Xiaomi Mi Note 10 long-term review

Camera

According to the company itself, the point of the Mi Note 10's development was for Xiaomi to have a smartphone that can beat the Huawei P30 Pro in the camera department. And while it's debatable whether the Mi Note 10 achieved that feat, it undoubtedly packs one of the best camera systems on the market right now. Not only that, but it's also the most flexible. Plus it's the first phone to sport a 108MP primary shooter. While it isn't Xiaomi's all-out true flagship right now in all respects, it definitely has the best cameras of any device the company has ever made.

So let's look at what the Mi Note 10 was capable of during the extended amount of time we spent with it. Note that we haven't shot any 108MP photos because while that's an option, cameras with Quad-Bayer filters are not supposed to be used like that. So, like always, we went with the defaults, which for the main cam means a resolution of 27MP.

Let's start with daylight shots coming from the main sensor. These are generally great, with plenty of detail and amazingly low levels of noise. We shot with HDR on Auto and the dynamic range is impressive. Colors are accurate, and overall you really can't go wrong with this camera in adequate lighting conditions.

Daytime samples from the main camera

The ultrawide has autofocus, which is very rare, but the quality of the shots it produces isn't on par with the main sensor (not that we expected it to be). Shots come out underexposed and the colors aren't nearly as accurate. The edge distortion correction works well, but the photos do turn out on the soft side.

Daytime samples from the ultrawide

The 2x zoom camera interestingly produces sharp images that are quite noisy. Colors are good and seem to match those of the 108MP shooter, and dynamic range is adequate, but not on par with the main camera.

Daytime samples from the 12 MP 2x zoom camera

The 5MP 5x zoom camera produces 8MP pictures, because upscaling, but let's ignore that weirdness and see what they look like. While there's clearly a quality hit here compared to using the other cams, OIS helps tremendously with creating shots that aren't blurry, and overall the images are sharp, if rather noisy. The theme of consistent color processing continues, though.

Daytime samples from the 5x zoom camera

The camera app lets you go all the way up to 50x through the magic of digital zoom, but unsurprisingly the results you'll get will be anything but outstanding. We took a few such samples just to let you know what to expect. On one hand, it's amazing that shots like these are even possible on a phone nowadays, on the other hand... Well, take a look for yourself.

50x hybrid/digital zoom

The dedicated macro camera may seem like an odd addition at first, and no one will judge you if you assume this is there just so Xiaomi can claim the Mi Note 10 has five snappers. In reality though, this module allows you to get closer to your intended subject than ever before in a phone, and that has the potential to create some very interesting perspectives. We tried our hand with food shots and plants, and while the quality isn't amazing especially when you go pixel peep, it's an interesting effect. We wish the photos were higher resolution, though, but for now we're stuck with 2MP.

Macro camera samples

When the lights go out, the main sensor churns out very good photos even in Auto mode, with good detail and accurate looking colors. It's not likely you'll need to use Night mode all that much because of how good the regular pictures come out.

Nighttime samples from the main camera

Another reason you might want to stick with auto is that Mi Note 10's Night mode is one of the most subdued we've seen - its improvements are barely visible. It does sometimes help to restore some clipped highlights, but it also seems to lose sharpness and some outright detail, so it's not even a clean win. You should also keep in mind that every Night mode shot makes the camera unavailable for a good 7+ seconds, which alone may outweight the benefits on many occassions.

Night mode

At night the ultrawide really feels stretched, producing underexposed shots that don't have a lot of detail or dynamic range. Autofocus struggles too, so it's best to only use this at night when you really have to have a different perspective. And even then, manage your expectations.

Nighttime samples from the ultrawide

The 2x zoom cam can be used at night up to a point, and its results are sharp and detailed but noisy.

Nighttime samples from the 12 MP 2x zoom camera

If you cross some unknown ambient light threshold, the phone isn't using the 12MP sensor for 2x shots anymore, since it spits out 27 MP images - this means the device is using a crop off the main sensor and then upscaling. Here are some samples.

Nighttime 2x samples cropped from the main sensor

When you try and use the 5x shooter in darker settings, understandably the quality will be far from amazing, but you can still get usable shots, which was more than we expected. Not stuff to have printed, definitely, and don't expect wonderful dynamic range or levels of detail. There's a lot of variance from this cam at night, so while some snaps can be very bad, others are actually decent considering you're zooming that much from a phone.

Nighttime 5x zoom shots

Selfies are good during the day with high dynamic range and accurate colors. The detail levels aren't outstanding, but perfectly passable. If you use Portrait Mode there won't be any HDR processing, and results are satisfying with good subject isolation. At night, unsurprisingly, images turn underexposed and soft and grainy, but with a little bit of attention to your surroundings and ambient lighting you can still come up with some usable shots.

Selfies, day and night, Portrait Mode off/on