Camera Shootout: Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra Vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra
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The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra (left) and Samsung's Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
Ben Sin
2020 marks the year of Xiaomi
10th anniversary
as a company, and the Beijing-based tech giant is celebrating with a surprise announcement of the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra. phone is not just a minor problem. It has a new design and uses a different main camera and zoom.
Of course, for Western audiences, using the "Ultra" moniker will seem to follow in the footsteps of Samsung, whose high-end flagship phones started using the same moniker this year and had just announced a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. wouldn't be entirely fair, one because HTC had previously used the Ultra name, and two, Xiaomi's phone isn't slated for release outside of China, and its official Chinese name more literally translates to "Xiaomi 10 Supreme Collector's Edition."
Either way, a camera shootout is in order, not only because the latest from Samsung and Xiaomi share a word in their names, but also because Xiaomi's Ultra also moves away from the sensor 108-megapixel Samsung camera that Xiaomi used in the
Mi 10 Pro.
It's that same 108-megapixel camera that gave Samsung's flagship the
S20 Ultra trouble
due to focus issues, and is still used in the latest Note 20 Ultra.
The main shooter of Xiaomi's latest is now a custom-built 48MP ultra-wide pixel main camera that adopts a 1/1.32-inch sensor. This greatly improves low-light performance, as the image sensor is bigger and the lower megapixel count actually helps the light intake.
Xiaomi's Ultra phone also introduces some industry firsts: it charges via an included 120W fast charger that can fully charge the 4,500mAh battery from 0-100 in 23 minutes. I haven't tested yet. the 0-100, but I tested the phone for five minutes and the 120W charger pumped out 22% juice in five minutes (video below). The phone also supports wireless charging at up to speeds 55W if you're using Xiaomi's official charger. Needless to say, those speeds are incredibly fast and make charging on an iPhone feel like five years behind.
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Samsung's Note 20 Ultra is no slouch either: it's added a new laser autofocus sensor to mostly fix the focus issues of the S20 Ultra, while the Periscope and ultra-wide-angle cameras remain. Virtually unchanged in hardware, but with some software tweaks. As before, the Note 20 Ultra's 108-megapixel camera is used to take 9-in-1 pixel photos.
Standard 1X daytime shooting
Standard 1X shots with the Mi 10 Ultra and Note 20 Ultra.
Ben Sin
(Note: Mi 10 Ultra watermark can be turned off, but I left it on for this test for easy differentiation between a Xiaomi image and a Samsung image. For cropped photos without a watermark, note that the Xiaomi image is to the left.)
This is a slightly challenging shot due to the extremely sunny midday sky, the ground bathed in deep shadows cast by tall buildings and a moving vehicle. Despite all of this, both cameras captured it. knocks it out of the park. The sky is well balanced in both shots, although Samsung's sky has the same exaggerated contrast that some like, some don't. Xiaomi's shutter speed is a little faster, where the reason why the taxi is a few steps away from the shot (I took both photos simultaneously).
Let's move on to more difficult shots.
Ultra wide angle camera
Ultra wide angle pictures.
Ben Sin
Xiaomi and Samsung's ultra-wide-angle cameras have one of the widest fields of view on the market. Xiaomi's 20-megapixel camera's 20-megapixel lens captures a 128-degree field of view. a 12mm equivalent, while the Note 20 Ultra's 12-megapixel ultrawide grabs a 13mm-equivalent field of view. The results are, again, very close, but Xiaomi's f/2.2 aperture attracts a little more light than Samsung's f/3.0.
But a 20 megapixel camera has more pixels to fill an ultra-wide, and so when zoomed to full size Xiaomi's image is larger, and if I zoom Samsung's image to match, you can see that Xiaomi's ultrawide image is sharper, especially on the Chinese characters of the sign and the vents to the left of it.
zoom into the ultra-wide.
Ben Sin
10x zoom
The two Periscope zoom lenses here produce 5x lossless and 10x near lossless optical zoom. the equivalent of a 1.6m pixel size while the Note 20 Ultra's Periscope lens is a 12-megapixel sensor with a 1.41.0m size.
Here's the reference image from where I was standing; I'll zoom in on the tires of the pink truck.
1X reference image.
Ben Sin
10X zoom images, with Xiaomi (left) and Samsung (right).
Ben Sin
Both 10x zooms are very good but not quite true lossless like what the Huawei
P40 Pro Plus
is capable of. Samsung's image (right) has more accurate colors, but Xiaomi's image is a bit sharper, especially the texture of the steel plate under the wheels.
Let's look at another 10x zoom.
10X zoom.
Ben Sin
Here, Xiaomi's lead is more noticeable. The textures of the Marvel figure in Samsung's photos are clearly digitally sharpened and there is noticeable noise behind the figure, while the Mi 10 Ultra image is sharper and more naturally sharp all around.
Still, both of these are very good shots. For reference, below is the same 10X zoom with an iPhone 11 Pro (right).
10X zoom
Ben Sin
50x Zoom
Samsung's spring flagship, the S20 Ultra, advertised a 100x zoom that was a bit too blurry to be truly useful. Samsung decided to tone down the marketing hyperbole and limit the Note 20 Ultra's digital zoom to 50x. Xiaomi, however, takes the approach the other way and pushes the digital zoom limit to 120x, the highest we've ever seen. For this test, we're going to focus on 50x, as that's the maximum the phone from Samsung can do.
50X zoom.
Ben Sin
50X
Ben Sin
None of these 50x shots are particularly sharp or detailed, but considering how far the 50x zoom is, it's still impressive that modern smartphone cameras can do it. For me, such a zoom is still useful because it allows me to read signs from afar.
120x zoom
As mentioned, Xiaomi's camera can zoom up to 120X. In the example below, I zoomed in on a bicycle basket outside my bedroom window.
120X zoom.
Ben Sin
It's a blurry shot, of course, but I can actually make out the contents of the basket – dry Chinese noodles, some wrapped in Chinese newspapers.
Extreme low light shooting
The Mi 10 Ultra's bespoke main camera was designed to excel in low light conditions and it shows here. In the example below, shot in my living room with all the lights off and just some natural light Coming from a window at the far end of the apartment, Xiaomi's large 1/1.38-inch sensor was able to catch considerably more light than the Note 20 Ultra's 108-megapixel camera.
Shooting in low light.
Ben Sin
The good news for Samsung is that it has better night mode than Xiaomi; when I turn on night mode for both phones, the Note 20 Ultra rolls back. But this night mode requires standing still for five seconds, it doesn't is therefore not always possible to film with this mode in real situations.
With night mode activated.
Ben Sin
portrait bokeh
Blurry portraits.
Ben Sin
Both phones capture excellent bokeh images, with natural depth-of-field blurring effects. Xiaomi uses a dedicated telephoto lens to help with portraiture, while Samsung seems to be content with software altogether.
The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
Ben Sin
So far it looks like Xiaomi's Mi 10 Ultra has a slightly better camera system. simple cameras. Both of these are some of the most powerful flagships out there, with Xiaomi's specs perhaps unmatched by anyone other than Huawei's P40 Pro Plus.
I will have a full review of both of these phones after further extensive testing.