Xiaomi took the tech industry by storm when it unveiled the Mi MIX Alpha concept smartphone in China towards the end of September. If the 2016 Mi Mix was a spectacular product, the Mix Alpha will leave you awestruck as a result of its spectacular design, immersive dual-screen and powerful specs lineup. The Mix Alpha also stood out in the camera department, packing a triple camera setup that includes a 108MP main camera.
The first samples shot by the Mix Alpha camera have just been released on Weibo. The samples were shot during the National Day parade to mark China’s independence and were shared by Xiaomi’s CFO Shou Zi Chew. If the camera samples are anything to go by, then the camera setup may not be one of the Mix Alpha’s strongest selling points. The samples are anything but impressive.
The Mi MIX Alpha holds the record as the world’s first smartphone to feature a 100MP+ resolution camera sensor. This is made possible by using the Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX 108MP camera sensor with a 1/1.33″ sensor size. The HMX’s large 1/1.33-inch sensor size allows it to capture more light than smaller sensors so it’s able to produce sharp photos with rich details even in low-light conditions deploying the process called pixel binning. That allows the sensor to combine pixels so four pixels act as a single larger pixel. The process reduces the pixel size of a photo from 108MP to 27MP but improves low-light performance.
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The camera samples look slightly blurry as if the light exposure is too high. Perhaps, that is because the sensor can perform best under low light conditions and not in bright light. But it two samples are not enough to evaluate the camera prowess even though we expect better from a phone that is priced over $2K.
Still talking of the camera configuration, the Mi Mix Alpha’s second sensor is a 12MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom and the third, a 20MP ultra-wide-angle camera lens with 117° FOV. This setup also supports 1.5cm macro photography. Other features of the setup include a four-axis OIS, Laser focus, and a flicker sensor. There is no selfie camera but you can flip the rear camera and use the rear display as a viewfinder for selfies.
Hopefully, we can get some professional shots and independent review of the Mi Mix Alpha’s camera sometime soon. Since the device is the first phone to use Samsung’s ultra-large 108MP sensor, there is no phone camera sample to compare it with. But there are several phones with smaller camera sensors that give better camera outputs. Perhaps, the mantra that bigger isn’t always better holds true here?
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