Xiaomi Mi 8 Camera Performance Coming to Mi Mix 2S via Update, Says CEO Lei Jun

Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S will offer a camera experience at par with the Xiaomi Mi 8 through an upcoming firmware update, revealed CEO Lei Jun. DxOMark last week gave the Mi 8 an overall score of 99, surpassing the camera scores of the iPhone X and matching the results of the Galaxy S9+. Despite featuring a rear camera setup identical to the latest Mi series flagship, the Mi Mix 2S, on the other hand, received an overall score of 97. The difference that is based on still photography and videography performance is apparently due to the software tweaks that the company opted for its latest Mi handset.

In a Weibo post, Jun stated that the Mi Mix 2S will soon receive an update that will bring the Mi 8 camera firmware to improve the experience. The executive also compared the DxOMark results of the Mi 8 with the iPhone X and Mi Mix 2S.

The hardware enabling photography and videography on the Mi 8 is interestingly the same that debuted on the Mi Mix 2S back in March. It comes as a vertical dual rear camera setup - comprising two 12-megapixel sensors with 1.4-micron pixel size. While one of the sensors have an f/1.8 aperture, wide-angle lens and four-axis OIS, the other comes with an f/2.4 aperture, telephoto lens along with optical zoom support.

On the software front, the default camera app on the Mi Mix 2S has artificial intelligence (AI) based scene recognition feature that is claimed to recognise up to 206 scenes. The app also has dynamic Bokeh, smart artifact, business card recognition, and face recognition. These features boost the photo scores of the Mi Mix 2S on the DxOMark benchmarks to as high as 101, the same as the iPhone X. However, as DxOMark folks noted recently, the Mi 8 has some improvements over the Mi Mix 2S, including better low-light performance and an enhanced optical zooming experience.

All this has brought the Xiaomi Mi 8 as a superior offering over the Mi Mix 2S with a photo score of 105 and a video recording score of 88 from the DxOMark team. Overall DxOMark ranking leader Huawei P20 Pro received 114 of photo score and 98 of video score, while the second place has so far been captured by the HTC U12+ with 106 and 95 scores. In contrast, the iPhone X comes at the sixth position with a photo score of 101 and a video score of 89.

It is unclear when Xiaomi will bring the Mi 8 camera firmware to the Mi Mix 2S. However, it is safe to presume that it should come through an over-the-air (OTA) update.