The Xiaomi Mi Note Pro and Mi Note Review

Still 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.