Chinese gadget maker Xiaomi has celebrated its 10th anniversary as a company with the launch of the Mi 10 Ultra flagship phone – a supercharged handset that follows on from the two Mi 10 smartphones we saw earlier in the year.
The specs list attached to the Mi 10 Ultra is an impressive one. The phone runs on the top-tier Snapdragon 865 chipset from Qualcomm, comes with up to 16 GB of RAM packed inside, and has internal storage options as high as 512 GB.
It's hard not to be impressed by the phone's looks either, led by a huge 6.67-inch OLED display that features a super-smooth 120-Hz refresh rate. Your choice of colors is black, silver and a transparent edition that has a diagram of the phone's internals etched on the back.
The quad-lens rear camera provides another headline feature, with 120x digital zoom. While digital zoom is a poor substitute for true optical zoom (which goes up to 5x on the Mi 10 Ultra), if Xiaomi gets the software processing right then it can be useful. The four lenses are 48 MP (wide) + 48 MP (periscope telephoto) + 12 MP (telephoto) + 20 MP (ultrawide), and there's a 20-MP selfie camera on the front in a punch hole notch.
As for charging speeds, the 120x digital zoom is matched by 120-W fast charging – Xiaomi says that's able to get the 4,500-mAh battery from empty to full in just 23 minutes. Wireless charging is also supported. From what we can tell the phone isn't rated as being waterproof or dustproof however.
It's those three 120s that set the Mi 10 Ultra apart from the standard Mi 10 and the Mi 10 Pro – 120-W fast charging, a 120-Hz refresh rate for the screen, and 120x digital zoom. The camera is more capable than the ones on the earlier models too, Xiaomi says, and 5G is once again on board.
As is common these days, the phone has been launched in China first, with no word yet on an international release. It's unlikely that it will ever go on sale directly in the US, as Xiaomi has yet to launch its handsets there, but it should make its way to Europe and other markets eventually.
The phone goes on sale on August 16 in China for RMB 5,299. While a direct currency conversion won't be used to price the handset in other markets, that works out at roughly US$765, €650 and £585 at current rates.
Source: Xiaomi