Xiaomi MI 10 Ultra: Smartphone with 120x Ultra-Zoom Camera

Xiaomi MI 10 Ultra Price in Nepal; A rumour about Xiaomi’s Mi 10 Ultra have swirled this week, and the company has now officially announced the product. Xiaomi revealed the main features of its long-awaited phone in a press release and a series of tweets. “Everything you can imagine,  Mi 10 Ultra has it,” the company said. To mark the occasion “10th anniversary“, the company launched a new high-end phone, the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra.

The Ultra shares some specs with its sister model, the Mi 10 Pro, which launched in February, but at least in terms of specs, it dramatically improves camera play. Both devices are equipped with a quad camera, which includes short and long telephoto lenses, as well as an ultra-wide camera. However, the Mi 10 Ultra offers improvements in several key areas.

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Overview

Design

The Mi 10 Ultra is an attractive 2020 Android phone, but quite conventional. On the front, there is a pinhole camera built into the upper left corner of a full screen. The left and right edges of the screen curve over and around the sides, which looks good even when it’s not always comfortable for users and can cause the screen to accidentally touch. The back has to do with the camera module. On the left side, there are four sensors and a black coated flash module arranged in a vertical line. The top camera, which has been magnified 120x, also has a silver border for better emphasis.

For the colours, you can choose between obsidian black and mercury silver. There is also a transparent edit which is a bit of a misleading name. Rather than letting you see the components under the back of the phone, Xiaomi has traced them to the back to give the internals like NFC and wireless charging coils a more abstract look.

Display

With a 6.67-inch curved AMOLED panel, the Mi 10 Ultra has nearly identical specs to the Mi 10 Pro and is slightly smaller than competing 6.8-6.9-inch displays. The difference is that it achieves a 120Hz refresh rate compared to the Pro’s 90Hz, a slight increase in vertical resolution and HDR10 + and 10-bit colours for more vivid playback of videos and the like.

The 1080 x 2400 resolution means that the Mi 10 Ultra is still an FHD + phone rather than the S20 series, Note 20 Ultra and OnePlus 8 Pro 4K displays. However, since 4K plus 120Hz equates to short battery life, users can understand that Xiaomi is not ready to make full use of the screen to keep the phone running for longer between visits via the charging cable.

Xiaomi MI 10 Ultra Specification

• Display: 6.67-inch FHD+ OLED with 120Hz refresh rate
• Rear cameras: 48MP main, 20MP ultra-wide, 48MP 5x telephoto, 12MP 2x portrait telephoto
• Front camera: 20MP
• Chipset: Snapdragon 865
• RAM: 8GB/12GB/16GB
• Storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB
• Battery: 4,500 mAh
• Charging: 120W wired, 50W wireless, 10W reverse wireless
• Size: 6.39 x 2.95 x 0.37 inches (162.38 x 75.04 x 9.45mm)
• Weight: 7.8 ounces (222g)
• Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Price in Nepal: Rs. 1,04,132(8/128GB), Rs. 1,10,029(8/256GB), Rs. 1,17,890(12/256GB), Rs. 1,37,545(16/512GB)

Camera

If you lower the specifications of the camera, it seems that the Mi 10 Ultra has an older version. A 48-megapixel sensor is used in the main camera instead of the 108-megapixel sensor in the Mi 10 Pro. While this is a drawback on paper for the lower-spec model, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Xiaomi claims that “binning technology” includes “four-in-one superpixels” camera. Also, huge 108-megapixel cameras have proven difficult for phones in the past, so switching to 48-megapixel cameras is probably more stable.

The 20MP ultra-wide-angle and 12MP 2x zoom portrait cameras on the Mi 10 Ultra are the same as those on the Mi 10 Pro. The big difference is the new 48MP 5x zoom telephoto lens, which apparently can reach a maximum magnification of 120x. That’s 20% more than the 100x spatial zoom on the Galaxy S20 Ultra, the former champion of smartphone zoom technology.

To convince potential customers of the quality of the sensors, Xiaomi gave the cell phone camera reviewer DXOMark a phone for evaluation, in which it scored 130 points on the graph and beat the Huawei P40 Pro. DXOMark still has to review the Note 20 Ultra, which we also look forward to. Still, it’s an impressive feat.

CPU & Performance

The Mi 10 Ultra uses the same chipset Snapdragon 865 as the rest of the Mi 10 series. Xiaomi has decided not to use the Snapdragon 865 Plus, which can cost performance compared to the new Android flagships. That said, the 865 chip means that 5G below 6GHz is a given, and mmWave 5G is an option too. 

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra works with MIUI based on Android 10 and offers 128 GB of built-in memory. The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra measures 162.38 x 75.04 x 9.45 mm (height x width x thickness) and weighs 221.80 grams. It was presented in Obsidian Black, Mercury Silver and Transparent Edition colours. This is not one of our favourite Android skins as it adds a lot to the stock experience, but is still eye-catching, with an emphasis on modifying the device, running only the most important applications.

There are four options for RAM and storage, the smallest is 8GB / 128GB, and the largest is 16GB / 512GB. Hope this means a lot of speed and room for any task to use the phone.

Battery

The battery capacity of the Mi 10 Ultra is 4,500 mAh. It looks like it is the same cell as the Mi 10 Pro, but it is not. The Mi 10 Ultra actually contains two cells with the same combined capacity. The reason is that the phone can support the new 120W Mi turbocharging standard, which Xiaomi claims will fill the phone to the brim in 23 minutes. It is very fast compared to most other fast chargers. Samsung’s 25W bricks and OnePlus’ 30W chargers are respectable, but they have nothing to do with it.

Head rotation speeds don’t stop there. The Mi 10 Ultra also has a 50W wireless charging that can be charged to 100% in 40 minutes. The best wireless charging technology we’ve tested is OnePlus’ 30W wireless charging on the OnePlus 8 Pro, but Xiaomi has also broken records here.

Lastly, there is a 10W reverse wireless charging. This allows you to activate any compatible wireless earbuds, smartwatches, or other wireless charging accessories from the Mi 10 Ultra’s battery, which might be required proves to be a lifesaver in an emergency.

Connectivity

The connectivity options of the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra include Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac / Ja, GPS, Bluetooth v5.10, NFC, infrared and USB Type C. The sensors of the phone include an accelerometer, ambient light, compass/magnetometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor and in-display fingerprint sensor. The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra supports face unlock.

You can’t help but respect Xiaomi for the technology it has put into the Mi 10 Ultra. Charging technology will define the class as long as it performs as promised, and the camera setup has great potential to beat the competition.

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Price in Nepal & Availability

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is now available in China with the starting price for the base 8/128GB variant is kept ¥5,299 which roughly around 1 lakhs here in Nepal. Adding those taxes and all, Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra price in Nepal will be around Rs. 1,04,132 for the base variant. But there is no official confirmation for the launch of this device in Nepal.