Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite 5G review

Design and ergonomics

The Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite is a strange mixture of a Poco-looking phone on the back with Samsung looks on the front. The back is inspired by the Poco X3, while the front's centered punch-hole reminds us of Samsung's Infinity-O panel design. Sure, there are other phones with a centered punch-hole camera, but it has become something of a trademark for Samsung because it has been used in many of its handsets.

Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro and 10T Lite

Anyway, the build itself is nothing short of premium. At least to the touch. The back and front glass panels are Gorilla Glass 5 but the frame is still plastic. It's matte, not glossy, which is a good thing because the matte surface provides a slightly better grip too. On the contrary, the back is glossy, and our Pearl Gray unit seems to be a fingerprint magnet. Smudges stick out easily.

The camera module is quite unusual looking. While it does look like the one on the Poco X3, the camera arrangement is different. The four cameras are placed in a perfect square formation. The bump itself is designed in two levels - there's a circular base and an oval rectangle placed on top. With this design, the phone doesn't wobble as much when placed on a flat surface.

Moving on to the front, we find the side bezels fairly thin, especially at this price point. The bottom lip isn't the thickest one around either. The top bezel is thicker than the side ones ruining the symmetry, but since the glass panel is ever so slightly curved at the edges, it gives you the notion of much thinner bezels. What surprised us the most, however, is the size of the punch-hole. It's placed a bit far from the top bezel to our taste, but it's definitely one of the smallest we've seen on an LCD panel. It is a bit surprising considering that the sensor on the Mi 10T Lite is bigger than on the Mi 10T Pro, which has a bigger cutout on its display. As expected, there's no room for a notification LED so it's hidden under the speaker grille. Lastly, there's the so-called ultra-sound proximity sensor instead of a regular one so a more precise screen locking is to be expected.

Speaking of curvatures, the back panel and the side frame are also slightly curved, providing a more comfortable grip. There's no way around the glass's slippery nature, but for what it's worth, the phone feels relatively secure in the hand.

In any case, there are no surprises when it comes to ports and buttons. The bottom is where you will find the 3.5mm audio jack, and we are pleased to see the IR blaster still making an appearance on the top of the frame. The power button, which doubles as a fingerprint reader, is concaved into the frame. This provides some tactile feedback, so you will know that you've placed your finger in the right spot without having to look.

The positioning of the power button seems ideal, too - you won't have to perform finger gymnastics to reach it. You do have to adjust your grip to reach the volume rocker, though.

When it comes to usability, both the volume rocker and the power button provide clicky feedback, although a bit on the shallow side.

Mi 10T Lite from the sides

On the other side of the frame, Xiaomi has placed the SIM card tray, which is big enough to house just one SIM card and a microSD card or two SIMs making it a hybrid slot. The microSD card option isn't an option on the vanilla Mi 10T or the Pro version at all.

All in all, there's nothing special about the phone's design and also nothing inherently wrong. We liked the reasonably thin bezels and the compact cutout for the front-facing camera, while the camera module on the back makes up for a distinctive look. Bonus points for using Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and back and minus points for being a bit on the hefty side (215g, 9mm thick) and top-heavy.