Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G – A Budget Flagship

From the beginning of 2021, we have seen a surge in budget smartphones that deliver flagship specs, in a race to be crowned the king of the budget lineup.

Now that Huawei is out of the picture with its Google & US ban. Xiaomi is now pushing its boundaries with so many great releases.

Not to mention Oppo, Oneplus & Redme, but with so many different companies trying to stake their claim as the number one in this segment, so what can be said about the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G.

“Say Hi” To The Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G

The Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G -Is priced at just $399, which looks feels, and performs everything like a $1000 handset.

The moment you unbox this handset the build quality will immediately shock you especially in this Luna Blue color, with a frosted matt glass and gradient finish, which is also super resilient to fingerprints, I know design is always subjective, but for me, the Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G is one of the best-looking smartphones out there.

Boasting a 6.5 inch LCD display with a 144HZ refresh rate, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 5G, 7-nanometer chipset plus a 5000 Mh battery that will keep this phone alive all day.

Whilst using this phone over the last few months, and I can honestly say that I am really impressed. with the performance of this handset,

Let's Start With Specifications

Main Camera Setup

Selfie Camera

Display

Usability

The Mi 10T 5G has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that is lightning fast, it also uses face unlock which is fast and reliable, It has a dual speaker setup, which is crisp and clear, and can also get quite loud.

You get an integrated IR blaster which is widely underrated, but I find comes in handy as a backup remote control.

The camera bump is quite big, but it houses a great array of cameras, starting with a ( 64mp main ) ( 13mp ultra-wide ) & ( 5mp macro ) and finally on the front you have a 20mp selfie camera,

The display has a 144Hz refresh rate which is one of the stand out features, all though its on a LCD display rather than OLED, the display won't disappoint you whether your gaming or consuming media.

Thanks to its 144Hz display the Mi 10T 5G feels fast and snappy, the phone uses adaptivesync to save battery

Speaking About Battery

The battery life is also impressive, as Xiaomi managed to cram a massive 5000mh battery into a relatively small profile of the device, Mi UI power management is also great.

Expect 6 to 7 hrs of screen on time depending on your usage, whilst charging the battery with Xiaomi's 33-watt charger that comes included in the box, which will take this phone from zero to full in one hr.

Cons

● No Micro SD Expansion,

● No IP Rating

● No Headphone Jack

Pros

● Flagship Grade Hardware

● Snapdragon 865/5G

● 6/8GB Ram

● 128Gb Storage

● Custom Made Cooling System

● X Axces Liner Vibration System Motor

● 144Hz Refresh Rate Display

● Dedicated Gaming Mode

Gaming

Gaming on this device is guaranteed to give you a smooth to perfect performance, due to its 144Hz display, all of your favorite gaming titles such as PUB G mobile will play at a smooth 60fps with no frame drops, plus with its dedicated gaming mode, you are looking at a gaming beast.

Mi Ui

Mi Ui interface has gotten even better over the years, it's smooth reliable, all of Xiaomi's great customizations & animations are here, with not too much bloatware, even so, if your not a fan of Mi Ui, head over to google play store and install any of your favorite launchers and customize this phone to your exact liking.

Camera & Image Quality

When it comes to the cameras, the main camera takes fantastic photos with a great amount of sharpness and neutral colors, the dynamic range could better but overall these are some of the best images you can get on a smartphone in this rage, I would even go as far as to say that I think they are even better than Oneplus in this segment.

Wide angle lens takes great photos, but could use a little more sharpness, in the corners of the photo.

The 2 times zoom is also impressive considering that's a digital zoom, the 64Mp lens does a great job, portrait photos also look good with great edge detection and object separation.

Selfies look great images are sharp and detailed, edge detection is really impressive, in low light selfies are not something to shout about but they are still very usable if you have a source of lighting.

Night photos will blow you away with the primary camera, images are amazing very clean and detailed, and would say up there along with the big hitters, such as Apple and Samsung, combine that with the price of this device your in for a treat.

Video

As for the video quality Xiaomi has given this device plenty of options and frame rates for you to choose from including 8K video, and dual video mode allowing you to use the front and back cameras at the same time.

I would however recommend using 4K 30FPS which looks fantastic on both the main camera as well as the wide-angle, the image is crisp and stable, you will also find that audio quality is really good whilst recording video.

Connectivity

The connectivity has been good on this device, including call quality, signal reception wifi and bluetooth, NFC & GPS.

Final Thoughts

The Xiaomi Mi 10T 5G is a well-rounded budget phone with so many flagship specs, In my time using this device it has surprised me to what is actually available on the markets in the way of a budget phone, with such an array of flagship features, build quality and performance.

The phone is in no way perfect, as I would have liked to have had the OLED display, for the always-on feature, plus a headphone jack as an alternative audio output, also an IP68 certification for water and dust, but this is not a deal-breaker because of the price you will pay, this is considered a steal.

Regardless Xiaomi's decision to use an LCD display won't disappoint as it the closet-looking LCD display I've seen that actually looks like an OLED display.

This is a phone I can easily recommend!

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