Xiaomi’s best Smart Band to date brings a nicer display and promises improved health tracking, but those upgrades come at a premium.
It’s been eleven years since Xiaomi launched its original Mi Band and the series has now entered its tenth generation. The Mi Band was the catalyst to Xiaomi’s rise in the wearables market, managing to maintain its position as one of the best bang for your buck devices out there.
With the Smart Band 10 now official, Xiaomi tried to refine its best-selling wearable with a few hardware upgrades and an ever-so-slightly higher starting price.Xiaomi Smart Band 10 specifications
The main additions to this year’s Band 10 are the slightly larger and brighter screen alongside claims of more accurate health and activity tracking. You’re also getting an updated vibration motor in the same basic design that’s practically unchanged since the Band 7 days. So, are the new additions worth the higher asking price?Design
Xiaomi didn’t change much with the Smart Band 10’s design. It’s still the same pebble-shaped puck with its long and narrow AMOLED display. The new model features a larger screen diagonal, measuring 1.72 inches, compared to 1.62 inches on its predecessor.
The bezels are slimmer this time around at 2mm on each side and they are perfectly symmetrical.
The other big addition is the updated max brightness. Band 10 now cranks out 1,500 nits HBM brightness, which tops the 1,200 nits on its predecessor. That’s a nice upgrade that helps when using the Band 10 outdoors in these sunny summer days. You still get auto brightness, which is what we used during our review process, and Always-on display (AOD) when you just want to glance over at the time.
Our review unit is the Ceramic Edition. This is not the first ceramic Xiaomi Smart Band, but it is the first one making its way to global markets. The side frame is made from ceramic, while the bottom, where we have the sensors, is still made from plastic.
The Ceramic Edition Band 10 sports a sleek white color that gives off Stormtrooper armor vibes. The other immediately noticeable fact is how much heavier it feels compared to past Smart Bands. Our review unit weighs 26 grams on its own and 44 grams with its fluororubber strap.
For context, the regular version of the Band 10, which features a metal shell, should weigh in at around 16 grams sans its strap. Despite the added heft, Band 10 feels that bit more premium in its ceramic finish.
We’d like to go off on a tangent here as the lack of physical buttons on the last four generations of Xiaomi Smart Bands has been a recurring annoyance for this reviewer in particular.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: bring back the physical buttons! Or at least a capacitive back button? There’s no way to turn the band on apart from attaching it to the magnetic charger. If you need to restart the band and you don’t have the charger with you, you’re out of luck.
We’re still not convinced that the all-swipe gesture navigation model is the best way to go on a wearable, especially when your hands are wet, so we’d urge Xiaomi to at least consider bringing back buttons for the Smart Band 11.
The box contents are the usual Xiaomi Smart Band affair – a proprietary two-pin magnetic charging cable, a quick start guide and a warranty leaflet.
Xiaomi also sent out its new pearl-chain pendant, which transforms the Band 10 into a fashion accessory if you’re into that.Features
Smart bands made their mark as inexpensive activity trackers, and in recent years, they have been getting closer in feature parity to smartwatches. But a band always comes with its limitations when compared to fully-fledged smartwatches, and the Smart Band 10 is no exception.
