Xiaomi 17T review: Compact, Competent but Costly

Worth When Reviewed

Unavailable within the US

Finest Costs In the present day: Xiaomi 17T

£649

Xiaomi’s newest flagship-killer smartphones have landed, and this 12 months, they’re very early. It was solely about 8 months in the past that Xiaomi launched the 15T sequence, and now the 17T and 17T Professional are right here to interchange them (with the agency skipping the 16 mannequin numbers).

Whereas the 17T Professional has soaked up many of the limelight, I truly suppose the usual 17T is the extra attention-grabbing of the pair. This extra budget-conscious performer has inherited the superb 5x telephoto from the 15T Professional as a headline function, which makes its digicam system rather more versatile.

It additionally will get an even bigger battery and a faster chip inside, however with a reasonably important value hike to £649 whereas the 17T Professional is not even in our mid-range value bracket.

Is the 17T value shopping for over the likes of a Google Pixel 10 or Samsung Galaxy S25 FE? I’ve been dwelling with it for the previous few weeks to seek out out.

Design & Construct

• Aluminium body, composite fibre again
• 200g, Gorilla Glass 7i
• IP68 rated

The Xiaomi 17T seems so much like its greater brother, the 17T Professional, and isn’t too dissimilar to final 12 months’s 15T. The massive distinction, this time, is that the 17T is far smaller than the Professional mannequin, whereas earlier generations shared related dimensions.

Which means that, if in case you have smaller fingers, you may discover the usual 17T simpler to make use of, because it’s not fairly such a pressure to succeed in the highest of the show.

Luke Baker

Aesthetically, Xiaomi has taken the same strategy to final 12 months. The entrance and rear are fully flat, the perimeters are squared off like an iPhone, and the cameras are all within the higher left-hand nook. The one notable change is that the bevelling has been faraway from the sting of the digicam deco, in favour of a tougher edge. It’s a delicate change, and at a look, you won’t even discover.

One other distinction between the 2 17T fashions is the selection of supplies. The usual 17T opts for a plastic body, whereas the Professional will get aluminium facet rails. Actually, I wouldn’t anticipate it to make a lot of a distinction to the sturdiness, however it feels barely much less premium than its Professional counterpart in addition to rivals round this value.

We don’t anticipate to see plastic on the high of the mid-range class.

Luke Baker

There are many colors to select from, they usually’re a bit extra vigorous than final 12 months’s choice. I’ve the violet mannequin in for testing, which is available in a stunning pinkish-purple hue with a metallic-looking sheen that shifts as the sunshine hits it.

There are additionally extra professional-looking black and blue choices, in addition to extra eye-catching Opal White, with pearlescent colors on the rear.

The cellphone is IP68-rated, which suggests it’s proof against mud and will face up to rain showers or a quick dunk in recent water. The display screen is roofed with Gorilla Glass 7i and has a primary plastic display screen protector utilized as commonplace. You additionally get a matte black TPU case within the field.

Display & Audio system

• 6.59-inch, 2756 x 1268, OLED, 120Hz
• 3840Hz PWM and DC dimming
• Stereo audio system

As talked about, the display screen is smaller on this mannequin, and that’s the most important distinction between this and the Professional. It’s nonetheless a large panel, however it’s simpler to handle. Assume Pixel 10 Professional, quite than Pixel 10 Professional XL.

Luke Baker

Measurement discrepancy apart, the Xiaomi 17T display screen advantages from many of the similar specs and options because the Professional mannequin. It’s 120Hz, quite than 144Hz, however in truth, apps that totally utilise 144Hz screens are few and much between. In any other case, you get the identical 3500 nits peak brightness, Dolby Imaginative and prescient and HDR10+ assist, and high-speed PWM dimming.

The display screen has pretty slim symmetrical bezels on all sides, a small cut-out for the selfie digicam, and an optical under-display fingerprint reader. For probably the most half, it’s simply as spectacular because the shows on top-tier flagship telephones, with wonderful color replica and flawless black ranges.

The one actual draw back is that it’s not an LTPO panel. So whereas the refresh price can dynamically alter when displaying static content material to preserve battery life, it solely goes all the way down to 30Hz, quite than 1Hz. What I discover to be extra essential, although, is that it will probably dim all the way in which all the way down to 1 nit, which makes a giant distinction once you verify your cellphone in the midst of the evening.

Luke Baker

The Xiaomi 17T has a speaker on the bottom, and the earpiece pulls double-duty because the second stereo speaker. They do a good job, they usually can get fairly loud, however don’t anticipate them to knock your socks off. The bass is a little bit missing, however in the event you simply need to watch a video or play some video games round the home, they get the job performed properly.

Specs & Efficiency

• MediaTek Dimensity 8500-Extremely
• 12GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage

The Xiaomi 17T is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8500-Extremely. It is a highly effective chip, however not a full-fledged flagship SoC such as you get within the Professional mannequin. It’s joined by 12GB of RAM and the selection of two storage capacities talked about above.

For most individuals’s wants, this cellphone is greater than highly effective sufficient. It feels fast and responsive once you’re doing primary duties like browsing the net, responding to messages, and checking social media. It could deal with some fairly critical multitasking, too.

Luke Baker

It’s solely once you boot up a demanding recreation that you just’ll begin to really feel the distinction. I’ve been enjoying NTE, a really demanding open-world gacha recreation that even top-tier flagships wrestle to run easily. Whereas it ran properly on the Xiaomi 17T, I wanted to stay to the “easy” preset at 30fps, and I started to note extra jitters and pop-ins when making an attempt to run it at 60fps.

After all, that’s a reasonably excessive instance. For those who favor video games like Mario Kart Tour or Asphalt Legends, they’ll run very easily on this cellphone with out you needing to nerf the graphics.

On the plus facet, the cellphone by no means turned too scorching throughout my testing. I feel the plastic body helps in that regard, because it doesn’t suck up the warmth like aluminium. This cellphone most likely gained’t fulfill hardcore avid gamers, however for informal play, it will get the job performed properly.

Xiaomi 17T benchmarks

Cameras

• 50 Mp f/1.7 important digicam
• 50 Mp f/3.0 5x telephoto
• 12 Mp, f/2.2 ultrawide
• 32 Mp, f/2.2 selfie digicam

A lot of the cameras on the Xiaomi 17T have the identical specs because the 15T, however the telephoto has been severely upgraded. It now has the identical wonderful telephoto because the 17T Professional (and 15T Professional), which is miles forward of the mediocre 2x lens on the older mannequin.

Luke Baker

Personally, I discover that the 5x focal size is a bit excessive for many conditions, however there’s no denying the efficiency. It makes for a way more versatile system, as now you can zoom means additional earlier than the picture begins to interrupt down. 10x seems virtually flawless, and also you’ll even get usable outcomes at 20x.

The 5x telephoto can be surprisingly respectable for close-up pictures. It could focus simply 30cm from the lens, and at such a excessive stage of zoom, that’s nearer than it sounds. When doing so, you get some pretty pure compression and bokeh, however you’ll need to flip off Xiaomi’s automated lens switching to profit from it.

The weak factors of this digicam system are carried over from the earlier mannequin. The primary concern is the ultrawide. It’s high quality, however it’s simply not on the identical stage as the opposite lenses. It doesn’t have autofocus, so you’ll be able to’t use it for close-up pictures, and it has a tiny sensor, which seems terrible in low mild circumstances.

In such circumstances, the primary digicam is the star of the present. It has a 1/1.55-inch sensor, which isn’t fairly as large as the primary sensor on the Professional model, however it’s sufficiently big to make a distinction in low mild. It’s by far one of the best ways to get clear, blur-free photographs after the solar units.

The selfie digicam is respectable, however it’s nothing too thrilling. It lacks autofocus, which suggests your group pictures gained’t all the time look as sharp as they may, however strong picture processing and a very good portrait mode choose up the slack.

Luke Baker

The Xiaomi 17T advantages from Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica, similar to the mainline Xiaomi flagships. This implies you get loads of the identical wonderful image types so as to add a little bit of aptitude to your photographs. In reality, the one ones I couldn’t discover had been the Optimistic and Unfavorable movie simulations.

You additionally get a recent new function that Xiaomi calls Leica Stay Second. For probably the most half, it really works precisely like Apple’s Stay Photographs function, recording a brief video each time you’re taking a photograph. The primary distinction is that it saves the Leica image fashion to the video recording, and likewise works in Portrait Mode.

One other novelty is the flexibility to avoid wasting these brief movies as a transferring collage. That is an attention-grabbing impact that I haven’t seen wherever else, however it will probably look a bit mad in the event you don’t have regular fingers or a tripod on the prepared.

Xiaomi continues to impress by providing a wealth {of professional} video choices in its extra reasonably priced telephones. Identical to the Xiaomi 15T, the 17T helps you to shoot in Go online all of the rear lenses, in addition to preview the output with quite a lot of LUTs, and even import your individual.

The primary factor that units this aside from a real flagship is the dearth of consistency between lenses. As an illustration, you’ll be able to shoot at 4K 60fps on each the primary and telephoto, whereas the ultrawide and selfie digicam can solely shoot at as much as 30fps. There’s additionally no 4K 120fps possibility; you’ll must shell out for the Professional if you need that.

Battery Life & Charging

• 6500mAh battery
• 67W wired charging
• No wi-fi charging

The Xiaomi 17T has a 6500mAh battery, a whopping 1000mAh enhance over final 12 months’s mannequin. In our standard PCMark battery drain check, the 17T survived for greater than an additional hour – a good 15 hours and half-hour. The battery life was already respectable, so any enchancment is a bonus.

Luke Baker

With my typical use, I discovered the battery life to be excellent, however maybe not as exceptional as I used to be anticipating. I may simply recover from a day’s use from it, and sometimes reached lunchtime on the second day earlier than reaching for the charger.

That’s very straightforward to stay with, however I discovered that I may go for longer between expenses with the Honor 600 Professional, which has a barely smaller battery. I feel that’s all all the way down to software program optimisation, and it may very properly enhance over time.

Nonetheless, it’s very straightforward to stay with, and the speedy charging makes it much more nice. It helps as much as 67W speeds, and my evaluation pattern got here with the European charger included within the field. It could hit 47% in half-hour, which is nice for a battery this massive.

The usual 17T omits wi-fi charging assist like many mid-range telephones, so that you’ll want to purchase the 17T Professional to get this or the Galaxy S25 FE. Alternatively, the less expensive Google Pixel 10 has it in-built, with Pixelsnap (and MagSafe suitable) magnetic connection in addition.

Software program & Apps

• HyperOS 3, based mostly on Android 16
• Xiaomi Hyper AI
• 5 years of Android upgrades, 7 years of safety

The Xiaomi 17T runs HyperOS 3, Xiaomi’s customized software program based mostly on Android 16. There aren’t too many adjustments with this model, so in the event you’ve used a current Xiaomi or Poco gadget, you’ll have a good suggestion of what to anticipate.

General, it’s a well-designed and feature-packed working system, however it strays fairly removed from the standard Android expertise. Xiaomi clearly takes some inspiration from Apple, and that’s evident within the lock display screen styling choices, the design of the short settings shade, and with Hyper Island, which is basically a carbon copy of Dynamic Island.

Personally, I don’t suppose that’s a nasty factor. iOS is fashionable for a cause, and whereas a few of these selections aren’t probably the most distinctive, they perform properly and look the half. No complaints from me.

After all, in 2026, there are many AI options to play with. You get all the standard options like AI-assisted transcription, summarisation, and translation. Plus a great deal of neat photograph enhancing instruments, like the flexibility to zoom out and develop the picture with generative AI, swap the sky to alter the temper, or lower out a topic and add portrait blur.

A number of the extra novel additions embody AI Dynamic Wallpapers, which may flip any picture into a brief video on your wallpaper, and AI Subtitles, which may transcribe and translate content material coming out of your cellphone audio system no matter what app you’re utilizing. That one’s fairly useful.

There’s a little bit of bloatware to wash up once you first begin utilizing the cellphone, however it’s nothing too annoying, and at this value level, it’s par for the course. I used to be capable of get all of it uninstalled inside a matter of minutes.

With regards to long-term assist, Xiaomi guarantees 5 years of main Android OS upgrades and seven years of safety patches. So whereas it’s not a class-leading providing, the cellphone will nonetheless be operating the newest software program till not less than 2031.

Worth & Availability

The Xiaomi 17T is on the market in two configurations, each coming with 12GB of RAM. The 256GB will value you £649 within the UK, and the 512GB mannequin is £699. It’s broadly out there all through Europe and in lots of different areas the world over, however it’s not coming to the US.

The worth has elevated by roughly £100 in comparison with final 12 months, now matching the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE (with solely 128GB storage) and it’s secure to say we are able to thank the present RAM scarcity for that. Even nonetheless, it stays a good worth.

The specs completely embarrass the iPhone 17e, for instance, regardless of the 17T solely costing barely extra. I’d fortunately choose this over the Pixel 10, too.

As standard, there are some strong gives for early chook consumers. The Xiaomi official retailer will throw within the Redmi Pad 2 Professional fully free till the tip of June, and there are a couple of coupons that may deliver the asking value down a little bit. You can too purchase it from the likes of Amazon in the event you favor.

Try our greatest mid-range telephones information for extra choices.

£649

Must you purchase the Xiaomi 17T?

The Xiaomi 17T is a wonderful higher mid-range cellphone with cameras that punch above their weight. Particularly in the event you’re into making movies, I don’t suppose you’re more likely to discover a better-equipped cellphone on this value bracket.

The remainder of the cellphone is strong, too. It seems premium, the software program is slick and feature-filled, the battery life is basically good, and it expenses shortly. I wouldn’t suggest this cellphone to critical avid gamers, however for most individuals, there’s greater than sufficient energy on faucet.

What makes issues a little bit trickier is the pricing, and the stiffest competitors comes from Xiaomi itself. You may at the moment nonetheless purchase the Xiaomi 15T Professional model new on the UK web site, and it prices precisely the identical because the 17T.

Choosing the older Professional provides you with a greater important digicam, wi-fi charging, an aluminium body, and a sooner processor. Plus, you continue to get that wonderful 5x telephoto. The draw back is that the battery is smaller and the cellphone is greater – however that might be a worthy trade-off. The 15T Professional gained’t stick round perpetually, although.

And on the proper value, the Xiaomi 17T is a superb selection in the event you’re contemplating a substitute for the Samsungs and Googles.

Specs

• Hyper OS 3, based mostly on Android 16
• 6.59-inch, 2756 x 1268, OLED, 120Hz
• Optical in-display fingerprint sensor
• MediaTek 8500-Extremely
• 12GB RAM
• 256/512GB storage
• Digital camera:
• 50Mp important sensor
• 12Mp ultrawide
• 50Mp 5x telephoto
• 32Mp selfie digicam
• As much as 4K @ 60fps rear video
• Stereo audio system
• Twin-SIM + eSIM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/6e
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 6500mAh battery
• 67W wired charging
• No wi-fi charging
• 157.6 x 75.2 x 8.2mm
• IP68 licensed
• 200g
• Colors: Violet, Blue, Opal White, Black