Xiaomi has worked hard to be a dominant player in the affordable smartphones market in India. In fact, the same is true of many other products like air purifiers, for example. Though there’s been the occasional premium phone, the company isn’t as well known for being in that segment in the country. But that’s been a matter of strategy, not any shortage of capability. You can see that with the Mi10T Pro, a big fat power-packed phone.

The Mi10T Pro is from the Mi 10 series, in a way. But it’s best to forget the confusing naming conventions here and just focus on this specific device. It’s a ‘biggie’. Physically, the Mi10T Pro is large whichever way you look at it. No one with small hands should even think of it. The screen is a 6.67-inch one and it’s broad as well as tall. It’s also a really heavy phone — unsurprisingly, since it has a 5,000mAh battery inside. The glossy back of the device makes it wonderfully slippery and there’s also a camera compartment that really sticks out — so you need a case, which of course will only make the phone feel even bigger. Even though cases just add less than a millimetre to the dimensions of a smartphone, they definitely make it feel more bulky. So all in all, the Mi10T Pro is really meant for someone who uses a phone to the hilt, pushing it to bring into play all its specs and capabilities.

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Super screen

The screen on this phone is actually an LCD, not an OLED, but it’s still one that looks very good. The blacks are black enough and the colours are juicy and attractive, and there’s a good enough brightness range. The tiny camera hole is pushed over to the extreme left and top, so it’s barely noticeable. In many apps, I lose sight of it altogether. The distinctive thing about this otherwise too very nice screen is that it has a 144Hz refresh rate — more than almost anything around. Not just that, the refresh rate changes dynamically to adjust to whatever content is on the screen, in the interest of saving resources and battery power. The screen is really one of the biggest talking points of this device.

The fingerprint sensor on this phone is built into the power button on the side, a wonderful practice as far as I’m concerned as it takes less effort than ever to unlock. There’s no 3.5mm jack, while there probably could have been because of the sheer size and thickness of this phone. But moving on. The specs are pretty good. Snapdragon 865 with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage with no internal card slot. It’s a 5G phone, though that’s neither here nor there. In fact, it’s definitely not here. The phone uses UFS 3.1 storage, another thing that makes it faster.

This smartphone doesn’t come with Android 11 out of the box, but with Android 10. On top of that is Xiaomi’s own MIUI12.2. It’s an interface very filled with customisations and features and some take to it while others don’t. There’s now a control centre that pulls down from the top, very reminiscent of Apple’s on its portable devices. There are many apps that are pre-loaded and annoying to see, but many can be uninstalled.

Another highlight feature on the M10T Pro is its 108MP camera which is a wide angle with an f/1.69 aperture. I found it rather good. In daylight there’s lots of detail and indoors too though there can be some pixelation around dark edges if the light isn’t adequate.There’s a 13MP ultra-wide lens that works with a 123 degree field of view for those big group photos or landscapes. A 5MP macro lens does a very good job, including some prominent bouquet in the background of whatever subject you close in on. There are lots of modes and filters to play with in the camera app. You can zoom in 3X optical for photos as well. For video, you can even shoot in 8K, though it’s unlikely that you would.

Despite stand-out features, the Mi10T Pro does have plenty of competition, specially from OnePlus, so some research is warranted before deciding to buy.

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Price: ₹39,999

Pros: 144Hz display looks and feels great despite LCD, big battery, good camera and photo features, fast performance

Cons: Very large and very heavy, no 3.5mm jack despite size, super slippery, camera sticks out, not on Android 11, no storage card slot, no water resistance, no stereo speakers

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