Xiaomi 15 Ultra after 2 months: the camera heavyweight reviewed

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra has been my personal daily driver since the market launch in early March, because of the insanely strong camera with a total of four Leica lenses. Many manufacturers rely on software and AI for the camera. Xiaomi additionally relies on really good hardware. On the go, I mainly use the camera to create content for my YouTube and Instagram channels.

The four lenses at a glance

Camera	Specs
Main camera	23 mm Leica lens, 1-inch sensor, 50 megapixels
Ultrawide	50 megapixels
Telephoto lens	50 megapixels, 3x optical zoom, floating lens design, 70 mm
Ultra telephoto lens	200 megapixels, 4.3x optical zoom, up to 120x magnification
Front camera	32 megapixels

Main camera: The 1-inch sensor is normally found in compact cameras, not in smartphones. It captures a massive amount of light, which greatly improves shots in low light. On top of that come high dynamic range and real detail sharpness, not generated by software. Portraits get great bokeh that you don’t get like that on other smartphones. The look is reminiscent of a professional photo studio.

Ultrawide: I’m not much of a wide-angle person, but anyone who wants to capture a lot of a scene will enjoy it. The shots are very sharp and detailed, including compared with other smartphones.

Telephoto lenses: The 50-megapixel telephoto has a movable lens group that optimizes focusing. That results in higher image quality and better macro photography. The 200-megapixel ultra telephoto zooms even further and delivers incomparably good shots at distance and in macro as well. At 120x magnification, the results are surprisingly good, though the software has a hand in it there too.

Front camera: It keeps impressing me, even though the software plays to its strengths more here. Portraits, especially in black and white, are always on point.

You can change the style with different Leica filters. I’m a huge fan of the black-and-white filter, especially for portraits, because light and shadow come out better. I work almost only in automatic mode. For pros, there is also a Pro mode in which focal length, ISO, and white balance can be set manually.

Overall, that makes the camera the best smartphone camera on the market for me.

Criticism: video and missing guide

I’d like a detailed guide on what you can use in which situation. Most people who buy the smartphone use only a fraction of what the camera can do, me included.

Also, the videos do less well compared with the outstanding photos. For me they’re roughly on the level of other manufacturers, which today also means extremely high quality. Anyone who first sees the photos and then switches to video may be disappointed, though. I still use the video camera for my YouTube recordings and often film with the 3x zoom because of the nice bokeh effect. You have to pay a little more attention to the lighting.

The audio recordings are very positive. Four microphones provide extremely good recordings compared with other smartphones. I use them a lot for voiceovers in Shorts and Reels.

Accessory: Leica Photography Kit

Ad: If you use the Xiaomi 15 Ultra intensively as a camera, I recommend the Leica Photography Kit. It is an additional grip through which you control the camera and hold the smartphone much more comfortably thanks to the thumb rest. It also brings a 2,000 mAh battery that charges the 15 Ultra while taking photos and filming.

Performance, battery, and updates

• Processor: Snapdragon 8 Elite, currently the most modern processor in the Android world and energy efficient. As a result, the camera and system run very fast and smoothly.
• Battery: 5,410 mAh. It lasted a long time until a major update came. Since then, something is draining the battery extremely, and I only get a little more than a day with about 7 to 8 hours of screen time instead of more than a day and a half. I hope an update fixes that.
• Updates: That has been a point of criticism for Xiaomi so far. It’s mid-May, and I have the security patch from early April. Updates now come regularly, even if they aren’t the fastest. I can live with that.
• Display: 6.73-inch WQHD+ AMOLED with very thin bezels.
• Weight: 226 g. For that, I can leave my compact camera at home.
• AI: many functions, partly because Google’s Gemini is integrated.

Verdict

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra has everything I want from a smartphone that accompanies me constantly and with which I take very good photos and videos on the go. For everyone who values good photos and videos, in my view there is currently no way around it.