Just three months after introducing the Xiaomi 17 series of phones, Xiaomi is back with the Xiaomi 17T Pro. The company has had a somewhat odd release schedule for its smartphones lately, often cramming launches into short periods of time, but that won't matter much to the average consumer, who'll just want to know which of the new Xiaomi phones is the best buy right now.
Having spent a few days with the Xiaomi 17T Pro, I can say that it's a very strong contender. It doesn't have the most powerful chip or cameras; those honors belong to the over-the-top Xiaomi 17 Ultra, and the "regular" Xiaomi 17 which we saw during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March this year.
The first time a Xiaomi T-series phone has gotten a 5x telephoto lens. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
But the Xiaomi 17T Pro wins on battery life. With a humongous, 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, it stands on top of Xiaomi's smartphone lineup, and a lot of potential buyers will take notice. Xiaomi says the battery is good for 1.88 days of typical use; that translates into roughly 45 hours.
The Xiaomi 17T Pro is powered by the Mediatek Dimensity 9500 chip, and comes with 12GB of RAM and 256/512/1,024GB of storage. As is typical of new phones these days, it's blazing fast and it's very hard to notice any difference in everyday performance compared to, say, the Xiaomi 17 which runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.
The camera system, while a notch less powerful than the one in the Xiaomi 17, is still pretty impressive. The Leica-branded rear camera is a 50/50/12-megapixel system with 5x optical zoom, while the front camera is a respectable 32-megapixel shooter.
The Xiaomi 17T Pro is bigger than the Xiaomi 17, with a 6.83-inch AMOLED display that boasts a 144Hz refresh rate and 3,500 peak brightness. It looks great, and it's readable even in direct sunlight.
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The 144Hz AMOLED display is very readable, even in direct sunlight. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
About that battery. Not only is the capacity large, but it also charges fast, with 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. I was able to get it from zero to 80 percent in about 20 minutes on a fast charger. And then, it just went on. I played some PUBG Mobile, went out and took photos, tried a bunch of apps, and I simply couldn't get the battery to deplete. After two days of testing I still had 30 percent battery life left.
Night-time images are very bright, but it's best if you keep it to the main camera on 1x magnification. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
The camera is pretty great. Xiaomi has been steadily improving the cameras on its phones, and it shows. Specifically, this is the first time Xiaomi has given a T-series phone a 5x telephoto camera (it goes to 10x optical-grade zoom).
When there's a lot of bright lights in the darkness, a lot of weird artifacts might show in the picture, especially if you're zooming in. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
I was able to capture some solid photos with it, and overall the camera quality was similar to the one in the Xiaomi 17. It did have a lot of trouble with bright lights in the darkness, which caused a ton of weird artifacts to show up in the photos.
Xiaomi's Super Macro mode lets you take very detailed macro photos from a distance. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
For some reason, Xiaomi insists on pre-loading a bunch of bloatware on its phones. I don't mind the company's HyperOS, which is a blatant copy of Apple's iOS, but I'd like to choose the apps on my phone myself, thank you.
The sweet spot in Xiaomi's 17T Pro lineup. Credit: Stan Schroeder / Mashable
The Xiaomi 17T Pro is available in three colors: Deep Blue, Deep Violet, and Black. Xiaomi sent me the Deep Blue variant, and it's a very nice shade of blue that made me reluctant to use the somewhat bland grey case that was included with the phone.
Besides the 17T Pro, Xiaomi also launched the Xiaomi 17T, which has a smaller, 6.59-inch display, a slightly smaller, 6,500mAh battery, a MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Ultra chip, up to 512GB of storage, and a slightly less powerful main camera.
As for pricing, the Xiaomi 17T Pro starts at €899, while the Xiaomi 17T starts at €749. Availability is yet to be announced.