Review Xiaomi Mi 10t Pro

The Mi 10T Pro offers a whole host of features for a fraction of the price of other flagships. It’s an excellent choice for anyone looking for an all-rounder that can easily handle multitasking and gaming.

We’re also big fans of the Mi 10T Pro’s cameras, which have a few returning modes and new ones. For example, it can help you take a lot of shots in quick succession, as well as add effects and filters.

Display

The Mi 10t Pro’s display is an IPS LCD panel with a 144Hz refresh rate. That’s not as high as some gaming phones like the OnePlus 6T or Galaxy S20 FE, but it’s better than most of its rivals.

The IPS panel is bright and vibrant, with good viewing angles. It also supports HDR10, a more accurate way of displaying video content.

The screen also has a variable refresh rate, letting it optimise the experience to suit your actions. For example, if you’re gaming, it can operate at a full 144Hz, but if you’re streaming video, it may run at a lower rate to save battery. It’s a clever trick we wish more phones could do.

Camera

If you’re a camera nut, you’ll appreciate the 108MP sensor on the back of the Mi 10t Pro. It’s not an empty megapixel score, though – its photos are stunningly crisp and detail-rich in bright light.

As we’ve expected from Xiaomi phones, the image quality is excellent, with well-rounded color, balanced contrast, no clipped highlights, and decent exposure. Our exposure tests showed the camera can accurately reproduce scenes outdoors and indoors, as long as you’re not in a particularly dark room.

It’s not a great performer in low light, with limited dynamic range leading to highlight clipping on bright outdoor shots and underexposure of dark areas indoors and with HDR. The camera also struggled with noise at high ISOs, which is a shame considering it has a fantastic f/1.7 lens and optical image stabilization (OIS).

Performance

As 2020 unfolds, the smartphone market has been flooded with budget, midrange, premium flagships, and so-called “flagship killer” devices. The Xiaomi Mi 10t Pro is one of the new breeds, sporting a top-tier processor, a 144Hz screen, and a 108 MP sensor, all at an affordable price tag.

The display has good viewing angles and a maximum brightness of 650 nits. It also supports HDR10, which makes for a smooth movie-watching experience.

But the best feature of this display is the 144Hz refresh rate, which beats all the competition for now and makes for a fast-responding screen responsive to gaming. The device also employs Smart AdaptiveSync, so the screen’s refresh rate can be changed according to what you’re doing.

The primary camera performs well on outdoor and indoor scenes, with accurate exposures, wide dynamic range, and pleasant color rendering. However, low-light performance is limited, and noise creeps in, especially when shooting portraits.

Battery

The 5000mAh battery in the Xiaomi Mi 10t Pro is one of the biggest you’ll find in a smartphone. That’s a good thing; it means you can expect to get through the day without worrying about charging it up.

You also get a top-notch screen with a 144Hz display and HDR10+ support. That’s not as high a refresh rate as some other flagship devices at this price point (the Galaxy S20 series, for instance, have 120Hz screens), but it’s still a big plus for gaming and overall performance.

The battery doesn’t do too badly in our tests, either. For example, it ranked very well in our power efficiency score and was swift to charge from an empty state to full power. That’s a good thing, especially considering it doesn’t have the faster 65W charging of other phones at this price point.