Galaxy S20 Ultra camera comparison

108MP comparison: Galaxy S20 Ultra vs. Xiaomi Mi Note 10

Before the release of the Galaxy S20 family, we were musing about the 108MP sensor's pros and cons, and we were wondering how it would compare to the only other such phone available at the time, the Xiaomi Mi Note 10. Well, now that we have both at the office, we made an impromptu comparison.

As you can see in the balcony blinds shots, each phone has its own distinct issues with handling detail at a level that clashes with its demosaicking algorithms. The Galaxy is particularly at a loss with what to do with the patterns as it needs to stretch further across its pixel array to find the same color from which it can approximate what the resulting image should look like. And even its best approximation still doesn't look true-to-life.

The Xiaomi, meanwhile, with its Quad Bayer filter array, can better interpret such patterned detail. It too has artifacts, however - speckles of white in the middle of what should be solid black holes, or black lines joining two openings in the panels, where you know it should be white. In any case - a much better rendition of detail by the Xiaomi.

Tip: On a desktop web browser, you can compare any two camera samples on this page fullscreen by using the icon on the bottom right of each set of images.

108MP, scene 1: Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10

There's hardly a clear winner in the castle shot. We can't see more detail in the clock or in the mural, in either image. The borders of the tiny cells that comprise the mural are barely defined too. Having said that, the Samsung shot has slightly more pronounced aliasing jaggies along the diagonal lines on the roof. Once again, it's likely the Xiaomi's closer-spaced like-colored pixels that help it better smooth out these lines.

108MP, scene 2: Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10

Looking at the images from the third scene, we can split some hairs to say that maybe the crane lattices are better defined in the Xiaomi shot.

108MP, scene 3: Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10

Down below, you can have a look at the images the two phones put out in 'normal' resolution mode - 12MP on the Galaxy (9-to-1 binning), 27MP on the Mi Note 10 (4-to-1). Predictably, with more than twice the resolution, the Xiaomi's shot are more detailed.

Demosaicked: Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10 • Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10 • Galaxy S20 Ultra • Mi Note 10

Final words

Our early assessment of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra's camera has us cautiously excited but also underwhelmed - about equal parts of those. We didn't expect it to be capable of doing 100x zoom and it really isn't, not even close - so why the stupid branding? On top of that, it's unpleasantly, but also predictably, somewhat handicapped when doing the 2x zoom most folks coming from other phones would be used to.

On the other hand, we are getting pretty solid zoom capabilities in the much more interesting 4x-5x region. Even more importantly, these extend into the night as well. A quick comparison against possibly the only other mainstream 5x competitor at the time, the Huawei P30 Pro, had the Ultra run pretty much unopposed in low light.

We have a ton more photos to analyze - this article doesn't even begin to touch on portraits and selfies, and you may have noticed there isn't a single video on these pages. Battery testing is also in progress, and we can't really shed any light on that right now. The full review should be coming soon, though, so stay tuned.