Xiaomi 17T review

Design, build quality, handling

Design-wise, the Xiaomi 17T is very unassuming and non-obtrusive. There is nothing really special about it, really. It is just a very modern design with very wide, sloping, curved edges on all sides and both a flat front and back. This design, particularly the shape of the display around the corners, is definitely not going to be universally appealing.

There is nothing particularly special about the camera island either. It's just a symmetrical area, not too thick, especially considering it houses the optics for a 5x periscope camera. You get some LEICA text on the camera island, which, again, won't have universal appeal, but it doesn't bother us personally.

The Xiaomi 17T is available in a total of four colors: Violet, Blue, Opal White and Black. All of the colors are solid and simple, without any fancy additional patterns or design elements. We don't really mind, honestly; it makes for a straightforward look.

There isn't really any particular texture on the phone to speak of, either. At least none of the surfaces are prone to smudging or gathering dirt, which is nice.

Let's talk materials real quick. We mentioned this already, but it is worth reiterating that the Xiaomi 17T is mostly made of plastic, which is not something you see that often, particularly on an upper-midrange device like this. The middle frame is plastic. Xiaomi says there is Gorilla Glass 7i on the back side.

The front is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i as well, which is not bad at all.

Despite technically lacking what would conventionally be considered a "premium build," the Xiaomi 17T both looks and feels great in our opinion. There is no flex or hollowness to the chassis, and we've never been shy about singing praises to plastic as a building material when used correctly. It is structurally sound while also quite durable and lightweight.

Plus, Xiaomi didn't compromise on the Gorilla Glass display protection we just mentioned, nor on the IP68 ingress protection rating. The Xiaomi 17T should be able to handle a dip in up to 3 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes. The pretty large rubber gasket on the SIM tray certainly looks encouraging to that end.

There is nothing particularly interesting about the controls' layout here. There is nothing on the left side of the frame, and a power button plus volume rocker on the right side. Both of these are well-positioned height-wise and offer good tactile feedback.

Xiaomi 17T

The bottom side has the main bottom-firing speaker, the main microphone hole, the SIM tray and the Type-C port. There is nothing on the top side, no secondary speaker grill; the earpiece hidden above the display doubles as a second front-facing speaker. There is an IR blaster on the Xiaomi 17T, but it is not on the top frame; instead, it is hidden somewhere on the camera island.

The Xiaomi 17T has pretty thin display bezels. Again, their aggressively curved shape around the edges might be more polarizing, but their size probably won't be. The selfie punch hole is quite reasonably sized, too. There are no visible sensors here. Nothing above the display, everything is nicely hidden away, with the actual sensors residing underneath the panel.

The Xiaomi 17T uses an under-display fingerprint reader of the simpler optical variety. It is both speedy and accurate; we have no complaints with it.