Last week, Xiaomi founder and CEO, Lei Jun gave a long speech to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the brand. Apart from reviewing its journey over the past 10 years, Xiaomi also released a bunch of products to celebrate its anniversary – Mi 10 Ultra, Redmi K30 Ultra, and Mi TV LUX Transparent TV. Today we’ve got the Mi 10 Ultra in for review. It’s the most powerful Xiaomi handset in the market right now and let’s see if it lives up to its ‘Ultra’ reputation.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Design
The Mi 10 Ultra we’ve got is the transparent version, which is one of the most special designs among all Mi-phones. From the transparent cover, we can see the 50W wireless charging sensor and an NFC sensor. Apart from these two main components, the internal structure is still covered by a layer of protection. You can also see the 10th-anniversary edition sticker on the back.
As compared to Mi 10 Pro, the Ultra makes up for almost all of its drawbacks. Not happy with the Mi 10 Pro’s display? Now you can have a 120Hz AMOLED display with better colors on the Ultra. The 50W charging speed not fast enough for you? Now you can have the up to 120W fast charging to give your Ultra a full charge in just 23 mins. Were you satisfied with the Pro’s camera performance? Now the Ultra’s new camera setup is even better than the Pro!
Apart from these improvements, all the good features from the Pro have been retained on the Ultra, such as the excellent dual-stereo speakers and the great performance.
However, we also found a new drawback of the Ultra. The hands-on feeling is not as comfortable as we had on the Mi 10 and Pro. The weight of 223g and the thickness of 9.5mm has made it one of those bulky flagships. Otherwise, the experience with the Mi 10 Ultra has been pretty great so far.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Display
Let’s take a closer look at its improved display. Although the Ultra’s display panel is no longer from the famous supplier, Samsung, it still got improved with 10bits color output and 120Hz refresh rate based on the same level of color accuracy.
As we observed, the new display applied the same delta arrangement as the Mi 10’s display, which is recognized as one of the best pixel arrangements for a smartphone display. You also get a high 120Hz refresh rate. This higher refresh rate not only offers system fluency and smoother gaming experience but also better viewing experience when watching 120Hz professional videos without frame loss.
For low-framerate video playback, unfortunately, we did not find any frame interpolation solution as the MEMC solution on the Ultra similar to what we saw on the OnePlus 8 Pro.
As for gaming, the boost in performance is obvious given the higher refresh rate and a higher sampling rate of the display, eventually leveraging the CPU’s surplus performance and making the most of the Snapdragon 865.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: 120W Charging & Battery Life
Now let’s check out the super-charging tech on the phone before we move on to the other areas. The included charger is the first one that can achieve over 100W charging efficiency. As we connected the charging cable, the charging animation showed a visible charging speed that we’ve not seen before. It’s pretty insane that it only took around 9 mins to get a 50% on its 4500mAh battery; and the full-charge test was finished in 24mins.
In 120Hz display mode, we watched videos for 2 hours and then spent another hour on social media apps for the battery life test. The Ultra eventually had 77% of the power left. And then 2-more-hour gaming in PUBG Mobile consumed another 35% of the power. The overall battery life is pretty decent and it should be good enough for an entire day’s usage.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Gaming & Performance
As for its performance, according to the benchmark apps, it’s not much different from what we got on the Mi 10 and Pro.
So let’s move on to the gaming test. In PUBG Mobile, although we unlocked the 120fps framerate, the Ultra ran the game at 120fps for a while and then automatically shifted down to 60fps framerate. It’s probably because the phone detected a heating problem and attempted to readjust the frame rate to a more stable state. The average framerate for PUBG eventually remained at 76.9fps, which is not an excellent result for a phone running snapdragon 865. But it should not be a problem for the Ultra to run PUBG at a stable 60fps.
And then we decided to run Nimian Legends as a stress test. Unfortunately, due to the framerate locking issue, the average framerate on the Ultra is only around 57.4fps. So, it seems that the Ultra couldn’t unleash the full potential of both, the 865 chipset and the 120Hz display, in some games.
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra’s dual stereo speakers also perform really well. You can watch the video review above to see the speakers in action.
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Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Cameras
The biggest highlight of the Ultra is the new camera setup with 120x digital zooming capacity. The top camera sensor is the telephoto camera featuring a 5x optical zoom and up to 120 times digital zooming with OIS assistance. The second one is a portrait camera supporting a 2x optical zoom. The third sensor is the main camera. And the last one is a 128-degree super-wide-angle camera, which probably is the widest angle lens that we’ve seen on a smartphone camera.
Let’s check out their samples. The main camera is one of the best cameras we’ve experienced, especially because it’s really good at reserving rich detail from bright to dark areas with super high dynamic range and correct exposure. As compared to Mi10’s 108MP sensor, the Ultra’s new 48MP sensor also presented good sharpness and excellent texture. Meanwhile, the color is also impressive as we turn on the HDR.
The Portrait camera also brings visible improvement. The bokeh effect is very smooth and natural. And the edge detection of the subject is pretty accurate when handling relatively simple background and edges. Even so, when we took photos under complicated light conditions, you might find a bit of unnatural blurring. But it’s not a serious problem.
The 128-degree wide-angle camera’s samples have excellent colors with a good dynamic range. Unlike most Android phones, the Ultra’s wide-angle camera is much more practical as it also achieved great sharpness and clarity. A small problem of the wide-angle samples is the lens distortion. We were not surprised that the edge distortion may occur to the samples as they have quite a wide angle-of-view. But I have to say that under most conditions, the wide-angle samples and main camera samples would have a similar white balance. And thanks to the f/2.2 big aperture, the wide-angle camera still performed well under low light conditions.
A minor issue with the main camera sensor is focus detection. In rare cases, the camera was not able to quickly auto-focus close subjects or sometimes it went out of focus.
Both primary and ultra-wide-angle sensors do really well at night, especially with the night mode. It not only has a brighter and clearer image than the normal mode but manages the exposure really well. The night mode reserved rich detail for both sensors to achieve a wider dynamic range. Meanwhile, the noise control is just perfect and I can easily say that the Mi 10 Ultra’s night camera performance is among the best in the market.
As for its telephoto camera, although we have to admire Xiaomi’s innovation, 120x zoom is not really that useful. At least for now, it’s just like a promotional stunt for the 10th-anniversary edition and doesn’t add much value. But regular 5x and 10x samples look as good as its predecessors.
You can check out the full resolution camera samples from the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra here.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Review: Verdict
So that’s it, there’s no doubt the Mi 10 Ultra is the best Xiaomi smartphone product of 2020. With Ultra’s release, Xiaomi is trying to deliver a message that the 10-year-old brand is capable of developing a extremely premium and advanced smartphone in this competitive market. Indeed, it feels as if the Mi 10 Ultra marks the start of a new chapter for Xiaomi (it’s also worth mentioning the Mi 10 Ultra is the top-rated camera phone on DxOMark right now!).
The Mi series is no longer about basic cost-effective flagships. And the Mi 10 Ultra is a prime example of how Xiaomi can make ultra-premium phones for the ultra-premium segment. You are really getting 120% value for your money here.
Unfortunately, the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is not slated to land in the international markets anytime soon. However, you can get it from retailers like Giztop for around $800-$900.
Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Transparent @ $859.99 – GIZTOP
UP NEXT: Xiaomi’s official Mi 10 Ultra teardown video shows off the internals
