Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro review: Power-packed premium phone

Recently, Xiaomi launched the Mi 10T Pro, a second flagship phone in 2020, clearly showing the company's intent to change the brand identity beyond budget phones in India.

. It was in 2016, Xiaomi last launched a premium phone Mi 5, which by the way did not elicit the same reception from consumers as the Redmi Note or Redmi phones get. In the following year, Mi Mix 2 was released, but again despite being an innovative phone with cost effective price of Rs 36,999. It had limited success as price-conscious Indian consumers were just not ready.

. Now, things have changed since then. We just saw a record 53 million smartphone units shipped after unlocking the market from Covid-19 restrictions in Q3 (July-September 2020). The market also witnessed good sales figures with regard to the premium phone (more than Rs 30,000) segment. There is still a lot of pent-up demand for smart handsets and Xiaomi says this Mi 10T Pro is a cost-effective feature-rich phone that can serve you well.

. But, does Mi 10T Pro deliver the goods? I have using the Xiaomi's premium phone for almost a week and here are my thoughts.

. Design, build quality, and display: The first thing you notice when you hold the new Mi 10T Pro is how large and heavy the phone is. It measures-- 165.1 (H) x 76.4mm(W) mm in dimension. It has 9.33mm thickness, which is fine for me, as it leaves more space for a big battery (more on that later).

. The Lunar Silver colour model is glossy and has a super smooth rear cover and it blends beautifully with the metallic frame around the edge. But, I had a tough time operating the phone single-handedly. I even struggled to hold on to it, while taking the cover shot for this article.

. It is a fingerprint smudge magnet and also, the massive camera module on the back protrudes a lot. But, thankfully the company is offering a shell cover that balances the odd protrusion.

. Also, the company claims the case and the display guard on the front is protected with silver ion technology for long-lasting antibacterial effect, keeping you safe 24 hours a day. After 24 hours of contact, the case can eliminate more than 99% of the bacteria. This is really good value-addition to the premium phone, which costs less than Rs 40,000.

. As far as the display is concerned, it flaunts a 6.67-inch full HD+(2340 × 1080p) TrueColor LCD screen with DCI-P3 color gamut, peak brightness of 650 nits, Gorilla Glass 5 shield.

. I had a good time watching high-resolution videos on the Mi 10T Pro and have to, it is the brightest LCD panel on a phone, I have reviewed this year so far. Also, its 144Hz AdaptiveSync refresh rate really works well playing graphics-rich games.

. Add to that, Mi 10T Pro's front panel boasts 360-degree ambient light sensors, Sunlight display 3.0, TÜV Rheinland low blue light certification, Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation (MEMC) technology to improve the fluidity of low frame rate content.

. It also has a dedicated reading mode, which offers custom settings option to change colour temperature so that it doesn't affect eyes during long e-book reading sessions.

. It also has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and it fared really good all the time during the testing period. It responded fast to the touch of the finger to unlock the screen and has a low False Rejection Rate.

Performance: Xiaomi's Mi 10T Pro boasts 8GB RAM (LPDDR5), 128GB storage(UFS 3.1) and runs Android 10-based MIUI 12 powered by 7nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 (with Kryo 585) octa-core, which can clock peak CPU speed of 2.84GHz. It is paired with Adreno 650 GPU and LiquidCool technology, which comes in handy to control thermal control while playing graphics-heavy games such as Asphalt 9: Legends.

. During the entire testing period, it never showed any slightest sign of lag-ness. Though it did get warmed up during extended sessions of photography and gaming, it never went beyond my comfort level.

. On the Geekbench performance testing application, it scored an impressive 740 and 2,847 points on single-core and multi-core tests.

. It also comes with a Qualcomm X55 modem for 5G and whenever the infrastructure gets ready in India, the new Mi 10T Pro owners will be able to enjoy super high-speed internet.

. As far as the battery life is concerned, the new Mi 10T Pro houses a massive 5,000mAh battery and it lived up to my expectations. It was able to consistently deliver one-and-half days under normal usage. Xiaomi's phone comes with a 33W fast charger in the retail package.

. Must read | Xiaomi MIUI 12 OS update: Everything you need to know

. The company has made use of its proprietary Mi Fast Charge technology and MMT (Middle Middle Tab) parallel charging tech where-in current is delivered from the center of the battery, allowing two parallel routes of simultaneous charging to achieve stable and efficient charging.

. With this technology, the phone can charge up from zero to 100% battery capacity in one hour.

. Camera:

. It boasts a triple-camera module-- the main 108MP AI snapper (with 1/ 1.33-inch Samsung HMX sensor, 0.8μm pixel size, f/1.69 aperture, OIS: Optical Image stabilisation) + 13MP 123-degree ultra-wide-angle lens + 5MP macro sensor backed by LED flash.

. The Mi 10T Pro t akes really good pictures under natural sunny light conditions. It succeeds in capturing details of the subject clearly, but it does add more colour particularly to flowers, and comes out punchy. Really good for sharing on social media platforms.

. Also, the ultra-wide-angle, macro close-up snaps, portrait photos, and Night mode shots are decent too.

. Even the digital zoom feature, which can stretch up to 30x is just good enough to identify the object (in this case, the cow below) from a far distance, but it gets grainy with each extension from 5X, 10X, and to the max.

. It also can record 8K video ( with 24 / 30 fps option). I have to be honest, as it takes way too much storage. Just 26 seconds eats up 342MB space.

. Most importantly, between 8K and 4K video quality, the human eye can't make a discernible difference on a compact screen of a phone. And it is almost impossible to share on social media platforms such as Twitter unless you have special privileges such as a news organization.

. But, I do appreciate Xiaomi for giving more camera features in the Mi 10T Pro compared to other premium phones, that cost more than half the cost of the former.

. On the front, it features a 20MP selfie camera with a Samsung S5K3T2 sensor and f/2.2 aperture. It takes really good pictures and a boatload of filters and image editing tools to enhance the photography experience.

. Final thoughts: Considering the price and features, Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro emerges as the new flagship killer phone in the market. It ticks all the boxes consumers look for in a premium phone. It has an impressive build quality, a long-lasting battery, a powerful processor configuration, and really good camera hardware. Yet, it costs almost half the price of the competitors.

. With 5G support, the new Mi 10T Pro is a future-ready phone and if you can good care of the phone (without physical damage), it will serve you long.