Xiaomi Mi 10 Review

So is the Xiaomi MI 10 worthy of the price increase over the Xiaomi MI 9. There are certainly a ton of upgrades over the MI 9. Pretty much everything from a hardware standpoint has been upgraded. Now this is the Xiaomi MI 10 not Xiaomi MI 10 Pro. The MI 10 Pro is even more upgrades over the me 10. But in this phone we have the real basis of what Xiaomi are doing. The fact that this has a snapdragon 865, the new flagship processor for Android. You can rest easy that this thing is just going to perform very well. A huge upgrade that Xiaomi have put into this phone is the screen, it is a really really good looking screen, the colors are fantastic. It’s big it’s really bright.

Also the curve on there is very subtle, I think is actually a really good design for a curved screen. It’s subtle enough where you don’t really realize there’s a curve in the phone, it just curves off at the edges in a really nice way. We can look at the spec sheet all day long which is very impressive, but honestly just using this phone I really have enjoyed the screen I think it’s a really good effort from Xiaomi. It also has a 90 Hertz refresh rate high refresh rates are becoming a norm. Of course we’ve seen 120 Hertz refresh rates in phones like the galaxy s 20 series, the oneplus 8 pro is going to have that as well. But I think for now 90 Hertz is a real sweet spot. It’s gonna take a while for them to come on and support these high refresh rates. But 90 Hertz is a really good spec.

All the design improvements that Xiaomi made in MIUI 11 when that came out a few months ago really makes sense. All the bigger fonts and the boxes and the designs really look good on this six point seven almost inch display. There’s also a setting to hide the cutout if you want to do that, although it does take up a huge portion at the top of the screen I actually really don’t mind the notch It’s small and it’s in a position where it actually almost turns into part of the united occasion bar at the top and also when you’re playing games, when you’re holding the phone in a landscape mode your thumb covers that tiny cutout. Anyway so that means you get slightly more real estate and an uninterrupted display as opposed to the water drop notch. Another massive upgrade in this phone. For me personally what I look for in phones is a really big deal is stereo speakers. Not only that but Xiaomi have gone a step better than a lot of other manufacturers. And included two dedicated speaker boxes. A lot of other Android OMS, especially at this price point double up the top earpiece as a secondary speaker Xiaomi haven’t done that mode. They have an earpiece there but also a secondary large speaker box just like the one at the bottom.

Another thing that I find really important is haptics and they’ve taken a big step up. Xiaomi have included an inline stepping motor and the way that the haptics give you feedback is way way better than anything Xiaomi have done before. Recording of your voice in videos also got an improvement. I compared it to the iPhone 11 Pro recording some video of the selfie camera. And I felt like there was really not much difference between the audio recorded from them iPhone and the Xiaomi. And I couldn’t have said that last year so another step up in that department.

When it comes to the cameras Xiaomi this time around have a completely unique component that no one else can give you right now and that is the 108 megapixel main camera sensor. There are some rumors that other manufacturers might start using this sensor or a similar sensor, but for right now Xiaomi is the only other company apart from Samsung giving us this type of sensor. Even though it’s not exactly the same as Samsung’s. Xiaomi have stuck to the horizontal line for the camera array. we’ve got Samsung Huawei and I guess the iPhone also going for this squared off or bigger rectangle type of design. So we’ll see if this design on the Xiaomi starts to age towards the end of the year.

This is the MI 10 not the pro version. So it’s a different camera setup. You do have that main sensor you have an ultra wide camera and then you’ve got a depth sensor and a macro sensor. For me not the most useful lenses. A lot of people mentioned in my review that they thought that the lens on the Xiaomi MI 10 was somehow cloudy when it was shooting 1080p video. This is what 1080p looks like out of the Xiaomi MI 10.  And actually many Xiaomi finds shoot 1080p like this. My advice is to shoot everything in 4k resolution. You do get a high resolution. But also it switches to a higher bitrate in the recording which gives you some more information that the phone could work with. The 4k looks much better than a 1080p. It’s not just resolution, you’re getting way more information and Xiaomi can put together. In my opinion a better looking image.

I was also super impressed with the stabilization in 4k out of the Xiaomi MI 10. You do get optical image stabilization on that main lens and it definitely shows. I think 4k video out this phone is actually really good look at. The colors for me are just a little bit too saturated though if you look at the reds and the yellows, they’re just bright and turned up a little bit too much. I would like them a bit more subtle. But again this is personal choice. Although the video mode is crazy in terms of resolution. There is absolutely no image stabilization whatsoever. So this thing just can’t beused. Unless you want to put this on a tripod and do it that way. It’s use is super limited because of the stabilization issue. It’s definitely good the phone has it but it’s not a feature I think you should be looking out for.

     

There’s also this really cool movie mode which puts black bars at the top and bottom of the image and makes your videos look more like a movie. You can get some really cool shots and make some really cool videos with this. If you want to make videos look more like movies, you might want to choose 24 frames a second. But my unit anyway stops at 30 frames a second there’s no 24 frames a second option. This might however be different depending on what area of the world that you’re in.

The ultra camera is in a bit of a dorky position right at the bottom of the camera array. It’s really easy to block this with your finger, when you’re holding the phone, is a dome. It’s not at the very top of the camera array. But this is something that you can get used to when you’re using the phone, so it’s not a big deal. 108 megapixels is not a gimmick you have so many options when you take high-resolution images. Firstly the images look absolutely outstanding, they have so much clarity. You can also crop into these images 2 X 3 X 4 X and really the image still looks clear enough for you to use that pretty much any way that you want. There is no HDR in 108 megapixel mode though and that’s something to watch out for. There’s nothing to say about the battery life on this phone. Because it really is a non-issue you get a very big battery and it’s going to last you at least a day and you’re gonna put it on charge at the end of the day anyway. They have 30 watt wired and 30 watt wireless charging in this phone. They’re very good specs and they’re going to charge it very quickly. Are there quicker ones out there. For sure even the MI 10 is quicker than this. Bit in the price bracket it does a very good job and you’re just not going to worry about that. So should you pay the extra money for the pro or just get MI 10. Well the mean temporary has quicker charging more options with the camera setup a more premium display and more premium speakers according to Xiaomi. If you do want to see maybe a comparison between the MI 10 the MI 10 Pro and maybe MI note 10 drop me a comment and tell me if you want to see that comparison.