Xiaomi Mi 10

Because of the coronavirus’s havoc and the ensuing nationwide lockdown, Xiaomi held an online event in Nepal today to introduce its budget flagship, the Xiaomi Mi 10. It is the first smartphone in Nepal to feature 5G connectivity, a 108-megapixel sensor, and a Snapdragon 865 processor.

SPECIFICATIONS

DISPLAY AND DESIGN

One of the best features of the Mi 10 5G is its display. It’s big, vibrant, and well-saturated in color. From the front, the phone could easily be mistaken for a OnePlus or even a Samsung flagship phones. HDR content looks fantastic, and streaming apps recognize the show as HDR-capable automatically. The 90Hz refresh rate has a major impact on how MIUI feels.

On the other hand, the fingerprint sensor is slow, and it took a good second for it to recognize our finger and unlock the phone. During our analysis time, we had a lot of misreads. Although the always-on display is a nice touch, we wish it had more functionality, such as the ability to monitor music playback.

AUDIO

The Mi 10 5G’s stereo speakers sound balanced, but they don’t get very noisy. Locally stored files sounded fine, but with a lot of streaming music and video applications, we had to turn up the volume. When you hold this phone loosely to watch videos, your palms help intensify the sound a little, but when you grasp it tightly to play games, your palms will easily block the speakers.

BATTERY

The phone will have a 4,780mAh battery with 30W flash charging support. It also has 30W wireless charging, 10W reverse wireless charging, and NFC capabilities.

The Snapdragon 865 is a versatile processor that breezes through all of our tests. For those who prefer numbers, the Mi 10 5G scored 5,63,101 points in AnTuTu, which is significantly higher than the Samsung Galaxy S20+. The CPU seems to be throttled quite a bit because the Mi 10 5G heats up quite a bit while running benchmarks.

CAMERA

The Mi 10 5G’s primary camera is a 108-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/1.7 and a wide 1/1.33-inch sensor with optical stabilization. Photos go through a 4-in-1 oversampling mechanism by default. If you do the math, they should be saved as 27- megapixel pictures, but the photos’ resolution was actually 25 megapixels when we searched. If required, there’s a digital zoom of up to 10x, or 2x when using the optical zoom.

So it’s time to bring the 108-megapixel sensor to the test to see if it can produce images that are comparable to those produced by a telephoto camera. We compared the results to shots taken with the Samsung Galaxy S20hybrid +’s zoom feature.

The 20-megapixel selfie camera shoots at the full resolution all the time, without any oversampling. During daytime, selfies look great as long as you don’t zoom in too much. When you look closely, skin textures are a bit blotchy. Portrait mode works well, with decent edge detection. Selfies are decent with good ambient lighting at night, but without it, the results aren’t too favorable.

VERDICT

Xiaomi made a strong choice in the Mi 10 5G to make a comeback in the “value flagship” market, in our opinion. It will take some time for everyone to adjust to seeing a Xiaomi phone priced at Rs. 50,000, which is a significant departure from the brand’s normal perception. The Xiaomi Mi 10 5G has a beautiful design, a great monitor, a long battery life, a good camera, and quick wireless charging.

However, it gets hot quickly, the fingerprint sensor isn’t the quickest, and the camera app could use some work. Some may be turned off by the lack of an IP ranking.

Overall, the Mi 10 5G is a decent choice to consider if you don’t care about getting a Mi badge on a Rs. 50,000 phone and just want good hardware and software.