Sketchy Exynos 990-powered "Mi 10e" supposedly appears on Geekbench, and we're leery

Xiaomi has released a number of the phone in the Mi 10 series over the past few months. The company launched the Mi 10, Mi 10 Pro, Mi 10 Lite a while ago, and recently followed those up with the Mi 10 Youth Edition. Apparently, though, the company may not be done.

A sketchy-looking "Mi 10e" recently surfaced on Geekbench. The name is enough cause for doubt, as Xiaomi has never used such a naming scheme. What takes this from doubtful to ridiculous, however, is the SoC the phone is listed with. An Exynos 990. Let that sink in: an Exynos SoC on a Xiaomi phone. Not just any Exynos SoC either; Samsung's current flagship chipset, the same one that has received plenty of flak for poor performance.

Why ever would Xiaomi want to use an expensive, disappointing chipset on what would at most be a sub-premium device? It beggars belief. The Exynos 990 was shown getting trashed by the much cheaper MediaTek Helio G90T a few days ago; an SoC Xiaomi used on the US$200 Redmi Note 8 Pro last year. 

The benchmark scores are consistent with our S20 series Geekbench scores, so that's likely really the Exynos 990. The device it's in is almost definitely not an "Mi 10e" or any such thing, though. Geekbench identifiers are notoriously easy to game, after all. It doesn't help that there's no direct link to the Geekbench listing.

We'd love to be proven wrong. On second thought, probably not; an Exynos 990 on a Xiaomi premium phone is hardly an enticing prospect.