The Real Reason Why Mi 10 is So Expensive

Even though the Xiaomi smartphone, including the flagships, are quite reasonable in terms of pricing, the Xiaomi Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro comes at a price that is higher than expected.

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Pro costs ~$716 for the basic variant, while the Xiaomi Mi 10 will set users back by ~$573 for the basic variant. On the other hand, the previously released Xiaomi Mi 9 cost approximately $143 less than the Xiaomi Mi 10. The main reason behind the high costs is high-end internals, competitive cameras, and premium designs.

Redmi general manager Lu Weibing, in order to justify the higher price tags, took to Weibo listing the reasons why the smartphones costs more.

One of the biggest reasons cited by Mr. Weibing is the switch to a 5G enabled modem. According to him, this doubled the cost of the chipset as compared to the previously used Snapdragon 855. A similar statement was given by Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, who said the new modem cost an additional $70 which is a huge chunk of change.

The second most important reason is the switch to a dual-curved 90Hz OLED screen with a punch-hole. This, as per Redmi’s General manager, also cost double of what the Mi 9’s screen cost. Moreover, the higher RAM added a 20 percent cost increase since the OEM decided to go for LPDDR5 memory instead of LPDDR4.

Lastly, the Xiaomi representative says the addition of higher capacity imaging sensors and a bigger battery, faster charging, cooling tech, and design-related costs added up to a considerably higher price tag. In the end, Mr. Weibing gave his opinion that since the smartphone comes with such amazing specifications, it can compete with smartphones like Mate 30 Pro which makes it worth the cost.