With incredible capabilities and beautiful looks, this is Xiaomi's new phone.

Introductory

If we want to be very honest, we have to admit that Xiaomi has not excelled in cameras at all for a very long time. For years, we got exactly the same junk Chinese quality from them as from emerging manufacturers, and that was true even for the Xiaomi MIX 2, which was a premium device anyway.

The situation started to change with the arrival of the MIX 2s and the Xiaomi Mi 6, but to this day one of their best camera phones is not these, but the Xiaomi Mi A1. Two years ago, at an incredibly good price, we got a dual-camera system that stands its ground to this day, so much so that my partner isn’t even willing to get rid of it, even if, if anyone, he sees quite a few phones live because of my work.

We waited a long time for the Mi A1 to have a worthy successor. Last year came the A2 and A2 Lite, this year the A3, but none continued the tradition. For those looking for good cameras at a low price, this year has already offered an alternative to the Redmi series, the Note 8 and Note 8 Pro phones. Meanwhile, in this cheaper price range, the Miomi Lite may be possible, but the latter is not a phone sharply sharpened for photography either.

There is a choice among the more expensive machines, but let’s face it, Xiaomi’s top category didn’t match the solutions of rival Huawei, Samsung or Apple. Until now!

Then this fall, news arrived about a 108-megapixel sensor that Xiaomi is developing with Samsung. Unfortunately, the first mobile in which this sensor works is the new MIX Alpha concept phone, which, even if it could be bought, will be available to a few due to the price of about 800 thousand forints.

Then, from a clear sky, a device called the CC9 Pro, a blood camera phone, arrived on the shelves of Chinese shops as a lightning strike, in which everything was put into the service of photography and video recording. We knew the new 108-megapixel sensor would be debuting for a wider audience with a phone with five rear-panel cameras, we guessed the camera system would be good, but we didn’t dare hope it was the best in the world, though it did.

The CC9 Pro has meanwhile hit the international market, but it's been available as Xiaomi Mi Note 10 for about a month now, and we didn't expect too much, we put the phone in a basket so we could try out our cameras as soon as possible.

Wrapping

The Xiaomi Mi Note 10 has become a rather interesting device as it plays in the premium category due to its cameras and display, but the central unit is “only” mid-range. The packaging also reflects this duality, because in form, content is an average Xiaomi, but the color evokes the MIX series. The black box has always been a feature of the premium category.

At first glance, the content is also average. A silicone back cover, SIM card needle, charger head and cable, as well as an installation description await us. The appearance is deceiving in that the filling head is not entirely average, but I will talk about that later.

External

The Xiaomi Mi Note 10, like most Xiaomi phones, has a wonderful look and is even a little nicer than before, as the display is now rounded on the side. Nowadays, this is called a waterfall display, but in essence it doesn’t change it. In terms of colors, lately Xiaomi has become quite creative, we get wonderful shades from them. This is no different with Note 10. In addition to the normal black, we also get a white and a green.

The former is not Apple's shade, Xiaomi's back is pearly white as we rotate the phone. The green version, which I also bought is not the usual one, in fact, I think it is closer to turquoise than green. The point is, beef looks good, that doesn’t change it. The phone is not girly from her, but rather the quality factor dominates.

Seen from the front, the Note 10 has become essentially completely frameless. The real metal rim can be half a millimeter in a circle, of course, if the display turns on, it will have another thin, black frame on which no image will appear. It is safe to say that it was an engineering miracle that they were able to hide the speaker and sensors in this almost non-existent framework. The front panel camera did not become extra in terms of placement, it was located on the usual drop-shaped camera island.

You can also find interesting things on the pages of the frame. One of them is that we get an infrared controller, which hasn't been on Xiaomi's phone for a long time, but on the Redmi series. The other is that a traditional jack connector has also been added to the bottom band, which is also a rarity, for a long time everyone forced the connection via Type-C. The third interesting thing is that the SIM tray is moved from its upper position, ie from the top left to the bottom right, when viewed from the front. The reason is understandable, because of the large camera system, the tray had to move. The fourth interesting thing is that we only find one speaker grille at the bottom, meaning the Xiaomi doesn't even try to pretend to have a stereo speaker built in.

The most interesting part of the phone is the back cover, where no less than 5 cameras are waiting for us, and next to them there are two double LED flashes, so that the lighting returns the most natural colors in the photos. The arrangement of the cameras is the usual, ie the optics are located one below the other. Of course, there is no fingerprint reader, since where the Xiaomi AMOLED panel is used for the display, it already builds the biometric sensor under the glass.

Overall, we can say that the Note 10 has become a real premium phone from the outside, in fact, even more premium than the premium, the most spectacular of the current Xiaomi offering.

Hardware

Unfortunately, I can’t write this article with as much thoroughness as I would expect from myself, because no one would read it through. Plus, the cameras are important here, so let’s keep in mind that I’m only talking about other interesting components of the hardware, by the way, in headlines.

The processor should be known to be a member of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7xx series, specifically the piece called the 730G. AG in this case stands for Gamer, meaning the 730G is an turbocharged version of the standard Snapdragon 730 with higher graphics performance. The user processor with 8 Kyro cores, the modern image processing unit, the dedicated artificial intelligence processor, and of course the units responsible for wireless connections are also among the most modern, and it is very difficult to find fault with them.

Of course, there is no error with the performance, but this is also shown in the table below!

The table shows the results of measurements performed with the usual synthetic test programs:

Display

The display on the phone, as you may have read above, is a really interesting piece, as we haven’t seen a curved-edged AMOLED panel at the Xiaomi lately. There is no need to write about the quality of an AMOLED. You can enjoy stunning colors, amazing brightness, needle-sharp images and 1080 x 2340 pixels, or FHD + resolution. The diagonal is huge, 6,47 inches. No wonder Xiaomi is killing out the Mi MAX series, which has traditionally been famous for its extra large display, since once a traditional phone reaches 6 and a half colts, the MAX doesn’t have much room to live.

The inability to connect to this display, maybe I can bring up so many negatives against it, that from certain angles the light is broken differently on the glass above the bending panel than on the smooth surface next to it. Not particularly disturbing, but still visible. In my experience, this is not the case with Note 10, all similar displays behave this way.

Other skills

The Xiaomi Mi Note 10 represents a premium category in everything except the central unit. This is true for all capabilities, the multitude of sensors, the accuracy and speed of navigation, and so on for all components in general. However, even among these outstanding capabilities, the battery stands out, with a capacity of 5260 mAh, for which we get a 30-watt fast charge, allowing us to fully charge the huge battery in just over 1 hour.

Kamerák

We got to the most important part, the cameras. Before we get into the details, I need to make a little clarification about the title of the article. The DXOMARK score, which is slowly becoming an industry standard, is not given to a camera but to the camera system of the phone. The system gets a score for the photographer and one for the video skills, but they also add up from the results of various measurements, such as color rendering, white balance, autofocus, and a thousand other things. These are then used to compile a total score to determine the quality of the camera system.

In this line-up at the moment, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro and Mi Note 10 lead by 121-121 points, behind giants such as the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max or the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ (117-117 points). If we look at the details a bit, it turns out that in terms of photography capabilities, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro is still better 132 vs 130 points), while in video recording, the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 is better than any other phone (102 points). What’s nice about this order is that compared to the competitors listed, Xiaomi’s phone is downright cheap, but about the price at the end of the article.

Returning to the cameras, the Mi Note 10 uses a total of six pieces, one on the front of the self-timer camera and another five on the back. The front-facing camera is no longer sponge cake with its 32 megapixels (4 in 1 superpixel), but of course the back five group is the real big bang. Here you will find the 108 megapixel main camera, the 20 megapixel wide angle (117 degrees) camera, the 12 megapixel telephoto with 2x hardware zoom, the 5 megapixel telephoto camera with hardware 5x zoom, and the macro camera with 2 megapixels, the latter for up to 1cm. Nice bouquet!

Outstanding among the capabilities is the main camera with its 1 / 1,33-inch sensor size and f / 1.69 aperture value, and we also get optical vibration damping for video recordings. The resolution of a wide-angle camera is also not common, they usually poke our eyes out at 8 megapixels, but here we get twenty behind a lens with a 117-degree viewing angle.

The quality of the images is, of course, close to impeccable. Accurate exposure, exceptional detail, and noise cancellation are also excellent. This also applies to photos taken in low light conditions, where noise filtering does not visibly reduce detail. White balance is perfect with auto adjustment, colors are in place, depth blur is perfect. The 108 megapixel main camera is not flawless, we lose detail in the images as we approach the edges, although this can be noticed when enlarging a maximum of one part of the image, and even then only compared to the really sharp quality of the middle area.

The color management is better than the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, namely the Samsung Note 10+. Of course, these are minimal discrepancies that are difficult to spot. If we look at the autofocus capability, the Mi Note 10 is just one point behind the best, behind the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, fast, accurate, perfect. This is interesting just because such functions are often said to be important for processor performance, but here, too, a mid-range CPU behind the camera seems to be quite enough.

Evening shots:

There is one more thought to the main camera. At the time I was testing 7 megapixel (Samsung sensor) photography on my Redmi Note 48 camera, I had to realize that it was completely pointless to use. Image storage requirements will increase brutally and quality will deteriorate. When I tested the Redmi Note 8 Pro 64 mega, Sony sensor-equipped camera, it turned out that in some cases, if not always, 64 mega photography made sense because the quality was quite lavish.

In comparison, the 108-megapixel Samsung sensor camera is a disappointment, at least in the sense that you have to choose the subject very well to feel this was worth photographing in that resolution. Below, the second image is like this, the statue in the center remained quite sharp even when magnified, but around it the texture of the leaves already shows that more and more details disappear as you move towards the edges. The point is that in most cases we are better off staying with the 27 (!!!) megapixel image available with pixel merging, which is still a brutal resolution.

108 megapixels:

As I mentioned, the ultra wide angle camera is also good. The resolution at 20 megapixels is flawless, with almost no distortion in the geometry of the image, even though the angle of view is 90 degrees instead of the normal 117 degrees. The noise is very minimal, so it's perfect for indoor photography even in low light conditions. I have really missed a camera with this capability, it will be a favorite of realtors!

In the images below, the difference between normal mode and wide angle.

The zoom functions are also flawless. With the two telephoto lenses, the hardware double and five times zoom is amazing from one phone, and thanks to the plethora of cameras, the hybrid zoom function also performs well, allowing you to go up to ten times closer. In the case of the latter, the following image, taken ten times, speaks for itself, it turned out to be surprisingly good. The 50x zoom is also available in software, but the latter is accompanied by a spectacular deterioration in quality, so it's more interesting, usable, we don't get a bit of quality results with it.

The following compilation shows the magnification. The first image is without zoom, the second is hardware 2x zoom, the third is hardware 5x zoom, the fourth is hybrid 10x zoom, and the fifth is software 50x zoom.

The macro camera is what I feel a little redundant. It’s a good thing to shoot from a distance of 1 inch, but the 2 megapixel sensor at most is enough to make you like it on the net, on Facebook. There is basically no problem with its quality, it is orders of magnitude better than what we come across in some cheap phones. For my part, if I want to take close-up shots, I’d rather use a camera that can zoom up to five times, at least as detailed, and I think you can take better pictures with it, although it’s a fact that it’s a bit more busy than a macro camera. .

Two images with a macro:

So the photographer's features are excellent. If we were to say the same about videotaping, we could still be satisfied, but the truth is that with this rating, we would fall short of real abilities. It’s no coincidence that DXOMARK’s measurements show that Xiaomi Mi Note 10’s video knowledge is currently the best among phones in the world. The colors are vivid, not over-saturated, the image is not distorted towards the edges, and the detail is flawless.

However, keep in mind that this is still just a phone, not a DSLR camera, so if you pay close attention, you may discover minor color defects in high-dynamic range shots, or minor texture defects.

I tried to take advantage of all the features of the camera, so quite a few test images were uploaded to the server that could be viewed in full resolution. I look forward to your comments in the comments section!

Finally, my favorite image with the wide-angle lens is:

Real use

As I wrote in the introduction, the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 has become an extremely reasonable phone, put together with hardware to my liking. From a device that I missed, in my opinion, a superfluous high-end central chip, we got an awfully good display and the best camera system in the world, all for a fraction of the price of competing mobiles with similar quality cameras.

As I wrote above, I think that in contrast to top-of-the-line processors, the camera system is something that basically anyone can take advantage of, since we all love to take photos, and Xiaomi gives us all the help we need to enjoy that, too. For the more professional, the Pro mode is available, where you can manually adjust the focus steplessly, fine-tune the white balance and even reach the shutter speed.

For those who don't want to mess around with the settings, the automatic modes will suit you, in most cases the software will really find the best setting. Of course, as we're used to, the Mi Note 10's automatic settings are aided by artificial intelligence, recognizing the scene to be photographed and adjusting the settings accordingly.

The built-in effects are also perfect for photography, but the manufacturer also helps you take advantage of video capabilities. Because of this, a feature has been added to the phone that we have not been able to encounter so far, and that is the Vlog option. This is a feature that allows you to create cropping images with a variety of effects, saving a lot of software work, and even more time.

Vlog effects:

These are terribly good things, but not even the best on the phone, but the fact that this mobile is what is closest to use in terms of a real camera, in fact, in many cases, is much better than a camera. Why?

You can choose hand-held cameras from traditional cameras, or ones that are made with a larger, high-zoom, but non-interchangeable lens. For the former, the limited zoom function is a limitation, and for the latter, the optics will be distorted, producing a visibly disturbing barrel effect in close-ups. There is only one remedy for this, the more serious, replaceable lens machines. However, on the one hand it is not a cheap pastime, on the other hand it is a very maceric thing to carry a photographer's bag with us everywhere.

The Xiaomi Mi Note 10 point is therefore a great solution, because it already beats the cheaper handheld machines in terms of quality, and we also have several cameras and more lenses, which are all suitable for taking pictures in their field.

The Mi Note 10's camera and camera system allows us to really use the phone like a regular photo camera. There’s no subject that’s too far away, thanks to the great zoom, and in fact, we don’t have to panic if an indoor photo doesn’t have enough detail in the photo, because when we switch to the wide-angle camera, we feel like we’ve taken a step back, and the field of view would widen.

So photography and video recording are error-free, and even better. Fortunately, there is no shortage in any other way.

If someone sees the Note 10 in our hands, they will be sure to see a high-end, premium phone. Fortunately, it’s not just the appearance, we who use the phone also feel that way. The well-known Xiaomi quality is the curved AMOLED display, the strong hardware that allows smooth use to form a unit that would make anyone lick all ten fingers.

In addition, we really only icing on the cake, that due to the huge battery, under normal use, a 3-4 day battery life is guaranteed. Of course, don't have any doubts, for the first time, like me, you will be happy for the two days, because you will not be able to stop pushing the phone, testing and trying the cameras.

Other things, like great navigation and a plethora of sensors, have really been evidence of a Xiaomi phone, so I don’t think there’s anything to write about that. I wrote above that the sound is just mono, but let’s have no doubts, this is the case with at least 90 percent of the phones currently on the market, the only difference being that they put a second speaker grille on the house as if there were stereo speakers in the device.

However, we cannot complain about the sound of Xiaomi Mi Note 10. The sound of the built-in, above-average speaker on the front of the phone can be said to be distinctly full, and there is no problem with the volume either. The huge, beautiful color display makes the mobile perfect for multimedia use, and the Snapdragon 730G central unit makes it suitable for running games due to the increased graphics performance.

Summary

It is terribly difficult to finish an article like this. I keep coming up with more and more things that should be written into it, but the text is already starting to get incredibly long, so I have to force myself and command my hand to stop.

What can I write as a summary? On the one hand, the only thing I miss about this cell phone is wireless charging. This is somewhat offset by the huge battery, which, for example, doesn’t even have a few hours of Waze or video, but still lacks cable. But that’s the only drawback, as we get everything from a brutally good camera, through a lavish display to NFC.

Now, after weeks of measurable use, it has also been decided that poor Xiaomi MIX 3 should go, and the Mi Note 10 will remain with me as my primary phone. It was solely and exclusively decided by the photographic skills that took me off my feet and convinced me that I took more advantage of the photographic and video skills than the beauty of the ceramic backing (MIX 3).

What I haven’t talked about yet is the price of the phone. I mentioned that it is much cheaper than mobile phones with a similar capability, which was solved by a completely reasonable slimming of the central unit. The original price of the phone was $ 599, at least on paper, because from the first minutes it had a $ 182 coupon that allowed us to add it to the cart for $ 217. However, thanks to the 100 promotions and Black Friday, this price fell further, to $ 499,99, which is HUF 11.11 at today's dollar-forint exchange rate. Of course, this is also a coupon price, but as always, we will now reveal the code that can be used to obtain the Xiaomi Note 427,99 at such a price.

I can only hope that you got answers to all the questions from the article, but due to the multi-layered nature of the topic, you were sure of what was left out. Feel free to ask in the comments, I will try to answer all the questions. For sure, if you’re looking for the best camera phone in the world at the lowest possible price, you’ve found it!

If you want to know for yourself the phone with the best camera system in the world, the GBXMNT10BF You can purchase it using the coupon code at the link below (the coupon can be used for all three colors):

Xiaomi Mi Note 10 6GB RAM 128GB ROM - Coupon code: GBXMNT10BF - HUF 182 instead of HUF 217