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  • A portion of this video is sponsored by LastPass. Today we're going to take apart the Xiaomi

  • Mi Note 10 Pro with it's massive 108 megapixel camera. We're going to compare the internal

  • hardware side by side with the almost 3x more expensive Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, which

  • also has a 108 megapixel camera. We'll see if the camera sensors inside look different

  • than each other. It should be pretty interesting.

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  • video.

  • Now it's time to take apart this Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Pro. Let's get started.

  • [Intro]

  • So I mentioned before that this Mi Note 10 Pro is probably the most feature-rich phone

  • for the price on the market right now. And today we're going to see what all those features

  • look like from the inside. Taking off the back is easy enough. I'll use some heat and

  • be careful around those curved corners, because breaking a phone in front of everyone would

  • be kind of embarrassing.

  • The heat softens the adhesive underneath that glass and my razor blade can cut it away.

  • Unfortunately this phone does not have an IP rating. Lack of water resistance is one

  • of the downsides. Once the adhesive is cut all the way around, the back glass panel can

  • lift up and away from the phone. There's nothing important attached to the back glass. There

  • are 17 screws however, holding the internal plastics to the motherboard. Most of the screws

  • are green which is kind of fun. Matches the exterior of the phone.

  • Once the screws are removed I can flip up the small NFC pad and the rest of the side

  • plastics can pull away from the device. The 5 cameras are what's really interesting inside

  • of here so we'll keep going. The battery gets unplugged like a little Lego and then the

  • exterior metal camera lens can pull away from the phone. We see the 4 flash LEDstwo

  • regular and two soft flashes. It also has a ribbon cable that goes to the sensors between

  • the two camera lenses. With that out of the way we get our first look at all 5 cameras

  • lined up here inside the phone. They take up quite a bit of space. The large main 108

  • megapixel camera is the one there in the center. If I slide over the S20 Ultra, which costs

  • about 3x as much as the Note 10 Pro, we can see that the cameras themselves look to be

  • about the exact same size. And both of them have the same physical optical image stabilization.

  • We'll go deeper in just a second. A clear version of this phone would look pretty awesome.

  • If enough people are interested, I'll scan this one in and make a teardown skin out of

  • it. Let me know down in the comments.

  • The loudspeaker can wiggle out. It does have the waterproofing mesh at the bottom, but

  • inside the housing there are no little balls like we saw inside of the S20 Ultra. The SIM

  • card tray does have a red rubber ring around the opening. Once again, no IP rating, but

  • Xiaomi has at least taken a few precautions against liquid damage. The battery inside

  • of the Mi Note 10 is massive and removable. Thumbs up for that. This guy is a 5,170 milliamp

  • hour capacity. The Samsung S20 Ultra is a tad smaller at 5000. Once again, pretty impressive

  • for a phone this inexpensive.

  • If I peel away the battery adhesive plastic we can see the mill markings inside of the

  • battery slot where this phone was carved out of a solid block of aluminum. And, more importantly,

  • we can see the underscreen fingerprint scanner. This guy is probably the largest underscreen

  • fingerprint scanner that we've seen yet. And definitely gives more credibility to the idea

  • that maybe we'll see larger, whole bottom half of the screen fingerprint scanners someday

  • in the future. Since the screen is AMOLED and because of that LED technology, it's transparent

  • enough to let the sensors see fingerprints through the display. Even if we had a few

  • of these sensors grouped together for a larger fingerprint sensing area I think it would

  • be pretty useful.

  • There is one more screw hiding up here under the front facing camera ribbon cable connector.

  • That's the only thing left securing the motherboard to the frame. Once that's removed, the whole

  • motherboard can pull away. There's a bit of thermal paste on the back of the board, which

  • then uses the metal phone body as a heat sink. The circular vibrator motor down at the bottom

  • is the smallest I think I've ever seen. And both the charging port and headphone jack

  • are permanently attached to the motherboard and not replaceable.

  • If we come up to the top of the phone, we can see the IR blaster LED. This is for remote

  • controlling TVs and stuff. This phone has so much going on inside it's pretty crazy.

  • Now let's check out the cameras. The bottom two cameras, the 2 megapixel macro and the

  • 20 megapixel ultra wide, are not permanently attached to the top three cameras. Kind of

  • interesting. They have their own separate housings. The 108 megapixel camera is obviously

  • the largest of the group. Then above that we have the 12 megapixel portrait camera and

  • the 5 megapixel telephoto camera.

  • But today we're going to be mostly focusing on the 108 megapixel. The only two phones

  • that exist with 108 megapixel sensors right now are this one and the Samsung S20 Ultra

  • both of which are right here in front of us. Getting all the cameras lined up in

  • one row actually looks pretty cool from the inside...like one giant shish kabob of image

  • takers. Each of these image takers is made up of two main parts: the lens, which focuses

  • the light, and the sensor itself, which is the part that we are interested in. The sensor

  • portion rests underneath or behind that clear lens, which we can see here. The little colorful

  • rectangle might look familiar. It's kind of just like that underscreen fingerprint scanner

  • we just removed. Both of these rectangles receive light so they can take pictures. The

  • clear lens on the exterior moves independently of the sensor.

  • Now let's get the 108 megapixel camera out of the Galaxy S20 Ultra. If a 108 megapixel

  • camera is your main concern or selling point when buying a smartphone, it might be interesting

  • to know that Samsung actually makes the sensor inside of both of these phones. That's right.

  • Samsung made the sensor inside of the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, as well as it's own Galaxy S20

  • Ultra. It's not that surprising actually. Samsung makes a lot of components for a lot

  • of different phones manufacturers. Even some of the iPhones are using Samsung OLED display

  • panels. Both 108 megapixel sensors are about the same size. And if I shuffle them around

  • it would be hard to remember which one came out of which phone without looking at the

  • frames they are attached to. And if I scrape off the copper shielding on the back of the

  • ribbon, it's interesting to see that they both have the same style of manufacturing

  • date and were made just a few months apart.

  • Now, on professional cameras, these clear camera lenses would be made of glass. But

  • since cellphone lenses are internal and protected, they can get away with being made out of optical

  • plastic. Both of the 108 megapixel cameras in each of the phones have plastic lenses.

  • When taking pictures, sensor sizing is important of course, but the size of the sensor is not

  • directly correlated with how many pixels it has. For example, the sensor inside of my

  • regular camera is physically larger than these cell phone sensors, but only has 20 megapixels

  • instead of 108. Another equally important aspect is the software that's actually receiving

  • and interpreting the images from the sensor itself. There are a lot of variables that

  • come into play when talking about cameras. I just think it's super interesting that out

  • of the two 108 megapixel smartphone cameras that exist right now, Samsung makes both of

  • them. And one phone costs 3x more than the other.

  • Of course the software from each phone does play a big part in the image quality from

  • each camera. So you'll have to watch a few camera comparison reviews to see what the

  • real life picture quality ends up looking like. But from an internal perspective, Samsung

  • has made some nice hardware. Cramming 6 cameras into one phone...7 if you count the fingerprint

  • scanner, is pretty impressive. Xiaomi has done a good job of building the Mi Note 10

  • Pro, and it's nice to know that we can get a phone that does everything at a price that

  • doesn't break the bank.

  • Once I get all the screws in place, and the back panel placed on, we can see that the

  • phone still works and we can check out the camera, since the lens, you know, isn't exactly

  • in place anymore. It looks like the macro and wide angle camera still work. But without

  • that lens focusing light, everything else is just blurry for the 108 megapixel camera,

  • and it just, you know, doesn't work anymore. But still, a pretty fun experiment.

  • If you enjoy seeing phones reviewed from the inside, hit that subscribe button if you haven't

  • already. And since we're all doing the social distancing thing, come virtually hang out

  • with me on Instagram and Twitter. And let me know what you think of these two phones

  • down in the comments. Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.

A portion of this video is sponsored by LastPass. Today we're going to take apart the Xiaomi

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