Xiaomi’s 108-megapixel beast comes to Europe as Mi Note 10

A day after launching the Mi CC9 Pro in China, Xiaomi has followed up with the European launch of (roughly) the same device, called the Mi Note 10. 

The specs between the two are identical, but the versions you get in Europe are slightly different than the ones you get in China, as is the price, so it’s worth taking a second look at what, exactly, Xiaomi’s new flagship has to offer. 

The Xiaomi Mi Note 10 has a 6.47-inch AMOLED display that’s curved on the sides and has a waterdrop notch on top. The bezels on the top and bottom are fairly small, as is the case with most modern smartphones, but they are there. The display has a 2,340×1,080 pixel resolution and a built-in fingerprint scanner. 

The phone has one of the most impressive (on paper) camera setups, with five rear cameras, with a 108-megapixel wide-angle main lens that collates pixels to create 27-megapixel photos (you can take 108-megapixel photos with an insane 12,032×9,024 pixel resolution if you like). There’s also a 20-megapixel ultra wide lens, a 5-megapixel telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid zoom, a 12-megapixel telephoto lens for portrait photos that can do 2x optical zoom on its own, and a 2-megapixel macro lens. The selfie camera has a 32-megapixel sensor. 

There are a lot of world firsts here, but it’s impossible to say how good Xiaomi’s new camera system really is without testing the phone. 

The phone also has a 5,260mAh battery with 30W fast charging, which should last two days according to Xiaomi. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor (Xiaomi had to reduce costs somewhere), and comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Interestingly, the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

On the software side, Xiaomi Mi Note 10 comes with Android 9 Pie and Xiaomi’s latest MIUI 11 Android skin, which has been redesigned and should be simpler to use than its predecessor. 

The starting price in Europe is 549 euros ($609) — considerably more than its price in China where the phone starts at $400. It’s also worth noting that the Premium Edition of the phone, which sports a more advanced lens in front of the 108-megapixel sensor as well as 8/256GB of memory, isn’t available right now, but should come at a later date with the Mi Note 10 Pro moniker. The price for that variant hasn’t been announced. 

In China, Xiaomi also launched an Apple Watch-like smartwatch called the Mi Watch, but didn’t mention if it was coming to Europe.