Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro long-term review

Design, handling

The back of the Mi 10 Pro was influenced a lot by the Mi Note 10, the company's first smartphone to feature a 108 MP main camera sensor. The camera island arrangement is pretty much identical, but the rear's finish does differ.

It's a matte-like texture on our "Solstice Grey" review unit, which in all fairness looks blueish most of the time, despite what the name would have you believe. It's a very subdued hue, though, and, dare we say it - much more professional-looking than a lot of the 'rainbow back' smartphones out there that play a lot with angles of light hitting.

Being matte-ish means you can barely ever see any fingerprints on it, and so far with other phones this has meant that they were somehow even more slippery than if they had employed a glossy finish. However, we feel like Xiaomi has been able to strike a great balance here - no visible fingerprints, but also - this phone feels less slippery than most, even if its back is still glass.

That greatly aids in handling. In this reviewer's subjective opinion, the Mi 10 Pro is one of the easiest to handle glass flagships in recent memory - the constant anxiety of perhaps dropping it when operating without a case was subdued by a lot. Of course, since glass is glass and glass breaks, you may want to slap a case on it just in... case (apologies for the easy pun).

The two separate camera bumps are weird, though, and not a design we see very often. Overall while we feel like this is far from the ugliest camera island around, it's also definitely far from being the prettiest. It's just not a design that stands out, either way.

That said, when using the phone on a day to day basis (and we say this being right-handed, things may be different if you're a leftie), it's almost impossible not to touch the lowermost camera's glass and still have something that feels like a decent grip. That's the ultrawide snapper, by the way, and if you use it a lot, you may have to get used to cleaning it before you take a photo, just because your fingers might have deposited some grease onto it.

This could be less of an issue if you have even a thin case on, but we haven't tried that, to be honest, because, as we mentioned above, the feel in the hand was secure even without one. Speaking of the camera humps, they will make the phone rock on a table if you're using it while it's laying down, but less so than others just because of how the last sensor is so close to the middle of the device's back.

Both the front and rear glass curve into the aluminum frame, and they do it symmetrically, which is a rare sight to behold in this day and age. The frame itself is tiny but has a consistent size, it doesn't expand to accommodate the buttons like we've seen in other models this year. The buttons themselves are great, nothing to report here.

While it is undoubtedly a big phone, we found that handling the Mi 10 Pro in day to day activities was a breeze, but the usual caveat applies here - we have big hands. If you don't, this may not apply to your experience, of course.

Overall, the design of the phone is quite conservative for this day and age, but that comes with a sort of understated elegance that's hard to convey through pictures. This is one phone that doesn't scream "notice me!" through its design, which might make it seem bland at first. Then again, most of the 'screamers' seem like they have something to compensate for - otherwise, why be so loud, right? We would have appreciated some more interesting color choices, though, as both the "grey" one we have here as well as the white one just seem... safe, and nothing else.