The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro and Mi Note Review
by Joshua Ho on September 11, 2015 9:00 AM ESTStill Image Performance
Now that we’ve discussed some of the basic aspects of the camera system in the Xiaomi Mi Note line, we can begin to look at how this all translates to real-world camera performance. In order to do this, we run our standard suite of camera tests which should give a good feel for what camera performance is like when variables such as hand shake and inconsistent camera positioning are removed from the equation.
Xiaomi Mi Note
Xiaomi Mi Note Pro
Our first test is the ISO chart test, which is designed to provide an absolute test of peak spatial detail. This is a controlled lighting test, which should help to reduce potential confounding factors. In the case of the Xiaomi Mi Note line, we can actually see the difference in detail compared to the Galaxy S6 as the Mi Note appears to retain much more detail along the edges of the photo relative to the Galaxy S6 and other smartphones with larger sensors and wider apertures. Detail at the center of the photo is also strongly retained but it seems Xiaomi might be sharpening a bit aggressively as the circle in the center is rather jagged instead of smooth and round. Both horizontal and vertical detail is well retained though, all the way up to the 20 line mark. We can also see some evidence of haloing around the high contrast detail, which is rather distracting and is indicative of strong sharpening effects.
Mi Note
Mi Note Pro
In this basic daytime landscape shot we can see a few potential problems already with the Mi Note camera processing. Although the details are mostly correct, looking at the trees in the distance it's quite obvious that noise suppression is strongly suppressing fine details in order to try and make sure images don't have any noise. The tree in the center of the frame has this strange effect where details inside of the leaves are mostly smudged away but the edges have very high contrast, which creates an odd effect and suggests artificial sharpening. The Mi Note also clearly has far too aggressive noise reduction here as it basically looks like the Mi Note Pro photo but with an AA filter applied. However, for the most part that's all that I have to criticize here. Given that a number of flagship smartphones have shipped with shockingly poor post-processing even in daytime scenes, I'm impressed by how the Mi Note and Mi Note Pro give at least respectable results here.
Mi Note
Mi Note Pro
In low light we really start to see the weaknesses of the Mi Note Pro and Mi Note. Despite the use of OIS, both devices are underexposing significantly and there's just far too much luminance noise reduction going on here. However, once again, that's all the real criticism I have for these phones. Obviously, something like the Galaxy S6 shows far more detail and better exposure in this scene, but there are significant purple hues present in areas that should be black instead of purple, and when looking closely at the Galaxy S6 photo the severe sharpening effects really make it a bit unnatural and gritty. The iPhone 6 Plus is the winner here by virtue of larger pixel size and a lot of software magic to hide the 1/4 second exposure so moving cars appear to be relatively sharp instead of a complete blur, but Xiaomi could easily be in the race for best smartphone camera within a single product cycle of work.
Overall, the Xiaomi Mi Note camera isn't amazing, but it's far from terrible. In daytime situations photo quality is actually already very good, but with some minor post-processing issues that could be resolved with a single OTA update. At night time, with some processing improvements and perhaps higher sensor gain the Mi Note line could start to be compared to the iPhone as well. This doesn't sound all that impressive, but it really is because this is the first phone in this price point where I can even begin to compare the camera to flagship smartphones.
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prisonerX - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Why would anyone care about that?Did you just discover that China is a communist/authoritarian?
sonny73n - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - link
WTF is wrong with you people? Is capitalist better than communist? How about Saudi Arabia - our "ally"? Stop mixing politic and nationality with tech. FYI more than 80% of products in the U.S. are made in China that included the beloved iPhone. Oh iPhone which costs ~$210 to make but priced at $650. How's that capitalism for you? So please keep the politic bs and racial comments at CNN, Fox or whatever fake news site you like. This is a tech site for God's sake.Yaru - Sunday, October 4, 2015 - link
I'm not a big fan of the a Chinese government and some of their internet policies.......but so what? It's a review of a product not some geopolitical analysis.Also while it's nowhere near the same level, the US government DO give subsidies companies (though tech industry isn't one of them). All goventments gives out subsidies to one degree or another.
Also, where do you think a lot of tech companies manufacturer their products? Those savings from the cheap labor, where do the profits goes? Back to US tech companies.
Penti - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link
I don't see what's up with all the whining, these devices are not sold in Europe by retailers and distributors or by operators. Through their sales in China it's one of the big five brands though. Nobody whines when it comes to Oppo or OnePlus reviews.soccerballtux - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
'for those who don't spend their whole lives reading about this'--LOLanother good review, thanks. impressive phone...bit worried about where my data gets stored (Chinese Clouds are polluted with government eyes), no microSD, and thankfully this doesn't have NFC or Qi so I'm less tempted to purchase, but wow does that have a refined look or what...
Penti - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
I only saw local and Google as options in the pics. I'm pretty sure you can use it without a MI account, and thus nothing syncing to the "MI Cloud".BMNify - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Mi cloud is opt-in and Xiaomi has migrated its Mi cloud servers to Singapore and India for the International customers and it is handled by Amazon Web Services, here is the link to AWS itself talking about Mi cloud: https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/xiao...Penti - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
I'm pretty sure they have removed the option to sync app data to MI Cloud any how. No need to sync contacts, calendar or photos to the Mi Cloud if you don't want to either.aces170 - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
AT nice to see a review of a xiaomi phone, with the usual in depth perspective. You do have a lot of readers here in India, and we are glad you covered for the region. I don't understand the north American contempt for anything Chinese, especially since everything they use is made in China. Xiaomi is a good brand so far, as Joshua pointed out having the attention to detail that is lacking in Android world. I think you could have covered the audio bit more in detail as note pro shines in that department.Margalus - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
Most of it was not contempt for anything Chinese. Most of the complaining is simply because you have read thru lots of pages of details and reviews before you find out that this phone will not work with any carrier in the USA. That is the problem. Somebody asked for them to put a sentence in saying this at the beginning and then the comments fill up with arrogant Europeans screaming about "muricans" and their entitlement attitude. This is, and always was an American website. So if they start reviewing things that won't work in America, it's pretty simple to just say that at the beginning so that people don't waste their time reading about something that they can't use.They can also do the same if they review something for America that won't work in Europe or Asia so that people from those areas don't have to waste their time if they don't want to.