Xiaomi creates dedicated camera department in bid to join top mobile players

Xiaomi is opening a camera department in order to improve its mobile photography game, an internal email has revealed. The email was penned by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun and picked up by Technode yesterday.

“The company has decided to set up a separate camera department within the smartphone division,” Lei Jun wrote. “With the company’s resources, we aim to build smartphone cameras capable of taking world-class quality photos!”

The Chinese brand has already made a few camera strides in the past 12 months, as its Mi Note 3 achieved a score of 90 (and a photo score of 94) on the (albeit controversial) DxOMark testing website. The new Mi Mix 2s earned praise from DxOMark as well, claiming an overall score of 97 (and a photo score of 101). We thought the new device was a top performer too, as Android Authority‘s Joshua Vergara said the camera justifies an upgrade.

The Chinese brand has also been following the AI trend, adopting AI-powered scene/object recognition on the Mi Mix 2s.

Cameras have become the real litmus test for top-flight flagship phones in recent years. Many manufacturers are making powerful phones, but only a few are capable of delivering an excellent mobile camera experience too.

Apple, Google, Huawei, and Samsung stand out from the rest of the industry when it comes to mobile photography. In recent years, they’ve introduced features like 960fps super slow-motion, triple camera technology, depth-of-field effects, and more. These companies often have dedicated camera teams as well, with Apple’s team numbering 800 employees back in 2015.

• Read more: Best Android smartphone cameras (April 2018)

Xiaomi’s photography developments seem to be on an upward trajectory, judging by the quality seen in the Mi Mix 2s and Mi Note 3, and a new dedicated camera department should only boost this further. Nevertheless, it’ll be a tough task to close in on the top players, given their vast resources and teams.