Category: Mi Gadgets

Its that time of the year when Xiaomi release its flagship, normally after spring festival in China. Only that this year its a bit delayed due to the outbreak of the novel corona virus which crippled almost every activity in that country. Even the shipment of my Mi 10 here was delayed due to lockdown in many villages and cities in the world’s largest smartphone manufacturing country. We still continue to pray for them as they recover, for those lives that were lost, business that were forced to closed down, we hope they can recover pretty soon.

The Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro were lauched simultaneously, both sporting the latest Snapdragon 865 as well as 108MP camera sensors which is the latest trend in the market, well of course lead by Xiaomi non-theless. The Mi 10 has achieved quite some milestones like topping the DxO mark for Xiaomi as well as its performance really outdid the Mi 9 flagship that make it look so yesteryear.

This phone was supposed to by launched on MWC2020 but was cancelled due to safety reasons.

Tech Specs of Mi 10 5G:

• ·      Qualcomm SDM8250 Snapdragon 865 Octa-core processor 7nm+ (1×2.84 GHz Kryo 585 & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 585)
• ·      Adreno 650 GPU
• ·      8GB/12GB of RAM LPDDR5
• ·      6.67-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, (~89.8% screen-to-body ratio)
• ·      1080 x 2340 pixels FHD+ (~386 ppi pixel density), 19.5:9 Ratio
• ·      DCI-P3 color gamut, high color saturation,HDR10, 90Hz Refresh Rate, 500nit, Corning Gorilla 5 Front and Back
• ·      Blue, Black, Gold
• ·      128GB / 256GB of storage, UFS 3.0
• ·      108 MP, f/1.7, (wide), 1/1.33″, 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS
•        13 MP, f/2.4, 12mm (ultrawide)
•        2 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
•        2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
• ·      20 MP, f/2.0, (wide), 1/3″, 0.9µm, HDR Front Camera
• ·      On Screen Finger print scanner
• ·      Dual SIM (nano sim size)
• ·      3G, LTE, 4G+ Carrier Aggregation, VoLTE Calls, SA/NSA 5G
• ·      Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, DUAL Band GPS Phone, A-GPS, NFC
• ·      4780mAh battery, Quick Charge 4.0 Supported, 30 Watts Fast Charging, 30W Wireless Fast Charge, 10W Reverse Charging, PD 3.0
• ·      2×2 MIMO Technology to support MU-MIMO
• ·      Sensors: Ultrasonic distance sensor, Ambient Light sensor, Gyro, Vibration Motor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Electronic
•        Compass, Hall Sensor
• ·      Android 10, MIUI 11
• ·      USB-C port
• ·      162.2 mm x 74.8 mm x 8.96 mm
• ·      208 Grams

Design

Its quite evident that the design of the Mi 10 has similarity to that of the Mi Note 10, the curved edge display front as well as the camera placement at the back. Xiaomi has stepped up in terms of design, making it look more premium this time around, but of course the price also went up for the Mi series flagship. I honestly admit that there is quite some amount of effort needed to adjust to the curved edge screen, but once you get used to it, its quite easy to navigate and use it. I was a bit skeptical at first since I am so used to non curved edge, but after getting used to it, I feel that my fingers dont get that edged scratch feeling from the non curved ones. The only drawbacks that I can say about the curved screen is that its so hard to find the perfect tempered glass just to fit it, most of the time it has airlifts, the best alternative to that problem now is to use hydrogel protection for your screen. But if you are quite used to no protection, its still okay since its a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protected front and back. This is a little stepback from the CG Glass 6 protected front on the Mi 9.

Unboxing

Display and Audio

This is quite a runaway for my review on the Mi 10, I love the display of the Mi 10, it was like its an instant upgrade from the Mi 9, the cinematic effect display is great. I kind of love watching Netflix on this unit as opposed to my Mi Note 10. The display is quite better, well of course except for that irritating punch hole which messes up the viewing experience. For the audio part, I cant describe how much I love sound tripping and watching Youtube on this one, I used to port the audio to bluetooth speakers, but now, there is no need for that. DxO mark wont rate it that good for nothing.

Snapdragon 865

One of the first device that sports the latest chipset from Qualcomm is Mi 10, the Snapdragon 865 SoC has 8 cores and can run up to 2.84Ghz of computing speed. Now of course powered together with the powerful Adreno 650, and of course a generous serving of 8GB or 12GB of DDR5 RAM (goodbye DDR4X), it will give you the best experience in gaming up to date, and probably even future proof. Not mentioning that it can run even the most graphics hungry games like COD and NBA2k20. We ran several stress test on this unit and we did not see any lags nor any slowdown on the opening of any apps in the Mi 10, multitasking was a breeze (this result is expected from a flagship of this level). The latest SD 865 + DDR5 + UFS 3.0 makes this phone one of the best in its class to start of 2020.

Antutu gave it a 534370 point out of the box from my benchmarking test.

Connectivity

The Mi 10 supports 14 different LTE bands and 5G is also present on this phone as well. It is said to be dual band 5G and both SMART and GLOBE prepaid sim in the Philippines was able to attain 5G signals on testing spots. Nevertheless 5G is not yet ready to roll out anytime soon as it is still in its infant testing stage at the moment. It’s pretty easy to switch to LTE network inside the settings, and it also supports Dual 4G mode as well. You can freely choose which sim you want to use your LTE data, since this is a Dual LTE, Dual standby smartphone. Wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac is also smooth and it also supports Wi-Fi 6. Wireless screen mirroring is also available via the Miracast protocol, tethering data is also working perfectly. Bluetooth 5.1, Dual GPS, and GLONASS are all present, NFC (Near Field Communication) is also present to support Mi Pay, Android Pay and it enables you to send data to a fellow NFC user with just tapping your phones together. Transfering data from older phones using Mi Mover was also a breeze as well.

Camera:

The Mi 10 is one of the best camera that Xiaomi has released as of 2020, getting the nod by DXOMark (for the Mi 10 Pro), this catapults Mi 10 series to the top in their latest rankings for smartphone cameras. We have by far tested it in all angles and all conditions be it well lit, semi dim, dark mode. We can see that in most of out shots its very vivid and crisp, Im very happy with the results especially those taken under dark lighting which are quite a surprise given how much they have improved on nightmode photography. The 8K video was great but of course its still not yet perfect as I cant even upload it to Youtube to give you guys a preview of it.

Sample Shots

Selfies

Video Sample

More Photos

Mi 10 Battery and Benchmark:

The Mi 10 supports the Qualcomm Quick charge 4.0, PD 3.0 and as fast as 30W. Inside the box it we can find a 30W QC 3.0 charger. We charged the phone from 20% to 100% in just 50 minutes and it was really fast. We recorded a 13 hours and 55 minutes endurance test Mi 10 8GB/256GB version under the PC Mark battery stress test. If these statistics are true on a normal daily use, then it’s really a good sign for the said smartphone, but based on my test, this phone does drains a little faster than normal, hopefully it gets corrected by updates.

More Benchmarks

Verdict

The Mi 10 did wowed me at first, given the speed of the performance, its quite amazing Xiaomiw as able to pack a 4780mah, I just wishied it was a 5000mah which is quite the industry standard these days. The SD 865 will definitely be power hungry since it can perform to its best, but based on statements of Qualcomm, it can automatic switch to less power consumption should it be idle. The inital battery drain was quite fast, but based on Xiaomi’s engineers, it will be corrected on updates. The camera is great, but I am expecting more and this leads to my next review on the Mi 10 Pro.

See you soon!!