phone misses out on the telephoto camera the Xiaomi Mi ten Pro packs, falling behind phones like the OnePlus 8 Pro in terms of versatility.

What y'all practise become with the Xiaomi Mi x, however, is flagship ability, a flagship screen, and seriously good sound from the stereo speakers, not to mention decent battery life, wireless charging, and 30W fast charging too, as well as 5G.

Later down the line, if you can find the Xiaomi Mi 10 at the right cost, then it's a dandy phone in a bubble. That said, when fix aside other similarly priced devices, its camera and UI hold it dorsum from excellence.

Xiaomi Mi 10 price and release date

Out now in the UK and Australia
Costs £799 / AU$1,699

The Xiaomi Mi 10 is available right now in the Uk and Australia for £799 / AU$i,699 (roughly $i,000). It was announced in China in February aslope the Mi 10 Pro, a like phone with a superior camera system.

Both phones have seen a staggered global launch and can exist bought directly through Xiaomi's online store, likewise as tertiary-political party channels like Amazon.

Blueprint

Great fit and terminate
Metal frame and high-gloss glass dorsum
Available in Coral Light-green, Twilight Grayness, and Peach Gilt

There'due south no doubt about it, the Xiaomi Mi ten is a great-looking phone. The front is all-screen Gorilla Glass 5, curving elegantly into the metal frame, which rounds off beautifully to the curved drinking glass dorsum.

The Mi ten's iv rear cameras jut out from the otherwise uninterrupted back panel, and in-paw and to the heart, at that place'south admittedly naught wrong with the Xiaomi Mi 10's pattern, until y'all get your grubby fingerprints all over information technology - it holds onto them for dear life.

At 208g, it isn't quite iPhone 11 Pro Max bulky (226g), merely it'southward even so at the upper cease of the smartphone weight spectrum.

Buttons are all on the correct-side - ability and book rocker; at the base there's a USB-C port and at the acme, an IR equalizer.

The stereo speakers bookend the phone at the top and bottom, and the only warning we'd impart to potential buyers aside from the fingerprint-loving finish, is that the Mi 10 is big. If you're after a modest phone, await elsewhere.

Display

Large 6.67-inch display
AMOLED screen with punch-hole photographic camera
1080 ten 2340 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate

The Xiaomi Mi 10'southward Super AMOLED screen packs a 1080 10 2340 resolution and measures vi.67 inches, making it a like spec on paper to the Motorola Edge's screen, albeit with a less dramatic bend. The specs translate to 386 pixel-per-inch clarity, which is better than an iPhone xi, only worse than an iPhone xi Pro.

Being a Super AMOLED display, colour pop and depth are arable, whether gaming, watching, or just frantically swiping through the UI. It has a max manual brightness of nigh 500 nits - lower than the Samsung Milky way S20, or OnePlus 8 Pro, only gets much brighter in auto mode, so is still easy to view indoors and out in all just the brightest conditions.

The Xiaomi Mi 10 screen's HDR10+ accreditation means HDR movies look first-class, especially in darker environments, and viewing angles are great, peculiarly for an OLED panel.

Camera

108MP, f/i.7 primary sensor
13MP, f/2.4 ultra-wide camera
2MP macro and depth sensors
No telephoto choice

The Xiaomi Mi Note x introduced Samsung's 108MP photographic camera sensor to the world and boy did it impress when it dropped. The huge-resolution sensor has since been reprised on the Motorola Edge Plus and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, too every bit the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro - and it'south also leading the charge on the Mi 10.

What's interesting about the Mi ten's implementation of the 108MP photographic camera sensor is that this is the kickoff time we're seeing it with no telephoto secondary camera.

Instead, Xiaomi's banking on the big pixel numbers making digital zoom a viable alternative. Is it? In vivid conditions, for the near office, yes, every bit you can see in the 2x zoom picture in the camera samples further downwardly.

In low light, however, zooming is out of the question.

The Mi x's shooting modes are comprehensive: photo, video, portrait, night way, pro mode - all the usual suspects are deemed for. There's also a 108MP photo mode that delivers full-res images that await fantastically detailed in well-lit scenes.

Automatic mode on the Xiaomi Mi 10 is great. The phone packs optical image stabilization, so shots look at least sharpish beyond most lighting conditions, and capturing at 25MP by default, using 4-in-1 pixel combining (or pixel binning), detail is plentiful. That resolution translates to 4344 x 5792 photos by default, with each file size clocking in at around seven-10MB.

Compared to other cameras on the scene, the Mi 10 falls behind the P40-series when it comes to tonal and color nuance. The iPhone 11 manages to pull out amend dynamic range, and the Pixel 4 clearly betters Xiaomi's flagship when it comes to white balance, but we are nit-picking slightly for these comparisons.

Most people who purchase the Xiaomi Mi 10 will love the photographic camera. The huge sensor size delivers stacks of depth for a smartphone, and dynamic range is at least decent. Nighttime mode, notwithstanding, it's noticeably behind the aforementioned Apple tree, Google, and Huawei phones.

The 13MP f/2.iv ultra-wide camera'south operation is mediocre, with no autofocus resulting in middling utility. In all just the best lighting conditions, it's also very soft, and compounding this fact is the odd conclusion to not arrive accessible in nighttime style.

Luckily, you can shoot pro mode images with it, so tin grab upwardly to xxx-second long shutter speed shots, giving it some versatility in depression-light if y'all know what you're doing.

The macro photographic camera, which clocks in at 2MP is, honestly, a fleck of a joke, as you lot can get higher-touch on macro shots from the main camera across more than lighting weather condition, so we're just going to skip over it.

As for the 20MP selfie camera, along with the 108MP master camera, this is a highlight, delivering decent operation beyond photograph and video in all but the darkest lighting conditions.

Photographic camera samples

A shot at 1x zoom. (Paradigm credit: TechRadar )

Specs and operation

Snapdragon 865 power
Available in multiple configurations
Upwards to 256GB of storage

The Xiaomi Mi ten has a Snapdragon 865 chipset but is available in a couple of flavors, with 128GB or 256GB of storage. That said, in the UK and Australia, it'south shipping in its highest spec version as standard - 256GB of storage with 8GB of RAM for £799 and AU$1,699.

The effect is a bang-up phone for gaming, with top-tier flagship power, a gorgeous screen, and enough of space for even the most monstrously massive titles.

Benchmarks are nothing brusk of stellar, with the phone achieving a Geekbench v multi-core score of over iii,300, and this is reflected in mean solar day-to-day utilise and gaming performance.

Xiaomi's MIUI 11 interface is hit and miss. On the plus, it'due south stable and looks make clean, which is a good first. The experience falls behind when it comes to UI versatility - y'all can't activate an apps tray for case. Additionally, when apps install in the background, the UI pulls you out of whatever you lot're doing, taking you to a virus scanning screen. This results in a jarring user feel.

App support is excellent, though, and it does accept some advantages when set bated phones from Huawei, given Xiaomi has access to the full gamut of Google services.

Connections on the Mi 10 are flagship beyond the lath, with NFC and 5G. There'south no microSD card slot inside, simply with 256GB of storage, in that location probably won't be a need to bump up the phone's capacity in your fourth dimension with it.

The under-display fingerprint scanner is fine; it doesn't work as well equally some of the contest, simply face unlock is quick to burn and does the job.

Battery life

4,780mAh battery
Wireless and contrary wireless charging
Fast 30W wired charging

The Xiaomi Mi x's big battery clocks in at 4,780mAh, which is very generous from a capacity point of view. Fifty-fifty with the screen refresh rate fix to 90Hz, you'll all the same get a full day out of it. The Mi x seamlessly switches between 60Hz and 90Hz depending on the app you're using to ensure the manner doesn't sap too much juice.

After 90 minutes of Full Hard disk drive video played back at max effulgence, the Mi 10 bombardment dropped past nearly ten%, and from flat, it charges up in around 70 minutes with 30W fast charging. The phone also supports wireless charging at upward to 30W, which is incredibly impressive, and information technology offers 5W contrary wireless charging too.

Should I buy the Xiaomi Mi 10?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: June 2020

Basil Kronfli is the Head of content at Make Dear and freelance technology journalist. He is an experienced writer and producer and skilled in video production, digital marketing and brand development.