Xiaomi 12S series boasts Leica-engineered lenses and a big camera sensor

Xiaomi has officially unveiled the new Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica”.

This outstanding imaging product series is the first culmination of the Strategic Partnership in Imaging Technology between Xiaomi and Leica. The entire series features different imaging systems jointly developed by Xiaomi and Leica, containing Leica Summicron lenses, and supports Leica imaging profiles, all of which aim to empower individual creators to express their creativity while retaining the authentic style of Leica imagery.

Authentic Leica imagery, Leica imaging profiles

In this new era of mobile photography, Xiaomi and Leica have jointly created a new standard for smartphone photography. Combining Leica’s in-depth understanding of optics, image processing, image quality, and Xiaomi’s rich experience in smartphone computing photography, the Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” offers unprecedented smartphone image quality and colors that closely adhere to Leica’s signature look, and feel.

In order to help push imaging technology to new limits, Xiaomi and Leica have co-developed sophisticated optical lenses. As the top model, Xiaomi 12S Ultra utilizes Leica’s world-class optical design capabilities in its lens system while adhering to their stringent optical quality testing standards and implementing Xiaomi’s expertise in miniaturizing components to ensure ultra-high-resolution, ultra-high light sensitivity, reduced dispersion, and lower flare.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra primary camera adopts an 8P aspheric lens, in order to address common photography issues such as flare, ghosting, and chromatic aberration, the camera module of Xiaomi 12S Ultra also adds anti-glare lens coating, lens edge ink coating, cyclic olefin copolymer material, and infrared light filter with spin coating technology. Together, these features offer a clearer overall picture that is consistent across the lens.

In addition to the advanced optical design, Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” also utilizes Leica imaging profiles, inheriting Leica’s century-old image aesthetic and reproducing Leica’s tone and aesthetics with the aid of cutting-edge algorithms. For the end-user, this means access to two photographic styles: The “Leica Authentic Look” and the “Leica Vibrant Look”, both offerings enhanced creative freedom for the photographer.

  • The “Leica Authentic Look” pursues natural imagery for which Leica is known. By retaining light and shadow contrast, it adds a sense of three-dimensional depth to photos, with the characteristic excellence of Leica’s time-proven light and shadow aesthetics.
  • The “Leica Vibrant Look” features input by both Xiaomi and Leica. Combining Xiaomi’s experience in smartphone photography with Leica’s leading aesthetic, photographers can strive to capture the emotion of the moment, symbolizing Leica’s exploration of the smartphone photography space.

Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” brings authentic “Leica Image Look” to a smartphone.

Professional wide-angle camera with a super-large 1“ sensor

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with Sony’s IMX989 1″ sensor, implementing a Quad-Bayer pixel array with individual pixel sizes reaching 1.6μm. After pixel binning, this reaches 3.2μm, reducing noise, extending dynamic range, increasing light captured, and achieving overall better imagery in low-light conditions. This sets a new precedent in smartphone cameras, approaching traditional cameras in terms of hardware specifications.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is the first Android device to support Dolby Vision HDR video recording and playback. Dolby Vision enhances your videos with vivid colors, a sharper contrast ratio, and richer details, providing you with vibrant and refined image quality. Xiaomi 12S Ultra uses HyperOIS for ultra-stable performance, offering continuous compensation for movement during video recording. HyperOIS utilizes the gap between two frames to drive the OIS motor to its original position, giving each frame a full effective range of stabilization.

Xiaomi 12S and Xiaomi 12S Pro feature Sony’s IMX707 as their primary sensor, which incorporates both a large sensor size and large pixels, at 1/1.28” and 2 and 2.44μm after pixel binning. With the support of Xiaomi AI Image Solution and Xiaomi ProFocus, these sensors achieve fast startup, capture, and continuous capturing. These devices support an industry-leading 30fps ultra-fast burst mode and exceptional low-light photography capabilities. Further, they also implement an All-scene snapshot in their cameras, making it easier to capture the decisive moment.

Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” has also been designed to be more photographer-friendly in post-production. The entire series supports a 10-bit RAW format calibrated by Adobe Labs, with color correction metadata embedded in the files. When using Adobe Lightroom to open photos shot on Xiaomi 12S Series, Adobe Camera RAW software will automatically optimize photos based on metadata, providing professional photographers with a good starting point for post-production.

One smartphone, two Xiaomi Surge chips

Xiaomi 12S Ultra “co-engineered with Leica” is the first flagship model to be equipped with two proprietary Xiaomi Surge chips, Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset and Xiaomi Surge G1 battery management chipset, offering great improvements in battery management and overall user experience.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra supports 67W wired fast charging, 50W wireless fast charging, and 10W reverse wireless charging. At the core of the Xiaomi Surge Battery Management System, is a 4,860mAh single-cell silicon-oxygen anode battery and Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset, which also supports up to a 16A output current with 96.8% conversion efficiency. Furthermore, the Xiaomi Surge G1 battery management chipset offers a slew of battery management algorithms, embedding self-developed battery management algorithms to protect the working safety of the battery and monitor the discharge load to accurately predict the available battery life of the device. Xiaomi 12S Ultra also supports adaptive charging to prevent the battery from overcharging thereby increasing the number of charge cycles by 25%.

Xiaomi 12S Pro features Xiaomi Surge P1 fast-charging chipset, 120W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and a 4,600mAh single-cell battery, while the Xiaomi 12S offers 67W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and a 4,500mAh battery.

Flagship Performance, Flagship Display

As Xiaomi’s latest flagship, Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” is powered by the all-new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform, built on the TSMC 4nm process. Compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the core area of Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is 21% smaller, with both the CPU and GPU receiving a 10% improvement in performance and a 30% improvement in energy efficiency. This not only significantly reduces the standby power consumption of the Xiaomi 12S Series but also allows for lower heat emission and power consumption under high-load computing scenarios.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra is equipped with a whole new heat dissipation system, similar to the biological mechanism leaves on a plant may use to absorb water. This three-dimensional cooling pump is ingeniously designed with a series of channels, which use a capillary network to actively pump cooling liquid condensed at the side opposite warm areas, greatly improving efficiency and increasing the thermal conductivity of a single unit by 100%, compared with traditional VC heat dissipation systems.

Xiaomi 12S Ultra and Xiaomi 12S Pro feature a 6.73″ AMOLED color display with E5 luminescent material that delivers a professional level of detail, brightness, and color performance, in addition to a peak brightness of 1500 nits, 2K resolution, P3 color gamut, and 1-120Hz AdaptiveSync Pro. Xiaomi 12S is slightly more compact at just 6.28”, and also supports a P3 color gamut display, HDR10+, and 120Hz AdaptiveSync.

Also announced were Xiaomi 12 Pro Dimensity Edition, Xiaomi Book Pro 16, Xiaomi Book Pro 14, Xiaomi Smart Band 7 Pro, and Xiaomi Home WiFi.

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MSI GS66 Stealth review: Simplicity meets power

11/08/2020

The MSI GS66 Stealth presents itself as a device that caters to the demands of today’s generation. Offering desktop-like performance and portability but in a toned-down design. With that in mind, should power-users consider this for their next laptop?

I decided to take the MSI GS66 Stealth out for a spin by using it as my primary computer for working and for gaming. Being a power user myself, I exposed the device to various everyday tasks of mine such as editing, motion graphics work, and, of course, gaming.

Just a quick disclaimer. MSI did send us an engineering unit that may be different from the retail version. We’re not quite sure how different so our experience may or may not be exactly the same when using the retail unit. Nevertheless, if you want to know how it fared in our hands, read on!

Design

Needless to say, the GS66 Stealth’s design is pretty straightforward. Its chassis is decked out in an all-black color with a sandblasted finish that’s very nice to the touch and does well in resisting fingerprints. Its only embellishment is a barely-there, laser-etched dragon emblem upfront that sports a semi-gloss finish. Personally, I normally like designs with a little extra pop of color but I really took a liking to this minimalist blacked-out body.

Apart from its color, the GS66 Stealth maintains simplicity in its other aspects. There are no out-of-the-box design choices here which just makes sense considering its ‘stealth’ concept and maintains a classic look that will never go out of style.

Opening the device reveals a matching black keyboard with per-key RGB by Steelseries. Using the SteelSeries 3 Engine, you can customize the keyboard’s colors in a variety of ways. The program offers different preset styles as well as very flexible manual controls for detailed personalization.

In terms of performance, I found the keys to be a tad bit shallow compared to other laptops I’ve tested and it also felt clunky when typing. But despite that, usage was comfortable even through extended periods of work.

The overall build is undoubtedly sturdy and durable. It is quite heavy at 2.1 kilograms but it’s an acceptable weight considering all the powerful internals it’s packing and when compared to others in its class. It also has a 180-degree hinge if you ever want to share your screen with the person in front of you.

As for ports, you won’t find yourself lacking as the device houses plenty of them. You’re given one USB Type-C port on the right side along with two USB Type-A ports, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the opposite side, you have another USB Type-A port, Thunderbolt 3 port, HDMI, and the AC jack for power.

Display and Multimedia

Now, onto its display. Again, playing on the concept of stealth, the display looks relatively plain but this 15.6-inch Full HD display is actually capable of a high 240Hz refresh rate. The close to 100% sRGB color space produced rich and vibrant images whether we were working, playing, or watching.

With Genshin Impact, for example, lines were crisp and sharp and colors were very vivid. Green fields were wonderfully saturated while more shadowy areas like cliffs exhibited impressive contrast. Color performance carries over when watching movies or shows or even when just browsing or editing photos. Where we found the screen lacking, however, was in its brightness. It wasn’t as impressive and you end up wanting more than it can offer.

The device also offers an 84% screen-to-body ratio with most of its bezel focused on the bottom. Hiding in the top bezel is a Windows Hello-enabled IR camera that made logging in a breeze. To round out the entertainment experience, the device houses front-firing speakers that are situated on either side of the device.

Audio quality wasn’t exceptional but performance was pleasant overall. It was a bit lacking in bass and volume, though, but the built-in equalizer can help remedy this. And besides, when you’re gaming, you’re most likely wearing headphones anyway.

Performance

Now on to the good stuff. We know it looks cool and has a fast display but what exactly can the GS66 Stealth do? Well, a lot.

Let’s talk specs first. We’ve got a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processor mated with an NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Super with Max-Q design. Our unit came with 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD for storage. On paper alone, the device looks to be highly capable of handling heavy loads. Additionally, the device is easily upgradeable and has extra slots for both memory and storage.

On the gaming front, we are able to run Genshin Impact at its highest graphics settings with a stable 60 frames per second. Lag was close to inexistent through hours of gameplay.

We also ran Doom Eternal to get a feel of the display’s high refresh rate. True enough, the gameplay was buttery smooth and the 3ms response time was incredible. We were able to achieve upwards of 200 frames per second on average as well.

It should be noted, though, that we were playing with the laptop plugged in and set to Ultimate Performance. We tried to play without being connected to the charger but the performance was quite inconsistent.

Alongside its gamer-ready specs are some software-based features that further enhance the gaming experience. MSI’s Gaming Mode 2.0 is a one-click optimization feature to easily get the best settings for your game. When activated, it optimizes and prioritizes system resources, frees up memory, automatically switches to pre-set keyboard lightning if available, change Nahimic’s audio settings to Game Mode, and lastly, switch to True Color Gamer mode all in one go.

Temperatures rise quite fast but luckily MSI’s Cooler Boost Trinity+ can quickly cool things down. The cooling system uses three fans that work very well at reducing temperatures almost immediately. At the highest fan speed though, it gets really loud but I didn’t mind since it meant better performance. It’s definitely not something you’d want to have when working remotely, though, like in a quiet coffee shop because it’ll most likely grab people’s attention.

There is a shortcut on the keyboard that will let you switch fan speeds on the fly. I usually just turn it on for a couple of minutes when I feel the device getting hot or let it run at full speed when I’m gaming at home. This usually brings down the temperature down to about 60 to 70-degrees Celsius from high temps of 80 to 90-degrees Celsius.

We did find the placement of the vents a little bothersome though. The right vent, specifically, would spew hot air onto my hand when I was using a mouse. Luckily, this isn’t a major problem and can be solved by moving a little further away.

Apart from gaming, we also tested how the laptop would fare with processor and graphics-intensive apps as well. Since we’re in the business of content creation, we tested it on different editing scenarios and we’re happy to report that it was able to show its worth.

Editing 1080p footage in Premiere Pro was no problem for the device even with some effects stacked. Rendering was fast and painless as well. I also tried doing moderately heavy motion graphics work and was pleased with its speedy performance. Large vector graphics would sometimes cause a few seconds of lag but things would speed up once it loaded.

So despite it being branded as a gaming laptop, the specs and performance work just as well for creators. My previous setup would have me switching from my work computer to my gaming laptop when I wanted to play but the GS66 Stealth eliminates that. You can easily transition from working to gaming without having to get up or change machines. In fact, I enjoyed its editing performance so much that I wished I had an extra monitor on-hand so I could work on a bigger screen.

Battery

The GS66 Stealth comes with a whopping 99.9Whr battery. That’s the largest battery available for laptops and is also, interestingly, the maximum capacity allowed on an airplane. MSI says the battery can last up to 9 hours when doing normal office work.

Since the bulk of our work centers around content creation and multimedia, we had a shorter battery life of just 2 hours on moderate power-saving settings while gaming continuously on Ultra Performance gave us just an hour and 15 minutes of juice. It’s definitely a lot shorter than what was promised but we did test battery life using more power-hungry apps and this very acceptable. Charging the laptop to full from zero took about two hours.

Additionally, the GS66 Stealth is also capable of charging via USB-C if you’re ever in a pinch. The only requirement is that the charging adapter is at least 65W. We tried to charge it with a 65W charger we had lying around but we were, unfortunately, unable to make it work. It may be because our unit is an engineering unit or maybe our charger isn’t really 65W. We really can’t say for sure.

Creature Comfort

In our reviews, The Modern Creatures looks for special features in devices that make them worth having — something that gives a product an edge over its peers. And our pick for the MSI GS66 Stealth would have to be its display.

It isn’t just the 240Hz refresh rate that we found impressive but also its color accuracy and 3ms response time. The high refresh rate is definitely a convenience not to mention it’s just plain impressive. Even if you may not get much use out of it outside of first-person shooter games, it’s good to know that high frame rates are always accessible. Pairing that with impressive color and fast response times, you get a flexible display that’s suitable for all kinds of activities.

Final thoughts

The MSI GS66 Stealth is branded as a laptop that helps users easily transition from work to play. In our time with the device, we can confidently say that it’s truly able to do so.

In terms of thin and light gaming laptops, it may be the most unique but it’s still worth considering for a device that’s both semi-portable but powerful. You get an impressive screen with really high refresh rates, top-notch performance, and a large-capacity battery. There may be a couple of shortcomings with its keyboard and audio but overall performance is still more than satisfactory.

Design-wise, you get a subtle and sleek-looking device that exudes class in its simplicity. True to its name, the MSI GS66 Stealth does well in executing its ‘stealth’ concept with its all-black interior and powerful internals hiding underneath. Whether you’re a gamer, content creator, or just a regular power-user, you’ll find something to love with this device.

 

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