Xiaomi 17T: What more can you ask for?

The Xiaomi 17T is finally here, and just like T-series devices from before, this smartphone looks set to be a popular choice among Malaysians seeking a flagship-level smartphone without breaking the bank.

On paper at least, it seems to offer just about everything you’d want from your daily driver: fantastic cameras, a powerful processor, a large battery and a nice display, all at a pretty great price too. But we always want to know just how good things are in practice, and so when Xiaomi offered us a chance to showcase to our readers just how good the Xiaomi 17T is, you know we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Better in the hand

The main difference between this year’s Xiaomi 17T and its predecessor is that it now has a smaller display. It now packs a 6.59-inch Xiaomi M10 OLED panel, pushing a 2756 by 1268 resolution, an up to 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 3500nits. There’s also a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 7i here for scratch resistance.

This move to a smaller sized display might at first look like a downgrade, but if we’re being honest, I don’t think it’s a bad move at all. Too many smartphones these days have a screen that’s way bigger than necessary, and I like that Xiaomi has split the 17T series this way; you can still get the larger display on the 17T Pro, while the 17T is a more streamlined offering now with its smaller form factor.

It’s now more comfortable in the hand, and compared to larger devices you’ll actually be able to type one-handed without needing to stretch your thumb a few extra yards just to reach the A or Q key anymore. Considering that the Xiaomi 17T is meant to be the ideal phone for your average Malaysian, I think they’ve nailed it out of the park here by making it just a little more compact without sacrificing too much on the display.

And speaking of the display, this is still a very nice screen to look at. You can still watch all your favourite movies here just fine, and the out of the box Original PRO colour scheme makes everything look natural and lifelike without going too far on the saturation.

Another nice to have here is the plethora of eye-care certifications here, with the 17T being the industry’s first smartphone to get TUV Rheinland Quadruple certification for low blue light, flicker free, circadian friendly and intelligent eye care certification.

A day-to-day workhorse

As for the hardware under the hood, the Xiaomi 17T comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 8500-Ultra system-on-chip, with our unit in particular getting 12GB of memory and 512GB of storage too. This 4nm, 8-core processor might be positioned below true flagship silicon, but frankly speaking I don’t think anyone would be able to tell the difference.

I think I push my devices a little harder than most people—it’s part of the job—and the Xiaomi 17T was able to handle just about everything I threw at it. This meant not just the everyday assortment of apps like my social media, multitude of Chrome tabs, and streaming apps, but also games such as TFT and Where Winds Meet. Impressively, I was able to crank up the settings in Where Winds Meet up to the Ultra present, and the Xiaomi 17T still ran it just fine albeit at 35fps.

That being said, for posterity’s sake, I did run it through some synthetic benchmarks, and the numbers do kind of back up what we feel about it. The Xiaomi 17T in Geekbench 6 scored a 1653 in single-core while in multi-core it got a 6456. These are pretty impressive numbers, scoring big jumps over the 8400-Ultra’s 1548 and 5950 scores, and in fact puts the 8500-Ultra close to flagship Snapdragon 8 series chips from a couple of years ago.

As for battery life, the Xiaomi 17T comes with a large 6,500mAh silicon-carbon battery, with support for 67W wired HyperCharge fast charging and 22.5W reverse charging. This battery was able to last me a full work day no issue, with over a third of my battery still present by the end of the day. And also, in case you were wondering, we were told that yes, a 67W charging brick will be in the box for Malaysian customers.

One more thing I like about the Xiaomi 17T is that they’re guaranteeing 5 years of major OS upgrades and 6 years of security patches too. It already comes with HyperOS 3 out of the box, and you should be able to use the Xiaomi 17T up till HyperOS 8 rolls out just fine. The UI itself is slick and snappy, and having been a fan of the old MIUI of yesteryear HyperOS 3 just feels more refined than ever.

Pro-level telephoto

Flip the Xiaomi 17T around and you’ll be greeted with the Leica branding on the back, as this is the latest in their longstanding collaboration with the famed German camera company. You’ll find a main 50MP, f/1.7 shooter with a Light Fusion 800 1/1.55″ sensor, a 50MP, f/3.0 telephoto offering a 5x optical zoom and a 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide while a 32MP, f/2.2 front camera rounds things off.

The eagle-eyed among you probably would’ve noticed that this is a similar main shooter to last year’s Xiaomi 15T, but it’s really the telephoto that makes the Xiaomi 17T’s camera setup so impressive. The new 5x telephoto is basically pulled from the Xiaomi 15T Pro, which means that you now get Pro-level telephoto performance on the base Xiaomi 17T.

Overall, while the main camera is just as good as before, delivering very clear shots with great detail and good contrast, it’s the telephoto that takes the spotlight on the Xiaomi 17T.

This is true flagship-capable telephoto quality, with clean and clear photos at its 115mm equivalent focal length giving you so much more versatility from your smartphone. Colour reproduction is great too, with your choice between Leica Vibrant for a life-like pop in colour or Leica Authentic for a more conservative, film-like style.

The ultrawide meanwhile is perhaps the weakest of the three, but that’s only because of the high bar set by the other two shooters; you’ll still get perfectly serviceable photos that gets the job done.

No one else can offer you this much value

The Xiaomi 17T is a glorious return to form for Xiaomi, with a feature-packed smartphone with powerful performance, outstanding cameras and a brilliant display. It’s perhaps even more impressive when you realise that this smartphone starts at just RM2,399.

I’ve used many Xiaomi devices over the years, and while the Pro and Ultra smartphones tend to hog the headlines for their cutting edge hardware, the Xiaomi 17T is perhaps the smartphone that encapsulates what most Malaysians love about the brand. Its price-to-performance and well thought out features just makes the Xiaomi 17T a great option for anyone at this price point.

This article was brought to you by Xiaomi Malaysia.