Some Xiaomi Mi Note 10 handsets are facing Bluetooth audio dropouts

The Mi Note 10 offers great value for money. The same applies to the Mi Note 10 Pro and the CC9 Pro, as all three are essentially the same device. The Mi Note 10 and Mi Note 10 Pro impressed us during our tests, with the devices achieving overall ratings of 83% and 84% respectively. However, it seems as though Xiaomi has overlooked a potentially crippling issue.

In short, the Mi Note 10 has a weak Bluetooth modem. In our experience, simply using the device with Bluetooth headphones connected can cause audio drop outs. These occur randomly and even with the Mi Note 10 right next to multiple sets of Bluetooth headphones. While the drop outs are more severe during demanding tasks like GPS navigation, they can appear while just browsing the web.

We doubt that buggy software is the cause of the issue, as neither multiple factory resets nor flashing different versions of MIUI 11 helped. Additionally, we replicated the fault with a second Mi Note 10. Simply holding the area around the rear-facing camera array can cause audio cut outs, which is something we have not experienced on other devices.

Additionally, this does not seem to be an isolated issue either. Other Mi Note 10 owners have also reported being unable to use any Bluetooth devices. Oddly, we have not encountered a comparable issue with other Xiaomi smartphones like the even the Snapdragon 730- Snapdragon 712-powered Mi 9 SE.

Overall, we suspect that something is causing interference. This could be a software issue, but it would be one that exists in multiple versions of MIUI 11. We have replicated it in at least three versions of MIUI 11, for example. While we would not rule out a hardware fault, there appears to be nothing unusual about the design of the Mi Note 10. Hopefully, it is the former and not the latter.