Testing the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra camera and its secret tech - Android

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra boasts a number of new camera innovations, but does it actually take decent photographs?

The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is a powerhouse of a handset. The phone contains a number of interesting new features, including crazy-fast 120W charging and a host of new camera features in its quad-lens setup. Unfortunately, the phone is only available in China — at least for now — but we managed to get our hands on one. Today we’re going to take a closer look at the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra camera and some of its impressive capabilities.

Xiaomi hasn’t been shy with boasting about all of the Mi 10 Ultra’s various photography accomplishments. Among these features include 8P-lenses, a large 1/1.32-inch sensor, something called a dual-native ISO Fusion circuit, and single-frame progressive HDR. Sounds fascinating, but it’s even more interesting to see what this camera tech can actually do in practice. We’ve put the handset through its paces to see what difference the new camera setup makes — if any.

See also: The best Android camera phones you can get

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra camera specs

Before we get into the samples, below is a table that gives us a closer look at how the Mi 10 Ultra camera specs compare to its competitors.

Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra	Xiaomi Mi Note 10	Huawei P40 Pro	Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
48 MP, f/1.9 aperture, 1/1.32" sensor, 1.2µm pixels	108MP, f/1.7 aperture, 1/1.33" sensor, 0.8µm pixels	50 MP, f/1.9 aperture, 1/1.28" sensor, 1.22µm pixels	108 MP, f/1.8 aperture, 1/1.33" sensor, 0.8µm pixels
5x periscope zoom 48 MP, f/4.1 aperture, 1/2.0" sensor, 0.8µm pixels	5x telephoto zoom 8MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1.0µm pixels	5x periscope zoom 12MP, f/3.4 aperture	4x periscope zoom 48 MP, f/3.5 aperture, 1/2.0" aperture, 0.8µm pixels
wide-angle 20MP, f/2.2 aperture, 1/2.8" sensor, 1.0µm pixels	wide-angle 20MP, f/2.2 aperture, 1/2.8" sensor, 1.0µm pixels	wide-angle 40MP, f/1.8 aperture, 1/1.54" sensor	wide-angle 12 MP, f/2.2 aperture, 1.4µm pixels
2x telephoto zoom 12MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1/2.55" sensor, 1.4µm pixels	2x telephoto zoom 12MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1/2.55" sensor, 1.4µm pixels	Time-of-flight	Time-of-flight

A quick look at general quality

For a comparison point, we have the company’s previous photography flagship, the Mi Note 10. This was the first phone boasting a 108MP main sensor and — just like the Mi 10 Ultra currently does — previously topped DxOMark’s rankings for a short period. To gain a general perspective, we also compared the handset to the excellent Huawei P40 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus.

To start, the Mi 10 Ultra boasts a reasonably large 48MP 1/1.32 inch main image sensor with large 1.2µm pixel sizes. That’s not far off from the Huawei P40 Pro’s 1/1.28-inch sensor and is right around the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra’s 108MP 1/1.33-inch sensor, but with larger pixels. In theory, this lends itself to high levels of light capture and detail. Especially in combination with the f/1.9 aperture lens and 8P lens, and the default option to use pixel-binning to combine pixel data for brighter 12MP snaps.