Xiaomi 15 Ultra review: ugly phone, beautiful camera

After two years telling anyone who’d listen that Chinese manufacturer Vivo made the best cameras in any smartphone, last year’s Xiaomi 14 Ultra changed my tune. It became my favorite phone and camera, handling everything from holiday snaps to product review photoshoots.

With the 15 Ultra, Xiaomi took the best and made it better with a new 200-megapixel periscope lens to complement the other (largely unchanged) cameras.

The downside? The 14 Ultra was never much of a looker, and the 15 Ultra’s enormous, asymmetrical camera module has taken a bad design and made it worse. I’m willing to put up with the awkward aesthetic when the camera is this good, but I’d be pretty understanding if you went the other way.

I haven’t mentioned much about this phone’s specs yet beyond the camera. That’s intentional. Yes, this is a flagship phone through and through, but you can find most of what it offers on other phones for half the price. If you’re willing to drop £1,299 / €1,499 (around $1,600) on the 15 Ultra, the camera will be the reason why.

Much like the 14 Ultra, Xiaomi’s new flagship has a quadruple rear camera laid out in a large, round module that dominates the design. Charitably, you could say this evokes the classic Leica aesthetic that Xiaomi is also nodding to with this silver and black finish, further accentuated by the optional Photography Kit accessory. Less charitably, you could say it’s quite ugly, not helped by a less symmetrical lens layout than last year, adding to the sense that Xiaomi is desperately trying to cram the hardware in.

That layout is probably forced by the new 4.3x periscope lens, which uses a 200-megapixel 1/1.4-inch-type sensor and a fast f/2.6 aperture. This is an upgrade on last year’s in every respect except the zoom distance, down slightly from 5x, and the results really are impressive.

On the 14 Ultra, I found myself trying to use the 3.2x telephoto as often as possible, and this year, the periscope had the same captivating effect on me. I keep stepping back from subjects to give me the excuse to use it instead of the main lens, preferring its natural depth and bokeh compared to the flattening effect that any phone’s primary lens tends to offer. In good lighting, you’ll get beautiful, natural shots at up to 10x, with decent results at 30x. Beyond that — going all the way up to 120x — some aggressive sharpening kicks in. I wouldn’t consider this anything special at extreme range, but for mid-distance, it’s pretty perfect.

The other three lenses — all 50-megapixel — are no slouches, either. The main camera uses the same one-inch-type Sony LYT-900 sensor as last year, but Xiaomi has ditched the variable aperture in favor of a fixed f/1.63 approach. In theory, it makes this lens a little less versatile, but I don’t think much is lost in practice. Still, it’s an odd downgrade.

The regular telephoto uses the same spec as last year’s equivalent but with 3x zoom rather than 3.2x. This was my favorite lens last year, and I think it’s still the most useful here. 3x is a more practical distance than 4.3x much of the time, and this is also the lens used automatically for macro shots, allowing you to take close-ups without actually getting close. The ultrawide and selfie lenses are the most forgettable: they’re good but unremarkable. It would be a little unfair to call them afterthoughts, but they’re clearly not where Xiaomi’s focus lies.

Beyond simply slapping an enormous periscope in, Xiaomi’s other focus has been improving photography performance in low light. I run a food newsletter on the side, so I spend a lot of time trying to photograph dishes in dimly lit restaurants, exactly where most phones struggle. I loved the 14 Ultra, in part because it excels in those conditions, even on its telephoto. And on the 15 Ultra, the same is true, though I’m not sure this phone marks a significant step forward. The new periscope’s performance is impressive, though: it’s a slight drop-off from the 3x lens, being slightly more susceptible to glare from bright lights in dark surroundings and requiring a steadier hand to get a crisp shot.

The biggest complaint I could muster about this camera is that it’s not that different from last year’s. If you don’t own the 14 Ultra, then that won’t be an issue for you, but it might be one for Xiaomi. Competition at this end of the market is intense, especially in China, and I wonder if rivals like Vivo and Oppo are about to usurp the throne.

Get beyond the camera, and the 15 Ultra still impresses, but it feels similar to other flagships. The specs all sound familiar: a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage; a large 6.73-inch 120Hz LTPO OLED display; an IP68 rating with reinforced glass for the display. I don’t want to suggest any of this is bad — it’s top of the line. There are just a lot of other phones crowding for space at the top with it.

Battery life is good. The 5,410mAh capacity is generous, and it took a travel day with lots of photography and a couple of hours hotspotting my laptop before I started to worry about it dying. 90W wired charging will top it up quickly, with 80W wireless speeds if you invest in the official charger and significantly slower speeds on a standard Qi pad. Like almost every other Android OEM, Xiaomi still hasn’t felt the need to invest in Qi2.

The software is where you’ll find downsides. HyperOS — Xiaomi’s Android skin — runs on top of Android 15 and shares annoyances in common with other takes on Android from Chinese OEMs. You’ll find a lot of Xiaomi-branded apps preinstalled, a few of which you can’t remove, plus a smattering of other apps you might not want, like AliExpress.

Xiaomi removed some of the OS’s customizability in its latest version. If there’s a way to have five apps on a homescreen row rather than four, I haven’t found it, despite having exactly that enabled on my 14 Ultra. A few other tasks just feel cumbersome and irritating — changing the wallpaper means forcing your way through a Themes app intent on selling you new ringtones and naff graphics.

Almost all of this can be ignored. I’d probably say I prefer HyperOS to Samsung’s Galaxy UI, but you will have to live with a little less polish. The promise of four generations of Android OS updates and six years of security support also lags a few years behind Samsung and Google, though it’s still a decent run.

The best and worst things about the 15 Ultra come down to its camera. I think the one thing most likely to put anyone off buying this phone — price aside — is that the lens module is a bit of an eyesore. It’s the first thing anyone I’ve seen in the past week has noticed about the phone, and not in a good way.

But then you start using the camera, and you get it. Yes, it’s ugly. But there was probably no other way to make it this damn good.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge