Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra vs Galaxy S21 Ultra: Camera Comparison! By PhoneArena

This is the Xiaomi 11 ultra, and it looks crazy, some call it ugly. Others may like it. There is even a tiny screen built inside the camera bump, but more on that in a moment. What I noticed as I was looking at this phone, is a strange feeling that Xiaomi just looked at the galaxy s21 ultra very closely and tried very, very hard to make their phone look just a bit better in every regard. Now the similarities are uncanny.6.8-inch screen on the galaxy same on the Xiaomi but brighter and with a faster sample rate. Then you have a 5 000 William hour battery on the galaxy and well the same on the Xiaomi, but with much faster charging and yes, a charger included in the box and then the cameras, big camera bump on the galaxy or gigantic one on the Xiaomi.

And then you have 100 times max zooming on the galaxy there. You have it 120 times in the Xiaomi. Now the galaxy still has two zoom cameras versus just one on the Xiaomi, but the new contender has a 20 larger sensor on the main camera and a bunch of tricks up its sleeve. Anyway, you don't win a camera war by just listing specs and numbers and make no mistake. This is a camera war.

So, let's see if the Xiaomi can actually take better pictures and not just look the part- and this is video recording with the front cameras on both the Xiaomi mi 11 ultra and the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra to ultra phones. Indeed, and let's see what the front camera is capable of now in terms of video quality, the galaxy can record in 4k and the Xiaomi can record only in 1080p with the front camera. But I don't think that's a huge deal, but I'm more interested is the colors, and you can see the dynamic range, at least in my viewfinder is much better on the galaxy. You can see the skies, and you have a slightly wider view, which is useful for videos like this one, where you want to include more in the frame and when it comes to selfies. It feels like Xiaomi just forgot about the front camera.

While the galaxy takes front camera photos with a ton of detail and beautiful colors images from the Xiaomi come out washed and kind of dull also take a closer look at those details. The photo from the galaxy is super sharp, while the Xiaomi well yeah. Not great here is the moment hover where on the Xiaomi, you can do this and take selfies with the rear cameras. Yes, this is a bit of a cheat, but it can work out just perfect for selfies. The quality is well main.

Camera quality, it's great, and you can also use the ultrawide camera with the help of that tiny screen and get a picture of a whole room full of people. Of course, you can also do the same with the galaxy just without actually seeing what you're shooting, so that's kind of hard. Now Xiaomi really could have done a lot more with this tiny rear screen on the back, for example, you cannot use it in video recording mode now. You can technically record a 15. Second short video clip in photo mode.

That's a bit of a cheat and also a huge missed opportunity for Xiaomi. But if we go back to round one of this battle, which is just the front cameras, well, the galaxy wins it just because Xiaomi messed up the front camera, but let's get to the main course shall we and by the way, if you enjoyed this video, a sub to the channel would be just ultra anyway, switching over to the main camera, and you get pictures like these first notice how the Xiaomi has a tiny bit wider lens than the already very wide one on the galaxy. So it fits a bit more in the frame, but also colors are definitely more vibrant and saturated on the galaxy, while the colors on the Xiaomi just look a bit bleaker consistently. Sometimes that actually works to Xiaomi's favor. Here is the galaxy image with that blue sky just looks fake, or this photo here with the pink clouds also looks fake, but these are usually the exception and more often this vibrant galaxy look is what most people would prefer over the bleaker colors from the Xiaomi.

So next up night photos. These are always a challenge and I notice you almost always get brighter photos on the Xiaomi, probably because it automatically uses longer exposure way more often than the galaxy. For example. In this photo, the galaxy saw just enough light to capture a regular photo, while the Xiaomi fired up a long exposure which resulted in this super bright, but also slightly fake photo. Now you can get a similar result with the galaxy.

If you manually switch to the night mode, the phone will also record a long exposure and a brighter shot, but I would say that in this case, that's not necessarily needed, and the more natural and darker photo from the galaxy actually looks better here anyway. Here are a few other night photos. The Xiaomi almost always captured the long exposure brighter photo while the galaxy rarely did it captured photos quicker, but they looked a bit darker. The differences overall in knight photography are not huge, but I would give a slight edge to the galaxy for its overall better judgment here and if we sum up around two being just the main camera it has to go to the galaxy. It just has the better colors all around alright.

Next up, we have the ultra-wide cameras, while both carry the name ultra-wide they're, actually different in their ultra less. The Xiaomi has a 12 millimeter ultra-wide lens versus a 14 millimeter one on the galaxy, and that might not sound like a big difference, but trust me it is you get to have more in frame, and everything looks just a bit more epic, in my view, on the Xiaomi, and that is a big advantage. Yes, sometimes it also means more distortion, as you can see on this picture right here. Also, if you look closer you'll notice, how detailed at the center is sharp and clean and nice, but it gets a bit blurry at the edge of the photo. That's what you get with such an ultra-wide camera, but just having this extra wide look to me, it's worth it and a win in and of itself and here's the thing with the Xiaomi: it's just not as consistent.

Sometimes it would have great photos and other times images would be too dark, like the photo of my buddy Theo, doing the handstand here and speaking of the ultra-wide camera. Both phones also use it for macro shots, but here the galaxy can get much closer and actually gives you better detail at night. However, the ultrawide camera on the galaxy really struggles. It's noisy everything at the edges of the photos looks blurry, while the Xiaomi has much cleaner details and photos, look noticeably better. So it's hard to pick a definite winner for this ultra-wide camera round, but the wider look on the Xiaomi and its better low light performance, give it the edge so round.

Three goes this way. The next round is dedicated to zooming, and here Xiaomi wants you to think that it has the upper hand with 120 times maximum zoom level versus just 100 times on the galaxy. Well, that sounds good until you look at the actual quality of the photos and well. The truth is that you actually get a lot more detail on the galaxy and that's not surprising. The Xiaomi has five times, periscope zoom camera, and it has to work a lot harder to get those long range zooms, while the galaxy has both a 3x zoom and a 10x zoom cameras for clear detail throughout not just this, but with the latest update the 3x zoom camera on the galaxy now does double duty as an amazing portrait lens.

It's actually close to that 85 millimeter focal length that is considered perfect for professional portraits. The Xiaomi, on the other hand, does not have this option. It just has one portrait mode option, it's not quite as versatile. So if you shoot a lot of portrait photos, the galaxy is the better choice now back to just zooming at exactly five times zoom. The Xiaomi does look a bit better.

It has that native lens, but for most elves this round is an easy win for the galaxy and especially so for video is you can zoom up to 20 times and still get a stable and good-looking recording with just a phone in your hand, no extra stabilization equipment. So speaking of video, that's our next round. So here are all the options on the table.8K video recording on both 4k60 again on both optical image, stabilization, the main and telephoto cameras on both phones check, check, check and in terms of dynamic range, at least in the viewfinder. The galaxy seems to do a slightly better job, with more blue in the skies and more pleasing colors. But let's see how that looks after the recordings is done and in terms of just video stabilization, both seem to do a pretty solid job in terms of video stabilization.

Both do a great job with the default option, but you also get a super. Steady mode for that walking on air look, however, be warned that on both phones, this feature actually uses the ultrawide camera, so the quality of the videos- yes, it's more stable, but it also drops significantly, and I wouldn't recommend using it in low light at night. However, the Xiaomi takes the lead in video recording with clean, looking sharp videos, while recordings on the galaxy often turn out very noisy. So overall, it's hard to call this round. Both are excellent, but not perfect, and I would have to say it's a draw.

Okay and it's time for the final round, where I tell you about all the cool little gimmicks and tricks that both these phones have. The galaxy has portrait video mode which blurs the background in real time, looks really cool, and you don't get this on the Xiaomi. But then the Xiaomi can record an incredible 1920 frames per second slow motion versus half that speed on the galaxy and think that it just stops time. Xiaomi is the perfect phone to capture slow motion videos but then the galaxy it has single take which captures a bunch of different pictures and videos with just a single press of the shutter key. So at the end of the day, the gimmicks they're different.

So it's a draw it's hard to compare them directly. So it's time to draw that proverbial line in the sand and see if the Xiaomi mi 11 ultra can really match the galaxy s21 auto. Is it the galaxy s21 ultra killer well round one for the front. Camera was an easy win for the galaxy round. Two for the main camera also went to the galaxy for his better overall color round.

Three for the outright camera, however, went to the Xiaomi, but then the galaxy again came up on top in round four for zooming. Well, the last two rounds were too close to call for either one, so they both got half a point that makes a score of four to two in favor of the galaxy which wins this camera comparison. So, if you ask me, what's the most versatile camera that you can get right now, I'll still have to point you towards the galaxy with little hesitation. However, I have to say that I really enjoyed using the Xiaomi mi 11 ultra, its thinner body, was more comfortable to handle and use its ceramic design felt a bit more premium, and it overall felt just a bit zippier than the galaxy plus. It offers double the storage at the same price.

So if you're not dead set on the camera, I think it's worth considering the Xiaomi, and that would do it for this comparison. Let me know which one you think won this camera battle and which one of these two would you pick and if you enjoyed this now's the time to smash that like button and subscribe to the channel. If you want to see more such videos, my name is Vic. This is phone arena. Thanks for sticking around, and I'll see you in the next one you.

Source : PhoneArena