Xiaomi Mi 10T series release date, price, news and features

Xiaomi returns to its roots

The Xiaomi Mi 10T series has been announced consisting of the 'standard' Mi 10T as well as a Mi 10T Lite and Mi 10T Pro, and it feels like Xiaomi is returning to its roots with these phones.

Unlike the Xiaomi Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro from early in 2020, the Mi 10T series phones have mid-ranged specs in a few regards, but don't cost you much. That's the kind of value proposition the company is known for, though the Mi 10 phones were more like premium devices.

To help you get your head around the three new Xiaomi phones we've collated all their specs below, so you can see what they're like and how they compare to each other.

• Here's our Xiaomi Mi 10 review
• And our Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro review
• These are the best Xiaomi phones

Cut to the chase

• What is it? A new trio of phones from Xiaomi, all slight improvements on Mi 10 series equivalents.
• When is it out? Right now
• How much will it cost? £229 to £599

Xiaomi Mi 10T price and availability

The Xiaomi Mi 10T series price has been revealed for the UK, but we've yet to get specific prices for other markets.

The Mi 10T Pro costs £599 (around $700 / AU$990), the Mi 10T is £469 (about $600 / AU$820) and the Mi 10T Lite costs £229 (around $300 / AU$450) for 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, though there are more storage options that cost extra.

Those prices put the two higher-tier phones as pretty great-value mid-ranged phones, and the Lite as the most affordable phone in its markets right now.

Regarding availability,you can buy the phones in the UK now, and they'll possibly come to Australia too as Xiaomi releases some of its devices there. We wouldn't expect these phones to come to the US, as other than its Black Shark line Xiaomi doesn't ship its phones to the States.

Design and display

A bizarre number of Xiaomi phones have 6.67-inch screens, and that's the case with each of the three Xiaomi Mi 10T phones. While the Lite has a central 'punch-hole' cut-out for its selfie camera, the other two have it in the top left corner.

All three phones have Full HD+ resolutions, and the displays aren't curved at the edges like the Mi 10 handsets. The Lite has a 120Hz refresh rate, and it'll likely end up being one of the cheapest phones with such a snappy display, but the 'standard' and Pro phones both have 144Hz screens. Therefore they'll be the first phones to have this kind of display, other than gaming specific phones.

In terms of general design, the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite looks a lot like the Poco X3 NFC with a rounded camera bump central on the back of the phone, while the other two Mi 10T phones look pretty similar with camera bumps in the top-left. They both have a pretty huge main lens, which screams 'I'm a powerful camera!', though we'll have to test to see if this turns out to be true.

As we've said, the phones don't have curved-edge displays, so they look a little less premium than the Mi 10 devices. They've also all god side-mounted fingerprint sensors, not in-screen ones like Xiaomi has used before, which denotes they could be low-price phones.

None of the phones seem to have a 3.5mm headphone jack, not even the Lite, though each uses a USB-C port. They all have glass fronts and backs, with metal frames between.

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite has the most rear cameras of the lot with a 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth snapper. There's also a 16MP camera on the front for selfies.

In comparison, the standard Mi 10T has the same main sensor but a 13MP ultra-wide snapper and a 5MP macro camera. The selfie camera is slightly more high-spec at 20MP.

Finally, the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro has a 108MP main camera, but the same other cameras as the standard model. Users of the Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro might find the lack of a telephoto camera an oddity, as that phone actually had two.

Likely thanks to the better chipset (as we'll get to), the two non-Lite phones can record video up to 8K, and have a few other intriguing modes like AI SkyScaping (which makes skies look brighter) and Dual Video which lets you record video from the front and back cameras simultaneously.

Specs and features

All three of the Xiaomi Mi 10T phones support 5G connectivity, suggesting Xiaomi is going all-in on the next-gen connectivity.

In terms of chipsets, the Xiaomi Mi 10T and Mi 10T Pro have Snapdragon 865, which was top-end at the beginning of the year but has been slightly outdated by the 865 Plus recently. The Mi 10T Lite has the newly-launched Snapdragon 750G, which is more of a mid-range chipset but it's optimized to be great for gaming.

The chipset is paired with 6GB RAM in the Mi 10T Lite, and either 64GB or 128GB storage; in the Mi 10T you can choose between 6GB or 8GB RAM, which are paired with 128GB storage, and in the Mi 10T Pro you're always getting 8GB RAM, with either 128GB or 256GB storage.

The Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite has a 4,820mAh battery, slightly smaller than the 5,000mAh of the Mi 10T and 10T Pro. All three phones support 33W fast charging, and there's no wireless powering available in any of them.

We've only tested the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro at the time of writing, but we'll check out the others and bring our reviews to you soon.

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