Vivo has stepped up its flagship game with the new Vivo iQOO. The phone takes on one of the best value for money flagships right now, the Xiaomi Mi 9. Both are capable smartphones and on paper, they have solid cameras too. Well, Mi 9’s camera is certified to be one of the best with DxOMark placing it in the Top 5 Smartphone Cameras in the market.

So, how does Vivo iQOO compare with this highly rated camera flagship from Xiaomi?

Let’s find out in this Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Vivo iQOO camera comparison.

Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Vivo iQOO: Outdoor Camera Comparison

Once you go above a certain price segment, most smartphones have excellent outdoor camera performance. So, it wasn’t surprising to see both Xiaomi Mi 9 and Vivo iQOO do well outdoors.

Their cameras managed to capture a lot of details as well as colors in well-lit conditions.

But the Xiaomi Mi 9 has a slight advantage when it comes to details in daylight photos. Plus, there’s a dedicated 48MP camera mode which ensures it does better than iQOO. Further, Mi 9 tends to take pictures with real-life colors, unlike iQOO’s samples which had higher saturation.

For example, take this photograph of the street. iQOO’s sample is brighter, but Mi 9’s sample offers slightly more details.

Another good case for comparison would be of the TMALL building photograph.

In this particular case, I would actually pick iQOO’s sample over Mi 9 because the colors came out really well. Mi 9’s sample looks a bit washed out. However, in the 48MP mode on the Mi 9, the phone managed to capture a good amount of detail. It does come at a cost though, the resulting image was of 17Mb as compared to iQOO’s 4.5Mb file. Honestly, there isn’t a significant difference in the amount of details for such a size difference in its 48MP mode.

So, it’s not like Mi 9’s camera came out significantly better than iQOO’s camera in outdoor photography. But in general, if you look at the details and colors (closer to real life), the Mi 9 seems to have done slightly better.

Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Vivo iQOO: Indoor Camera Comparison

However, when the lights go down, Vivo seems to do better on most occasions. Vivo has a warmer tint to its samples and sometimes the tint helps the colors to pop out well. In low light, there were cases when the shots were sharper on the Vivo model.

For example, in the picture of the mall at 150 percent crop, it’s clear that iQOO managed to retain better details than the Mi 9. Even in the image of the bowl with food in it, I prefer iQOO’s sample because it’s much cleaner. Mi 9 has some noise in that sample.

• RELATED: Vivo iQOO vs Xiaomi Mi 9: Why I would prefer iQOO over Xiaomi’s new flagship

Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Vivo iQOO: Night Photography

Xiaomi Mi 9 was good at controlling exposures at night. iQOO didn’t do so well. But when it comes to details, iQOO seems to have a slight edge over Mi 9. We could see that the Vivo model captured slightly better details on most occasions. This was evident in the picture with multiple shops and street signs.

But the difference is not really significant. So, it could end up being a personal preference. For me, Vivo’s night mode samples were slightly better than Mi 9.

Xiaomi Mi 9 vs Vivo iQOO Portrait and Selfies

In this particular department, I feel the Vivo iQOO does better than the Mi 9. The portraits had stronger blur than its Xiaomi rival and overall, samples from the Vivo phone came out very well.

And thanks to its warmer tones, iQOO does well in selfies too. In fact, even details from its 12MP camera were better than Mi 9’s 20MP shooter up front.

Overall, I feel Mi 9 does pretty well when there’s ample lighting. But Vivo iQOO gets a slight edge when the lights go down, especially when it comes to the amount of detail in each sample. Mi 9’s samples often had a lot of noise, which is the main reason why I preferred iQOO’s low-light samples.

But in general, both the phones performed really well.

Check out the full-size samples from Vivo iQOO and Xiaomi Mi 9 here. Let us know which one do you prefer.

Buy Links: Get Xiaomi Mi 9 on Giztop, GearBest, Banggood, GeekBuying

Get Vivo iQOO on Giztop, Banggood, GeekBuying, GearVita

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