The Xiaomi Mi 10 series was the pioneering work of Xiaomi’s impact on the high-end last year, and its balanced performance without shortcomings has also won consumers’ approval. As a result, in 2021, the preservation rate of second-hand mobile phones of Xiaomi Mi 10 is still high. Therefore, Xiaomi decided to launch a small upgraded sub-flagship to continue the Xiaomi Mi 10 series’s vitality.
As we all know, Qualcomm adopted a dual flagship chip market strategy in 2021: Snapdragon 888 pursues extreme performance, and Snapdragon 870 pursues a balance between performance and power consumption. Therefore, manufacturers who have recently released new phones often also adopt a major and sub-flagship product line. Xiaomi first released the new flagship Xiaomi 11 equipped with Snapdragon 888 earlier, and on March 10, Xiaomi released the sub-flagship Xiaomi Mi 10S equipped with Snapdragon 870.
So can this Xiaomi Mi 10S inherit the positioning of Xiaomi Mi 10’s bucket flagship? IGeekphone has already got the blue version; let us explore the answer.
Design & Appearance
The packaging box of Mi 10S is similar to Mi 11, adopting a thin and environmentally friendly design and no longer comes with a charger and charging cable. The package only includes a mobile phone case, a card pin and a 3.5mm conversion cable. Not surprisingly, it should be the same as Xiaomi 11, using the package version with a 33W charging package, and the environmental version is only a bare-metal solution.
The Mi 10S body weighs 208g and has a certain feel of falling. The measurements are 162.58mm x 74.8mm x 8.96mm; these parameters are the same as the Xiaomi Mi 10. On the front is a 6.67-inch digging curved screen, the same as the Xiaomi Mi 10.
The back of Mi 10S is very different from Mi 10, more like Mi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition, which Xiaomi calls the “Little Extreme” style. The back’s material is glass, which is not easy to be contaminated with fingerprints after frosting. The blue version obtained by IGeekphone has some orange reflections when viewed diagonally, and the light and shadow flow, and the look is fresh.
The four-camera module’s hardware configuration in the upper left corner is a 2 Megapixel depth-of-field lens + 100 Megapixel main camera + 2 Megapixel independent macro lens + 13MP ultra-wide-angle lenses. It is the same as Mi 10, but the design is the same as Mi 10 Extreme. The commemorative edition is similar. The difference is that the upper periscope lens is replaced with a depth-of-field lens. Simultaneously, the size of the entire four-camera module is reduced, which solves the problem that the lens is easy to touch when holding the Mi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition.
Performance
IGeekphone inquired that the supplier of this screen is Huaxing Optoelectronics, and it can be basically confirmed that it is the same domestic screen as the Xiaomi Mi 10. The highest peak brightness of 1120 nits can be achieved. With the front and rear dual photosensitive units, the automatic switching of brightness is also quite sensitive. Functionally, it supports screen fingerprints, DC dimming, DCI-P3 colour gamut display, and professional factory screen colour calibration. The average Delta E of the screen is only about 0.41, sufficient for people with high requirements for screen color accuracy.
In MIUI’s color management, users are allowed to customize the RGB color space, HVS color space, contrast, Gamma value and other options, and can call up the color style that suits their own eyes. However, since the Mi 10S has already been color-calibrated when it leaves the factory, it is generally not recommended to change these advanced settings. In general, this screen completely inherits the excellent look and feel of the Mi 10 series, which is in line with the next flagship’s positioning.
Through microscope observation, we found that the pixels of this screen of Mi 10S adopts a Pearl arrangement, which is not the same as the diamond arrangement of the Samsung screen, but it is roughly the same. The only difference is that the red and blue pixels are in a four-pointed star with fineness. It is also similar to the arrangement of diamonds. In general, this is a relatively good domestic screen.
In addition to the common Type-C interface, microphone, and infrared emission hole, the top and bottom of the Xiaomi Mi 10S also have the signature symmetrical and independent dual speakers of the Xiaomi Mi 10 series. The Mi 10 series was once well-received for this speaker system and was called a “music phone”. The Mi 10S was upgraded again after the Yangtze River’s back wave and the front wave. It is equipped with the industry’s first 0.7mm amplitude sound unit and is powered by Harbin. Mancarton tuned, and the measured external sound quality was quite excellent and won the DXO sound quality ranking championship with a score of 80 points.
Hardware & Performance
As the second flagship of Xiaomi’s family, Mi 10S also inherits the style of Mi 10 in the stacking material. Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor, full LPDDR5 memory, UFS3.0 flash memory, dual-mode 5G+Wi-Fi 6, equipped with 4780mAh battery and 33W wired flash charging, 30W wireless flash charging and 10W wireless reverse charging. Multifunctional NFC, horizontal linear motor, P2i grade waterproof, infrared remote control and other functions are also available. In general, except that the processor is upgraded to Snapdragon 870 and the charging power is increased by 3W, it is the same as Xiaomi 10.
So how does this Snapdragon 870 perform on Xiaomi 10S? Let’s proceed to the theoretical test and game test next.
In the Antutu running score, which represents the overall performance, Xiaomi Mi 10S scored 653410. In GeekBench4, which represents CPU performance, Xiaomi Mi 10S scored 4667 points for single-core and 13,504 points for multi-core. From the theoretical performance perspective, the Snapdragon 870 on Xiaomi 10S is 15%-20% stronger than the Snapdragon 865 on Xiaomi 10, and the improvement is quite obvious. Interestingly, although there is no change in flash memory, it is still UFS3.0, but Xiaomi 10S has a considerable improvement in random read and write performance.
Has the actual game performance of Mi 10S improved? Mi 10S also supports Game Turbo on hardware, ensuring that users can play with the best performance and network environment when running games. You can check the game performance or open various gadgets by sliding the sidebar in the upper left corner of the screen to call up the quick game toolbar. The following test data are all measured in the game performance enhancement mode.
Although Mi 10S is a new mobile phone, “Honor of Kings” has been adapted to the ultra-clear and extreme picture quality 90 frame mode, and the 30-minute game is also maintained at 90 frames. The game experience is excellent, with an average frame rate of 87.1 frame.
In “Peace Elite”, you can turn on the smooth 90 frame mode or the HDR high-definition limit frame rate. The frame rate in the measured game is also very smooth, with an average frame rate of 88.6 frames in 30 minutes. At this time, you can feel the warmth of the back cover while playing. The temperature is about 37.2°C.
In the benchmarking software “Yuan Shen”, the pressure on the game is relatively high. The highest image quality can only be maintained at 50 to 55 frames, the 30-minute average frame rate is 54.2 frames, and the back cover is already a bit hot. 40.5°C. If you want to play the original God at 60 frames, it is recommended to lower the special effects level except for the rendering accuracy.
After the actual measurement of these three games, we found that the Snapdragon 870 does have some improvement over the 865. As Qualcomm’s current sub-flagship chip second only to Snapdragon 888, smoothly playing most games is no longer a problem.
Battery
Thanks to the 4780mAh large battery, after one and a half hours of intensive play, the remaining power is still about 60%. After playing, you can quickly replenish it with 33W charging. Although the peak power of 33W is not high in 2021, Xiaomi’s charging solution can maintain a high power state for a long time. It can be fully charged in about 80 minutes. %.
In addition, Mi 10S also supports 30W wireless charging and 10W wireless reverse charging. Today, when wireless charging is becoming more and more popular, such a rich charging configuration can let us say goodbye to battery life anxiety.
Cameras
From the perspective of hardware parameters, the four-camera solution of Mi 10S is the same as Mi 10, both of which are 100 Megapixel main camera + 13 Megapixel ultra-wide-angle + 2 million pixel depth of field lens + 2 Megapixel macro lens.
In terms of software optimization, this time, it focused on supporting three major features. One is the super night scene. When shooting low-light images, Xiaomi Mi 10 will obtain more dark details based on the RAW algorithm. The second is AI scene recognition. The new content perception deep neural network will analyze the brightness, colour, and even the composition of the picture in real-time, and then enhance it with artificial intelligence algorithms to make the photos more “textured”; the third is that Xiaomi Mi 10 supports the HEIF camera format. Because of the introduction of a 100 million pixel lens, the photos taken are huge. Turning on the HEIF switch can save 50% of the photo volume and store more photos while ensuring image quality.
So what is the real shot effect of Xiaomi 10S? IGeekphone has taken some proofs for everyone; let’s take a look.
First of all, under the condition of sufficient light during the day, this 100-megapixel main camera performs very well in colour and restores the realness. It is not overly rich due to AI intervention, and the purity of the sky is also good.
However, in the high light ratio environment, the latitude performance of this lens is still not satisfactory, and it is prone to problems of bright overexposure and dark over darkness. Due to the lack of a telephoto lens, the image quality is poor after 5x digital zoom, and there will be some smearing after zooming in.
If we want to take pictures of the distant scenery, we can adopt a method of 100 million pixels + post-cropping. After opening the 100-megapixel mode, thanks to a large amount of detail brought by the 100-megapixel, the picture is still sharp after zooming in; even the distant windows are clearly distinguishable.
Another 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens has good imaging quality, and the details and colours of the film are not much different from the main camera. The large field of view of 123° is enough to capture more information when shooting.
In the night environment, the Xiaomi Mi 10S can turn on the night scene mode in the “More” interface. At this time, the multi-frame synthesis technology will be activated to increase the brightness, reduce the noise, and shoot more beautiful sunset clouds. For the suppression of night highlights, Xiaomi Mi 10S is also doing a good job, and the two highlight light sources in the lower-left corner of the proof are well controlled.
After you manually pull down to open the macro mode on the camera interface, you can call this 2 Megapixel macro lens. This lens’s image quality is acceptable and can complement our shooting scenes, especially suitable for shooting text content at close range.
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Verdict
Mi 10S is a very accurate sub-flagship. It upgrades the SoC, the core accessory that users are most concerned about in this price range, based on the Mi 10 standard version, while also reducing the price. This wave of increased volume and price cuts helped Xiaomi Mi 10 get stuck at the sub-flagship price and kept the bucket machine’s status.
It is a pity that although its imaging system adopts a “little supreme” design similar to the Xiaomi Mi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition, the hardware quality is still at the level of last year’s Xiaomi Mi 10 Standard Edition, which is a bit regrettable.
In general, if you are more concerned about performance and battery life, then Mi 10S will be a pretty good choice. It is precise because of the balanced performance of the Mi 10 series that its successor Mi 10S can still shine in 2021 today.