I’ve simply known as the Xiaomi 14 Extremely “one of the best digicam telephone I’ve ever used,” nevertheless it may need its roots in a telephone that launched nearly 10 years in the past.
Again in 2014 I reviewed the Panasonic CM1. On the time it was the head of smartphone images, packing a 1-inch sort sensor that dwarfed the tiny sensors of different telephones on the time. It had a lens made by Leica and it took pictures that no different digicam telephone may start to compete with. It was primarily a compact digicam that occurred to even be a telephone.
The Panasonic Lumix CM1.
It was, in some ways, my dream telephone. Its digicam was ok that I did not want a devoted digicam in my bag on a regular basis. And whereas the expertise round that nice digicam tech wasn’t fairly as much as the identical excessive commonplace, with restricted uncooked assist and outdated software program, I used to be sorely dissatisfied that the telephone did not cling round.
However Xiaomi appears to have picked up the place Panasonic left off, giving the wonderful CM1 a 2024 makeover. There are a number of similarities within the telephones. Each have huge 1-inch sort picture sensors (which do not truly measure an inch diagonally), each have Leica-engineered optics, each have variable apertures and each have bodily digicam buttons (when you’re utilizing the Xiaomi’s digicam grip).
When the Xiaomi is carrying its images case I even suppose they give the impression of being comparable, with textured black backs, silver rails on the highest and backside and a giant central circle the place the digicam items sit.
There are particular similarities right here.
There are such a lot of similarities that it nearly looks like Xiaomi checked out this long-obsolete telephone and thought, “Hey, let’s resurrect that!”
And I am so glad it did as a result of the Xiaomi 14 Extremely is each bit as thrilling as a digicam telephone as I discovered the CM1 to be in 2014 and I have been genuinely impressed on the photographs I have been capable of take with it. It helps that the broader expertise has caught as much as make it a significantly better expertise total. The Xiaomi’s fashionable processor makes working the factor a breeze and the 6.73-inch show is gargantuan in comparison with the CM1’s 4.7-inch display screen.
I am Blown Away by These Photographs I Took on the Xiaomi 14 Extremely
And DNG uncooked assist is now just about commonplace throughout the business, permitting me to course of my uncooked recordsdata from the telephone in an enormous number of Android apps. Once I reviewed the CM1, there have been nearly no Android apps that supported uncooked pictures which meant taking pictures, processing and sharing these photographs was frustratingly convoluted. It is honest to say the CM1 was forward of its time, providing specs and options that weren’t particularly suitable with the broader expertise that supported them.
The Xiaomi 14 Extremely is a succesful digicam telephone.
The Xiaomi 14 Extremely is, in some ways, the religious successor to the Panasonic CM1, selecting up the place it left off in a time the place its expertise and options could be correctly put to make use of.
And all I needed to do was wait 10 years.