Last year marked the 10th anniversary of Xiaomi. Given the significance of the year, we saw multiple best-sellers in the same time period. Phones like the Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, and Mi 10 Ultra — all got excellent reception. But you’d be hard-pressed to imagine that the Mi 10 series is still being updated even today.

So let’s take a look at what makes this new phone, the Mi 10S, which was released in 2021, such a bestseller.

Xiaomi Mi 10S Review: Box Contents

The Mi 10S box continues the simple design of the Xiaomi 11 which means there’s no charger or charging cable. In its place is a free, separately packaged 33W charger. It seems that all future Xiaomi phones, well at least the flagship models, will be packaged separately from the charger. 

Xiaomi Mi 10S Review: Design

The moment you take out the phone, you’ll find out that the Mi 10S looks like a mix between the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Ultra. The design on the back is almost identical to the Mi 10 Ultra, especially with its glossy metal ring design for the lens. But because the lens module is not as big as the Ultra, it actually looks better. The Mi 10S comes in black, white, and blue colors. Only the blue variant comes in a frosted finish.

I personally recommend the white colour. The white color of the Mi 10S has a very nice texture this time. The white glass back has been processed to look like ceramic. Paired with the metallic frame in its original color, it looks and feels much more premium than the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Ultra. It has a classic and pure feel.

Further, the white color model does not get fingerprint stains easily. The only downside to this color might be that it’s harder to buy.

While the back is very similar to the Mi 10 Ultra, the front is arguably identical to the Mi 10’s 6.67-inch full HD+ 90Hz curved display. It also features a 180Hz touch sampling rate and Corning’s 5th generation Gorilla Glass protection. So, no real change from the screen on the Mi 10. While it’s true that in 2021 it’s a bit behind in terms of parameters on paper and doesn’t even have a 120Hz refresh rate, but it’s not a bad screen. At least it’s flexible and has much better transparency than some of the flat screens in the market. And 90Hz also helps it to be very power efficient. All in all, it’s a pretty decent screen.

Xiaomi Mi 10S Review: Benchmark & Gaming

The SOC of the Mi 10S has been given the usual upgrade with the Snapdragon 870, a chip we’re all familiar with. In Antutu it scores 648445, in 3DMark 4206, in GeekBench 5 single-core test around 1021, and in multi-core test 3402. The results are close to other Snapdragon 870 powered phones. 

One area where the Mi 10S surprised us the most was Gaming. PUGB gameplay was very smooth with a consistent frame rate of around 89 fps. The frame rate graph was like a straight line, which was very impressive. Clearly, such a high frame rate isn’t an issue for the Snapdragon 870. Then we played Genshin Impact at the highest quality setting. The magic happens once again, with an average frame rate of 56 fps, which is higher than many Snapdragon 888 phones. We got 30 minutes of gameplay without a downgrade in the frame rate. 

When playing Brightridge, we again got an average of 49 fps. Although the average frame rate is slightly lower than what we got on Snapdragon 888 phones, it is still a very good gaming experience. The main reason for this is that the temperature did not exceed 50°C during gameplay, and was at 48-49°C most of the time. And thanks to the design of the motherboard, the area that heats up the most is below the lens. You won’t touch the heated area with your hands while playing games. This is a very good point for a comfortable gaming experience.

Xiaomi Mi 10S Review: Camera Performance

Although the camera module is shaped like the Mi 10 Ultra, it still uses the same camera sensor as the Mi 10. The main camera is a 108mp HMX sensor. The ultra-wide camera is 13MP. There is also a depth of field sensor and a macro lens. Honestly, I was curious if Mi 11’s Camera algorithm would be put into the Mi 10S — after all, they share the same main camera.

Main Camera

The daytime samples of the main camera were almost identical between the two. Perhaps a little more colorful on the Mi 10S, but not much different. 

We also noticed that Mi 11 was more likely to turn on the auto HDR mode than the Mi 10S. But the results from the Mi 10S are exactly the same as the Mi 11 when you turn it on manually. The color style at night is the same as during the day. It’s almost the same as the Mi 11, except that the highlights are not as well suppressed in the auto mode. With night mode on, the highlights are also suppressed and the difference with the Mi 11 is even smaller.

Ultra Wide Angle Camera

The ultra-wide-angle lens is the same as the main camera in daylight. You can look at the photos to get an idea of the quality.

At night, the Mi 10S’s ultra-wide camera doesn’t win in any way over the Mi 11 because it doesn’t have an auto mode that incorporates the Night mode algorithm. But with night mode manually turned on, the Mi 10S is on par with the Mi 11 again. So we know that the algorithm of the Mi 10S is a neutered version of the Mi 11. But considering the price is different, we can understand that. It’s still a very good phone for photos at this price point.

Macro Camera

Here are a few more macro shots. They are not as good as the Mi 11’s, but it does produce some good quality macro shots.

The Mi 11’s Harman Kardon tuning has been put into the Mi 10S. The Mi 10’s symmetrical speakers were already very impressive, but this time they’ve gone straight to the top of the DXO audio. Without further ado, hear it for yourself (please check the review video at the end).

Xiaomi Mi 10S Review: Battery Life & Charging

As we said earlier, the 90 Hz screen was indeed very power efficient. These were our findings from our battery test — half an hour of Tiktok consumed around 6%, another half an hour of 1080p video consumed 4%. A game of PUBG used up 9%. Half an hour of Genshin Impact used up 17% of the battery while twenty minutes of Brightridge used up 15%. These results make it one of the best-performing phones we’ve tested recently. Charging speed has also been increased from 30w on the Mi 10 to 33w. The phone charged to 20% in 10 minutes, 57% in half an hour, and 56 minutes to 100%. This is at par with the K40 and more than enough for everyday use.

After this review, you might have an idea where the Mi 10S is placed in the Xiaomi flagship lineup. Instead of calling it the Mi 10 Ultra’s downgraded version, we prefer to call it an upgraded version of the Mi 10. Its biggest highlight is perhaps the symmetrical dual speakers. But I think the best part about the phone is that it still has a great cooling system at this price. It allows the Mi 10S to unleash its performance without overheating. It’s definitely one of the “Coolest” non-Gaming phones we’ve tested this year. If you like to play games and don’t want to buy a gaming phone, then this is the one to go for. 

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