The smartphone with the crazy camera: We tested Miyomi's Mi Note 10

Photo: Walla system! NEWS, Lego Fellow

• TECH
• Reviews

Shiomi launched a mid-range smartphone with no less than 108 megapixels, which is said to be the best photo smartphone on the market. With a lot of expectations, a Lego colleague took the smartphone to the test, returning with particularly surprising impressions

Lego colleague

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Along the way, Shiumi's past two years have been astonishing: the move from a Chinese smartphone maker, considered cheap and marginal, has become a superpower and, along with a number of other companies, has become the largest shake-up in the mobile market in the last decade. Prices have crashed and performance has improved year by year, and with the end of the year, you can only look from the sidelines as Shioumi increases its market share here in Israel, as it is already the third largest in terms of usage, with only Samsung and Apple ahead. But the company does not only concentrate on the mid-market smartphone, or the flagship, but also on conceptual devices and boundary examinations that can be extended to various aspects - whether in photography or on screens with the Mi Mix series. The Mi Note 10 was launched globally last month and is among the first devices on the market to come with a 108 megapixel photo sensor. On paper, the smartphone has all the potential to be the strongest we have seen so far. Have we finally found the undisputed king of the smartphone world on the smartphone?

The Hi-Mi Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego)

Highlights of Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla System! NEWS)

Elegant design alongside excellent screen

Aside from the Mi Mix series, which will always be remembered as the best design series, I can easily crown the Note 10 the most beautiful smartphone the company produces. He has no special gimmicks or coatings that change color according to the light rays, and instead he expresses the most elegant and clean design of his brothers. His uniqueness, in fact, is reflected in the transparency of his back made of glass, which, with great sadness, also brings out the dirt of his fingerprints. Each section was reduced and rounded to form a type of pearl, and although the aluminum frame was reduced to as small a thickness as possible, it is still very easy to grip and use. He obviously feels prestigious, and although he's not a smartphone advocate by definition, it's hard to put it at first glance - and isn't that what everyone wants? The only and noticeable (physical) disadvantage, is the camera lens that refuses to allow it to be flat on the table. True, this is the case with many other smartphones, but the Note 10 is something quite noticeable.

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On the front is a 6.47-inch screen, completely borderless except for a very thin "chin" at the bottom, which you won't even notice at first glance. The screen comes with a FullHD + Amoled panel, the latest Gorilla glass coating 5 and not the latest 6, along with HDR10 support with a high brightness of 600 nit. I've already talked about the missing screens of my time, but I'm happy to announce that they learned and recalibrated the panel. The colors are still saturated, as befits the Amoled screen, but now it's milder and more accurate. Photos and videos look great, with great contrast and all the sharpness you'll ever need from a smartphone. At the top of the panel you will also find the front camera in the "drop" configuration, which does not occupy much of the screen surface. And despite my dislike of convex screens due to the constant reading of false clicks, the screen offers a rather delicate curve. Along with the design, these are the two biggest virtues. However, it is important to note that the screen only comes at a refresh rate of 60 Hz, while the rest of the new smartphones on the market already offer higher refresh rates of 90 Hz and 120 Hz. The difference between one such screen and another is very significant, so it's a shame that Shioumi didn't add it here.

The Hi-Mi Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego)

Highlights of Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla System! NEWS)

Intermediate smartphone hardware with new interface

Under the hood you can find the Snapdragon 730G chipset. It is by no means the most advanced or powerful in the market, but it does the work of daily use. Alongside it is 6 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of expandable storage and even a dedicated sound processor to support the headset connection at the bottom. Yes, you heard it right: connecting headphones. Who knew it was another thing nowadays. The device, similar to the company's Mi 9T, represents a hybrid between an intermediate smartphone and a flag from the low processor series. But don't let that fool you, as it delivers a performance very close to that of flagship devices, so the experience of not being so different from that of Mi 9 for example. You will not be able to perform a high number of tasks at the same time, but in normal use, you are not likely to see any significant changes at all. And as far as the battery is concerned, well, it's a monstrous 5,260-millimeter volume. However, the device cannot survive beyond a day and a half of use, but it does offer a quick charge from zero to a hundred in just one hour.

Another improvement that has been credited to my name is the pace of the company's software updates. In fact, most of the smartphones launched in the past year have received software updates for Android 9 Pie, one version before the latest version 10. The Mi Note 10 comes with Android version 9, and the company-made MIUI 11 interface. From update to update I feel how the interface is getting better and easier and more designed. Shiomi offers only the apps that are necessary for ongoing operation and beyond, with the exception of a few games that can be easily removed, making it faster and smoother. And even though it's not a clean Android version, Xiaomi's interface does the job and the experience is just as positive and uniform as it is with the rest of the company's devices.

Camera

In plain language, "all the cameras in the world" is definitely the way to summarize the photography of the Note 10. Macro, wide lens, 5x optical zoom and standard lens with a dizzying megapixel - there is everything here. The rear photography system includes the 108-megapixel lens for standard photography with f / 1.7 aperture lens, 12-megapixel telephoto lens with f / 2.0 aperture lens, 20-megapixel wide lens with f / 2.2 aperture lens, 5x lens 5 megapixel optical zoom and f / 2.0 aperture key and finally 2 megapixel lens for macro photography with f / 2.4 aperture key. The front lens is 32 megapixels with a f / 2.0 aperture key. Be sure it was exhausting to type.

On the one hand, there are so many options and things to choose from, and on the other hand, not every lens does the maximum to deliver the goods. For example, the 108-megapixel lens manages to produce photos with so much detail - more than any other device I've ever tried - and at the same time, as you move away from the center of the image, it loses everything that makes it unique. The sharpness on the sides is dropping to such a high level that even a two-year-old flag device will be able to deliver a better result. If, on the other hand, you want to focus on something in the center of the frame, you can do so and get a sharpness that doesn't compare to any other image.

The other lenses were just as excellent as the main one. Under good lighting conditions, the images produced by the lenses were uniform and excellent in all criteria. They were sharp, well-lit, and of natural color and not too saturated. In the zoom lens, the images were not distorted, and even in high zoom, the images remained sharp and without much background noise. Macro photography, on the other hand, was not particularly bright, and this is mainly due to the difficulty in taking close-up objects without obstructing natural lighting. Given the Note 10 price tag, it has no competitor in the photography sector.

By contrast, Samsung 11 and Note 10 Plus photos, for example, were better in terms of color and sharpness, but that's a minor difference. The significant difference is reflected only in the poor lighting conditions, but here too, the climax is surprising against all odds with no bad pictures at all, even without the night mode turned on. The sensor on the front of the device manages to produce great images full of detail and also the near-field depth of field, with excellent separation of the face from the background. The only drawback lies in color reproduction, as they are a bit faded in photography even in good lighting conditions.

Photographed on the Miyagio Mi Note 10 108 megapixel lens (Photo: Amit Lego)

Photographed on the Miyagio Mi Note 10's 108 megapixel lens (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla system! NEWS)

Photographed on the Xyomi Mi Note 10 telephoto lens (Photo: Amit Lego)

Photographed on the 5-note telephoto lens of the Miyomi Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla system! NEWS)

You can see the depth of the field and the colors. Photo taken at Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego)

Photo taken at Mi Note 10 (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla system! NEWS)

Photographed on the Miyomi Mi Note 10 Macro Lens (Photo: Amit Lego)

Photographed on the Miyomi Mi Note 10 Macro lens (Photo: Amit Lego, Walla system! NEWS)

Buy for the camera

Buy or not buy? That's the question in the end, and the answer is a bit complex. This is a smartphone with an elegant and beautiful design that does a good job of differentiating itself from the other devices in this category. The screen is excellent and you can definitely see how the panels of Schiumi are improving from model to model, but with great sadness it has a refresh rate of just 60 Hz. Another interface has improved visually, performance is good even though the processor is not the strongest on the market and the battery in astronomical volume for such a device, but it depletes fairly quickly for no apparent reason.

The cameras are excellent, and in fact the best I've ever seen personally in a smartphone from the Chinese manufacturer, but even here it's not quite to the end. The 108-megapixel lens fails to produce a sharp image on all edges, but the main object manages to be very sharp - more than any other device on the market. At the same price you can find the Vanplus 7T, which offers a stronger processor and a better screen, but if the ultimate device for photography is what your soul desires - the high-tech Who Note 10 receives the seal as the leader in the category with a price tag of NIS 2,490.