Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Okay, so this is the Xiaomi 12S Ultra.
00:05It's a smartphone, sure,
00:07but I think we can all tell it's all about the camera.
00:10I mean, look at this thing.
00:11Almost half the back of the phone
00:13is this massive camera module.
00:15The first 20 pages of their website for this thing
00:18is all camera, camera, camera stuff
00:20before it talks about anything else.
00:21They even have this video on their site
00:24of it morphing from a camera into this phone,
00:26and it has the world's largest
00:28smartphone camera sensor inside.
00:30Can you imagine being the person at a party
00:31where everyone's got their phones?
00:32They're like, hey, we want to take a group picture.
00:33Does anybody have a good smartphone camera?
00:36And you just, yeah, that's, I got it.
00:41I guess what I'm trying to say is
00:42this phone better have a great camera.
00:47So there's been quite a bit of hype
00:49around this brand new Xiaomi 12S Ultra recently,
00:52so I had to give it a shot.
00:53The headline that caught my eye about it
00:55is that it's rocking the world's largest smartphone camera
00:59with a one-inch sensor.
01:00But a couple of funny things about that.
01:02First, one-inch sensors aren't actually one inch.
01:06They're a little smaller than that.
01:07I actually did a video where I talked about that.
01:09I'll break that down down in the description.
01:11I'll have a link below the like button.
01:12You can check it out.
01:13But second, it's not the first smartphone
01:16with a one-inch sensor.
01:17Matter of fact, there's been a couple before,
01:18but it is the first one with Sony's new IMX989 sensor,
01:22which is the first one built for a smartphone camera
01:25rather than repurposing a one-inch sensor
01:28to go into a smartphone.
01:29So it technically beats Samsung to the punch,
01:31who we know they're working on their ISOCELL camera
01:34that's gonna be a one-inch sensor,
01:35probably coming to the Galaxy S23 Ultra sometime next year.
01:39So Xiaomi beat them to the punch.
01:41And as a matter of fact,
01:42that's kind of the whole point of this phone
01:44is to one-up Samsung's Ultra phone
01:47in as many ways as possible
01:49and to slap the same exact name on it.
01:51So, you know, they can do it better.
01:53That's the statement they're making.
01:54So when I got my hands on this phone,
01:55that's when I wanted to find out,
01:56does it actually beat the king of the hill
01:59Galaxy S22 Ultra at its own game?
02:01And most importantly,
02:02is it actually worth it
02:04to have the world's largest smartphone camera?
02:07By the way, it's this one,
02:09not this one in the middle.
02:10That's the ultra wide.
02:11And it's not this bottom one here.
02:13That's the 5X telephoto.
02:14That one.
02:15That one is the world's largest smartphone sensor.
02:19So I've taken quite a few photos and videos
02:21over the past few days,
02:22testing this phone's camera in both normal conditions
02:25and crazy more and more extreme conditions at its limits.
02:29And it turns out, yeah,
02:31this camera is phenomenally capable
02:34and is really, really good very often.
02:37So the 50 megapixel main camera kicks out great detail
02:40and sharpness bending down to 12 and a half megapixels
02:43and has a knack for reeling in exposure,
02:46even in harsh conditions,
02:47taking photos into the sun
02:49and with high dynamic range and all that.
02:51But what I really noticed is two main things
02:54that were S tier that made good photos
02:57really, really good on this phone.
02:59And that's the shutter speed
03:01and the autofocus are consistently really fast
03:04because that huge sensor lets in so much light here.
03:07So for taking pictures of moving objects
03:10like kids and vehicles,
03:12pets sprinting around the studio with endless energy,
03:15all that stuff, it's great.
03:17And that's awesome.
03:18It freezes the action and nails focus very reliably.
03:22And that is super confidence inspiring in a camera.
03:25It also handled low light very well,
03:27which shouldn't surprise me
03:28given the light gathering ability of a huge sensor.
03:30But I did decide to do a little head to head
03:32against the phone it's trying to one up so bad,
03:35Galaxy S22 Ultra.
03:36So I did a blind side-by-side on Twitter.
03:39I should have done a poll,
03:39but just based on reading the replies,
03:42a lot of you guys really did actually prefer
03:44the 12S Ultra shot here,
03:46despite it being more saturated,
03:48mostly because it reeled in the bloom
03:50from the street light better
03:51thanks to better lens coatings, et cetera.
03:54And it still kept all the details
03:55on the rest of the exposure and had very low noise.
03:58You might have noticed the Leica branding
04:00up in the corner on the back of the phone.
04:02They did actually have some help from Leica
04:04on the optics and the coating over the glass
04:07to reduce things like fringing and chromatic aberration.
04:10And it works, great.
04:12But also the color science.
04:14So when you first fire it up,
04:16the phone asks you if you wanna shoot
04:17with Leica authentic look or the Leica vibrant look.
04:22Basically, you can think of them
04:23as the same thing as photographic styles on the iPhone.
04:26The authentic look is a little less saturated
04:28while the vibrant kicks out
04:30a more instantly shareable traditional look.
04:32But neither of them are particularly great to my eye
04:35now that I've shot with both.
04:37So yeah, the typical photo from the 12S Ultra
04:40is a clean and sharp shot with shallow depth of field
04:45for closeup subjects, pretty punchy and saturated usually,
04:48and with a lot of dynamic range.
04:50But here's my hot take on this camera though.
04:53While it isn't perfect,
04:54it has the highest ceiling of any camera
04:59I have ever seen in a smartphone.
05:01So it doesn't always hit, but when it does, it is amazing.
05:06I have two shots I wanna show you
05:07that specifically just make me feel
05:11very strongly about this.
05:12So the first one, I was up on the roof of this building.
05:14There's some plants up there.
05:15It's windy up on the roof.
05:17And so I'm taking a picture of these plants
05:18and they're moving quickly in and out of the frame.
05:22I'm just sort of like pointing and shooting and boom.
05:25The photo I get back is this tack sharp shot
05:29with incredibly shallow depth of field
05:31and this immense dynamic range.
05:33The movement is completely frozen in time.
05:36Like the plants aren't even moving.
05:38I kind of couldn't believe it.
05:39Just seeing how fast the stuff was moving around
05:41in and out of the frame.
05:43It's a shock that autofocus even worked,
05:45but it locked on, it kept it in focus and it nailed it.
05:49And it did it again and again and over and over again.
05:53And then the other one is,
05:54I was at practice the other day,
05:56way out on an island somewhere.
05:57I had put my cleats on.
05:58I was just about to put my phone back in my bag,
06:00but I took a photo of the ground
06:03and just like my cleats on the ground before I got up.
06:06Boom.
06:07And with this one,
06:08this isn't even a particularly difficult
06:11shooting condition, right?
06:12It's not much moving.
06:14It's just a still subject of my feet,
06:16but optically this might be the most impressive photo
06:20I have ever seen come out of a smartphone camera.
06:23Keep in mind, there is no portrait mode here.
06:25This is normal depth of field.
06:27My cleats are tack sharp.
06:29There's a clear shallow depth of field
06:31and you can see the slight roll off of the blur
06:35getting stronger and stronger
06:37the further you go back in the frame
06:39and the exposure and the contrast
06:41and the color of the entire shot are all so nice.
06:44So, it's just a random off-center snap of my feet,
06:48but Jesus, from a phone?
06:50I kind of love this photo.
06:51So, I've said a lot of good things about this camera,
06:53but I also said it wasn't perfect.
06:56So, it's a flagship.
06:57I'm gonna pixel peep
06:58and I'm gonna go through those things too.
06:59It does have some of the more classic weaknesses
07:01of a big sensor smartphone like this.
07:03So, the huge sensor makes for a nice natural depth of field
07:06which we know is awesome.
07:07It's amazing for those mid-range shots
07:08like two to four feet away,
07:09but when you get too close,
07:12it definitely, definitely starts to fringe
07:14like any other smartphone with a huge sensor.
07:16So, you can get close up to a subject and there's real blur,
07:19but often part of the subject is in focus
07:22and then some of it isn't
07:23and the blur is pretty ugly when this happens.
07:25Now, they try to combat this like a lot of others do
07:28by auto switching to macro mode
07:29which comes from the ultra wide camera.
07:32Unfortunately, the ultra wide camera
07:33has a dramatically different look and color science to it.
07:38It just looks so different overall
07:40and in my opinion, it looks worse.
07:42It solves the fringing problem, but yeah, it looks worse.
07:45And then speaking of color science,
07:47it is dramatically inconsistent between the lenses.
07:50You can easily see if you just quickly switch between them
07:53like go from 4.9X to 5.2X,
07:55there's a pretty big difference in color,
07:58in exposure, in contrast, in everything.
08:02And the same thing happens in the ultra wide.
08:04This is a pretty common thing with smartphones,
08:06but it's particularly bad here.
08:08And then the video footage.
08:10The videos are typically pretty good.
08:12You can shoot up to 8K, 24 FPS from any of the lenses
08:15or 4K 30, which looks pretty solid when it hits focus,
08:19especially with that rock solid image stabilization.
08:21But it has this weird bug
08:22and it took me a minute to figure out what was going on
08:25because I'd shot a ton of videos
08:26and I was trying to understand here.
08:29So stay with me, right?
08:29So I go up to the roof again,
08:31I'm taking videos of the skyline and I see a plane
08:34and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna test this feature
08:37where I can switch between all three lenses
08:39while zooming through video.
08:41Cool that you can do that, right?
08:42So I pointed at the plane and I start taking this video
08:46and what I think I'm doing
08:47and what I see in the viewfinder
08:49is I zoom all the way in on the plane
08:51and then I track it across the sky,
08:54perfectly keeping it in the center of the viewfinder.
08:56So imagine my surprise when this is the clip
09:00that comes out of the shot.
09:02It starts by zooming in on the plane,
09:04but then it looks like I fell asleep
09:08while recording or something,
09:09like it totally leaves the frame.
09:11And so I literally just got the shot
09:13and then went and watched it back
09:14and I saw that it wasn't what I thought I had.
09:16I was trying to figure this out.
09:18Turns out what I believe is happening
09:21is as you're smoothly zooming in and out,
09:24switching between the three lenses while recording,
09:27the viewfinder is just smoothly zooming in
09:30on the primary sensor.
09:32And so when it showed me that I was keeping the camera,
09:36keeping the plane in the middle of the frame,
09:38what it was actually doing,
09:40it was switching to the telephoto in the recording.
09:43So you can actually see while watching the footage,
09:45the moment that it switches to the telephoto camera,
09:48which has a slightly different angle to it.
09:50So at the max zoom, that really adds up quite a bit.
09:54So what I'm seeing on the screen
09:55is not what I'm actually recording.
09:58This is something that I think they can fix
09:59pretty easily with software
10:00by just adjusting where the zoom happens,
10:03but it's just an odd, I don't know, it's a quirk.
10:05If you happen to be doing a lot of super zoomed in,
10:08creepy videos of stuff far away,
10:11then you should know that this one might,
10:13you need to calibrate or adjust for it.
10:16But anyway, there's so much more I could go into
10:17with this camera from the optical lens emulation,
10:21from a couple old lenses to all the various modes.
10:24There's a super moon mode and a multi video angle mode,
10:28a whole bunch of other stuff.
10:29But I think the summary with this gigantic camera
10:32on this smartphone is the hits really hit.
10:37It's hit or miss, but the hits hit hard.
10:41It is a fascinating optical experience
10:45shooting with this phone.
10:45The rest of the phone, by the way, is very much ultra.
10:49Like again, they're taking aim directly at Samsung here.
10:52So I'm talking Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip
10:54with 12 gigs of RAM, which is now a few months ahead
10:57of Samsung making that leap.
10:59It has a 6.7 inch, 1440p, 120 Hertz OLED display,
11:04LTPO, which is 522 pixels per inch
11:07with a max brightness of 1500 nits.
11:10It's a world-class display,
11:12aside from the curved sides and corners,
11:14which I'm starting to hate.
11:15There's also a 4,860 milliamp hour battery,
11:18which isn't the biggest, but with 67 watt fast charging,
11:2350 watt wireless charging,
11:25and 10 watt reverse wireless charging,
11:27all better than Samsung's flagship.
11:29The speakers are excellent and Dolby Atmos certified.
11:32And with plenty of EQ settings to match,
11:34there's a new X-axis haptic motor, which is great.
11:37And it's all wrapped in a build combining matte black metal
11:42and a faux leather that's IP68 water resistant
11:45and looks like a Minion.
11:49Just gonna be honest, looks like a Minion.
11:50You will most likely never see this phone in real life
11:53if you live in the United States or North America,
11:55but in the regions that Xiaomi is selling it in,
11:57it goes for about $900, which again is one upping
12:01or better than what Samsung's selling their Ultra for.
12:04So as far as their mission, I'd say mission accomplished.
12:09The Mi 12s Ultra, Xiaomi Mi 12s Ultra
12:13is a really impressive phone.
12:14The hits hit so hard.
12:16I love this thing.
12:17Anyway, let me know what you think.
12:18That's been it.
12:19Thanks for watching.
12:21Catch you guys in the next one.
12:22Peace.