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This is the Xiaomi 17T. It's a new upper mid-ranger that packs some neat features, including a dedicated 5x telephoto camera. So, could this be the mid-range phone to set your sights on? Let's run the Xiaomi 17T through all of our tests and see how it compares. Next to its premium sibling, the Xiaomi 17T Pro, the Xiaomi 17T is a bit more budget-friendly. Still, I wouldn't exactly call it cheap. It packs a bunch of nice features like a premium display, a large battery, and triple cameras with a telephoto zoom. Like the Pro model, the 17T has a back made of Gorilla Glass 7i. However, this phone has a plastic frame, not aluminum.
You do get the full IP68 ingress protection against dust and water, though. On the front is a 6.59-in OLED display with a 120-Hz refresh rate and Gorilla Glass 7i protection. The display is plenty sharp, and you get nice goodies here like support for 12-bit color depth and both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ video playback. There's plenty of brightness here, too. We measured it to over 1,000 nits maximum in automatic brightness mode. And when measuring a smaller portion of the screen, it's even higher, over 3,300 nits. That's plenty for comfortable outdoor use.
And while the 120-Hz refresh rate smooths out swiping movements on screen, it's able to dial down to 60-Hz when the screen is idling to save power. Under the screen is an optical fingerprint scanner for biometrics. It's fast and reliable, but we'd prefer a higher placement for comfort's sake. The Xiaomi 17T has stereo speakers, and they earned a loudness score of very good. And the output is pretty clean with a nice and rich sound stage. You can have a listen with our comparison tool linked below.
Like we've seen from other Xiaomi phones, the 17T has an IR blaster for controlling appliances with. And you can get phone with the 256 or 512 gigs of storage on board. The 17T's software interface is Xiaomi's HyperOS 3, running on top of Android 16. A neat feature that we've also seen from other manufacturers is a black bar around the selfie cutout to hold certain shortcuts. Xiaomi has recently improved the connectivity to include devices from other manufacturers. And HyperOS 3 includes plenty of AI-based features as well. And for support, Xiaomi promises five major OS updates and six years of security patches.
Under the hood of the Xiaomi 17T is a MediaTek chipset, a Dimensity 8500 Ultra. It's not flagship silicon, but it does sit in upper mid-range territory. In benchmarks, the 17T holds its own with plenty of power for the class. Of course, the numbers do pale alongside phones like flagship killers that have higher-tier chipsets. The thermal management is great here, though. The Xiaomi 17T went through our prolonged stress test without much thermal throttling. The Xiaomi 17T has a 6500 milliamp hour battery, which is on the larger side. As a result, the battery life here is pretty solid. The phone earned an active use score of over 17 hours, competitive for the class.
However, the charging is not as competitive. The 17T supports 67 watt charging, while other Xiaomi phones support 100 watts or more. The charging speed isn't glacially slow, but it's not too speedy. The phone charges to 55% in half an hour, and a full charge takes an hour. There is no wireless charging here, which you do get on the Pro model. But there is fast 22.5 watt reverse wire charging to top up other devices with. And now the cameras, which include an upgrade from 2.5 times zoom to five times zoom.
Other than that telephoto cam, there's also a 50-megapixel main camera and a 12-megapixel fixed focus wide. In the day, the 17T's main camera takes great photos with an overall expressive look. There's plenty of contrast and vivid colors. The detail is very good, too, with nice-looking textures. Photos of people aren't bad with nice skin tones and detail, though there is a hint of skin smoothing going on automatically. Two times digital zoom shots are very good with well-preserved detail in outdoor scenes and only a bit of softening in dimmer indoor conditions.
The new telephoto cam is a nice upgrade with double the reach of last year and great quality. The photos are super sharp, colors are vibrant, and there's plenty of contrast. With a digital crop, 10 times zoom photos are also great, maintaining a good level of sharpness. And the ultra wide's photos come out good with nice sharpness for this sort of camera, likeable colors, and good dynamic range. The lack of autofocus does limit its usefulness for close-up shooting, though. For those close-ups, you can get solid results with either the main or the telephoto cameras with the help of a digital crop.
Selfies come out at 32 megapixels. They have lively colors and wide dynamic range, but the detail is less than what you'd expect at this resolution. The lack of autofocus is also worth mentioning. Now, for low-light shooting. In the dark, the main camera does a respectable job. Shots are well exposed and have good dynamic range, though highlights could be a bit better preserved at the top end. White balance is well done and the detail is very good, except for in the darkest shadows. The telephoto captures very good low-light photos at five times zoom. It just might be a little heavy on the sharpening, but it's not too offensive and detail is great.
The ultra wide's low-light photos are decently sharp. Dynamic range is all right and colors are good. It's not a groundbreaking performance, but it's not half bad, either. The Xiaomi 17T can record video in up to 4K at 60 FPS with its main and telephoto cameras and 4K at 30fps with the ultra wide and selfie. 4K footage from the main cam is very good. Contrast is great, colors are vivid, and there's plenty of detail. The telephoto produces sharp and detailed clips at 5x zoom. And the ultra wide does a good job, too, with better sharpness than expected.
The video stabilization shows some minor hiccups while walking, but still it's very good overall. At night, the 17T's main camera captures well-exposed footage. Detail is good, and colors are on point. The telephoto's nighttime footage is quite good. It's pretty sharp, actually. And while the ultra wide doesn't do a great job, at least its dynamic range and colors are all right. So, that was the Xiaomi 17T. It's a nice high-end mid-ranger with an excellent display, good battery life, and a camera setup which is among the best in its class. This phone isn't cheap, though, at around 750 bucks. And there are a couple of shortcomings. The chipset isn't flagship tier, and the charging isn't
that fast. There's no wireless charging, either. But if you're willing to accept those things, then the Xiaomi 17T is a mid-ranger worth checking out, especially once its price goes down a little bit. Thanks for watching, guys. If you're interested, here are links to our reviews of the Xiaomi 17T Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. Let us know what you think down below, and I'll see you on the next one.
