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Hey, what's up guys and welcome to our head-to-head series. Today, we're comparing the Xiaomi 17T to the more premium Xiaomi 17T Pro. Is the Pro model worth the extra cash or could the 17T be the best value overall? Let's go through all of our test results and find out. Both the 17T and 17T Pro are high-end phones, but the Pro model is closer to a flagship than a mid-range. However, it also costs about 150 bucks more.
The 17T is smaller and more compact and about 20 g lighter. Both phones have Gorilla Glass 7i on the back and even though the frame is plastic on the non-Pro and aluminum on the Pro, they feel quite similar. The two phones have the same ingress protection rated IP68 against dust and submersion in water. The Xiaomi 17T has the smaller 6.59-in OLED screen and it has a 120-Hz refresh rate. The Pro model's is 6.83-in and it has a higher 144-Hz refresh rate. However, despite this difference on paper, in most cases the Pro model maxes out at 120-Hz anyway. On the 17T Pro, you can only get the maximum 144-Hz in certain scenarios like
specific supported games. Otherwise, the two displays look great. They're equally sharp and support 12-bit color depth as well as Dolby Vision and HDR10+ video playback. The brightness is equally matched as well. On both models, we measured up to over 1,000 nits maximum in automatic brightness mode and this gets much higher, north of 3,000 nits, when measuring a small portion of the screen. You can wake up and unlock both Xiaomis with an optical under-display fingerprint reader. And both phones have a stereo speaker setup for audio. While they both earned a loudness rating of very good, the 17T's are slightly louder with more
pronounced mids and livelier vocals. Neither phone has great bass, though. Let's have a listen to compare. You can get either of these Xiaomi phones with 256 or 512 gigs of storage on board, but the Pro model also has the option for a whole terabyte. As you might expect, these new Xiaomi phones run the same software interface, HyperOS 3 based on Android 16, and you get the same features either way. And for support, Xiaomi promises five major OS updates and six years of security patches to either phone. One of the main differences between these two devices is the chipset. The Xiaomi 17T runs on a Dimensity 8500 Ultra from MediaTek.
Meanwhile, the Xiaomi 17T Pro uses a higher-tier Dimensity 9500 chipset. The difference in performance is not trivial. In benchmarks, the Xiaomi 17T Pro outperforms the 17T by almost 50% in pure CPU tests, and in pure graphics tests, it earns nearly double the scores. So, if you're looking for better raw performance for gaming or future-proofing, the Pro is the clear winner. It is worth mentioning, though, that the 17T does a better job when it comes to thermal management. While the 17T Pro demonstrated heavy throttling in our prolonged stress tests. The Xiaomi 17T has a slightly smaller battery. It's 6500 mAh compared to 7000 on the Pro.
It's not only that, though. The difference in battery life is huge, with a non-Pro model earning an overall active use score of around 17 hours compared to around There's a difference in charging, too. The 17T supports 67-W charging, while the Pro supports 100 W. As a result, the Xiaomi 17T Pro is much faster to charge than the non-Pro model, despite having the larger battery capacity. On top of that, only with the Pro model do you get support for wireless charging. Both phones can do 22.5 W reverse wire charging, though. The cameras are similar. On either phone, you get the same five times telephoto zoom, as well as the same fixed focus ultra-wide cam. And there's a 50 MP main cam either way.
But this main cam has a different sensor on the 17T, a light fusion 800. The 17T Pro has a more advanced light fusion 950 sensor. Both main cameras captured great photos in bright daylight with vibrant colors and very good detail. Two times digital zoom shots are very good, too, from both phones. At five times zoom, with the same hardware on both, you get excellent zoom power either way. But somehow the 17T has the edge in sharpness and detail. And there's not much to separate the two models' ultra-wide photos. In low light, you'd expect to see more of an advantage from the Pro model's main cam with its upgraded sensor. The
Pro model does seem to do better with shadow development, but also seems to use more sharpening. At five times zoom, both phones will get you very good low light photos. The Pro's livelier colors and somewhat brighter shadows may be more likable. The ultra-wides offer more or less the same level performance on both phones at night. Here's a look at selfies taken with either phone's 32 MP front-facing camera. Neither has excellent detail, but there's a difference in the skin tones between the Pro and the non-Pro. And here's a look at the 4K selfie videos from either phone.
The Xiaomi 17T can record videos at a max of 4K at 60 FPS with its main and telephoto, while the Pro adds 8K at 30 FPS and 4K at 120 FPS on the main camera. 4K footage from both phones' main cameras is very good with great contrast, vibrant colors, and very good detail. The 17T captures sharper footage at five times zoom than what the Pro can muster. Also, the 17T's ultra-wide 4K videos are not sharper than those from the 17T Pro. At night, the 17T's main camera captures well-exposed footage, while the Pro tends to overexpose. Both capture comparable detail and have no white balance issues.
The 17T's telephoto excellence continues in low light, where it beats the Pro in sharpness. And the ultra-wide's low-light footage is pretty bad from either phone, but the non-Pro does better with the dynamic range and colors. So, that was the Xiaomi 17T and his brother, the Xiaomi 17T Pro. With both phones, you get a similar design with ingress protection. And the performance of the screens is quite similar. The software experience is identical. And on both phones, there is a very similar set of versatile cameras. The Xiaomi 17T is the more compact device, and it has better speakers. Its telephoto zoom is slightly sharper, and this phone is less expensive.
The Pro model has an aluminum frame and a higher refresh rate for certain games. Its chipset is much more powerful. The battery life is much longer, and the charging speed is faster. There's wireless charging, and there are additional options for video recording, like shooting in 8K. In the end, the Xiaomi 17T Pro offers many clear advantages, most importantly in the chipset power, the battery life, and the charging. But, if you want a cheaper or more compact version, the Xiaomi 17T is still a solid upper mid-ranger that's worth recommending. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you on the next one.
