Review of the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite: A Truly Great Deal

Build And Design

The first thing you notice about the Mi 10T Lite is how big it is compared to other Xiaomi phones. It measures 161.6 x 75 x 7.8mm and weighs just 176g. Compare this to the recently released Redmi Note 7 which measures 150 x 73 x 8.3mm and weighs 177g. The Mi Notebook Air 2018 which is even thinner than the Note 7 measures 146 x 7.9mm and weighs 190g. The Mi 10 Lite is even thicker than the Mi Mix 3 which is 147.7 x 75 x 8.1mm and weighs 182g. It’s bigger than all three phones but only marginally heavier and wider. The screen has a 6.21 inch FHD+ IPS LCD panel with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio, making it noticeably taller than an iPhone XS Max. It has a small notch on the top, but a chin at the bottom that’s relatively small at 0.9mm. There’s a horizontal dual rear camera setup with a 12MP f/1.

Performance

Even with just 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite managed to run all of the usual benchmarks on Geekbench and gave me a fairly decent result on Antutu. Although the 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage configuration is still available, Xiaomi is no longer selling the 4GB/32GB model in China, and the 32GB/64GB/128GB variant is slightly more expensive at ¥3,499, which translates to $540, which is a lot of money for a phone with these specs. If you have money to spare, but want more storage or a bigger screen, then you should probably pick the 6GB/64GB model. The others are well out of my budget. Specifications Screen : 6.26 inches, 1080 x 2340 pixel AMOLED : 6.26 inches, 1080 x 2340 pixel AMOLED Operating system : Android 8.1 Oreo with MIUI : Android 8.

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite has a dual rear camera, one colour and one monochrome, while the Realme 3 and Realme U1 both have a rear camera as the selling point. The camera on the Xiaomi phone isn’t bad for the price, it’s just not up to the quality of the competition. With clear lighting, the colours of the Xiaomi camera are good, although shots lack in detail, with more likely to be washed out or hazy than come out with full saturation. The dynamic range of the camera is also poor, the app making it too easy to over expose. But zoom into an image and there are signs of real promise. The detail is fine and the portrait mode is generally reliable, but the wide aperture mode is almost unusable and rarely gives a proper result. Once again it can be hard to get good shots in well-lit situations.

Battery

The big difference between this phone and the Mi 8 Lite is the size, a 5.84″ screen and a massive 4000mAh battery. Even with a reduction in screen resolution, the 40% increase in battery size means you can spend the day away from a charger. I found that in a day of use, with the screen set to 150 nits and regular use, I had around 30% left at 7pm, with most of the heavy stuff done. A full charge takes around 3.5 hours. Camera The 16MP f/2.2 main camera delivers fast snaps and very good details. The HDR system does a good job with lighting. When low light and 4K video recording are your top priorities, it’s all you really need. The secondary 5MP camera can be set to a normal wide-angle view, or bokeh or depth-of-field effects. It can also take some pretty good low-light photos too.

Conclusion

There’s not much new in the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite beyond the modest display upgrade and some occasional tweaking in the camera, but that’s the point. The Chinese manufacturer’s first-in-China flagship was extremely popular last year, selling out on most channels, and selling 3.4 million phones over the year, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s not a phone that needs expensive specs to compete, but it’s also not one that can look like an iPhone XS Max and still have its work cut out to compete with the OnePlus 6T. So that’s why it’s priced at under $200 in China, and the same again at first launch in Europe. The pricing gets a little interesting in the US, where Xiaomi is keeping the prices high and offering only special introductory prices.