[Xiaomi 15 Ultra: Best Smartphone Camera?]
Have you been upgrading your phone expecting a better camera, but it’s the same? Well, you see, every year companies promise game-changing updates for their cameras, but they don’t tell you that they’re using the same old sensors with more AI tricks.
But with this Xiaomi 15 Ultra, this one does something totally different. And once you see what this smartphone can do, you might never trust those spec sheets again.
Pinnacle Photography & Leica Summilux Lens
Leica Summilux Lens
All right, let’s start with the biggest flex of this phone: the Leica Summilux lens system. Leica has been working with Xiaomi for a while, but this time it’s on a whole new level. The focus here just isn’t some AI processing or some software tricks, because they’ve actually rebuilt the lens system from the ground up.
F 1.63 Aperture
First off, the main lens has a massive f/1.63 aperture, which means way more light gets in. This means brighter shots, less noise, and even faster shutter speeds, and all of this is while maintaining the ISO settings for a cleaner image without any grain or artifacts. And this is super prominent, especially for nighttime photography.
8P aspherical lens
Then, the 8P aspherical lens makes sure that everything stays sharp from edge to edge, so you won’t get those weird distortions or any blurriness in the corners.
Anti-Glare Coating
But a real game-changer is the dual-layer anti-glare lens cover, because Xiaomi has upgraded this to Corning Gorilla Glass 7i with an anti-glare coating on both sides.
This makes a huge difference when shooting in tricky lighting situations, because it does cut down reflections and improves the overall optical clarity. But at the same time, to make sure that the shot stays crisp, like these shots of the traffic lights and the lighted-up signs where it was really overexposed when I see it in real life, but it was nicely balanced in these photos as well.
Then, there’s the Enhanced ALD coating to reduce flare, where there’s a spin-coated infrared filter to stop those weird flower-shaped flare effects which usually happen when shooting lights, especially for things like car headlamps.
This has been and still is a huge issue for iPhones and Pixel phones when it comes to the night shots, where this has a lens edge ink coding that stops internal reflections from messing with your image.
13-Channel Multi-Spectral Sensor
And then there’s the color accuracy, because what’s the point of having very nice lenses when the colors don’t look right?
So, instead of the usual 3-channel RGB sensor which other smartphones tend to do, Xiaomi threw in a 13-channel multi-spectral sensor. Translation? Well, it sees colors so much more accurately, like these macro shots of these two flowers, where it does improve white balance by 10%.
Then, skin tones also become even more natural, and if there’s a scene where there’s mixed lighting, for example, in this particular image, there’s a combo of a cooler and a warmer white light at the staircase area. For situations like this, it will be handled like a pro.
So, if you’re taking sunset photos, you will get a more accurate color. So, no more wondering why the sky looks like a radioactive orange smoothie instead.
Quad Lens Mastery: From 14mm to 200mm
Now, let’s talk about the zoom system, because most phones “fake” their zoom with digital cropping, but this Xiaomi 15 Ultra has four dedicated lenses covering everything from an ultra-wide 14mm to a 200mm periscope telephoto lens.
And this, of course, is perfect for moments when you try to zoom in to something that you can’t even see with your naked eye, like this ox statue at the top of the Sagrada de Familia building.
Then, the 14mm ultra-wide camera isn’t just wide, it is also smart too, because usually ultra-wide shots get stretched or even distorted, where the phone fixes that in software. But Xiaomi has redesigned the lens itself to eliminate distortion, meaning no software trickery and no loss of image quality.
23mm, 46mm, 100mm Focal Length
But the 23mm main lens is where things get really serious, where it packs a huge 1-inch Sony LYT900 sensor. Yep, they didn’t do a vivo and take them off, which means that there’s a massive light intake with overall better detail and incredible low-light performance, where it even lets you switch between 23mm, 46mm, and 100mm focal lengths, which is perfect if you’re shooting portraits of humans or even cats, where you get a very nice DSLR-like control.
70mm floating telephoto camera
Then, here’s something which is quite wild, because the 70mm floating telephoto camera is very unique by itself, because most telephoto lenses can’t focus close-up, and if you try, the phone switches to the wide-angle lens, then you lose that beautiful telephoto compression.
But Xiaomi has split the lens into two groups, so the rear lenses actually move, so it gets a wider focus range from 10cm to infinity, allowing you to have better spatial compression and the background blur or the bokeh effects.
And I found that this 70mm focal length to be very useful specifically for food photography and also for far away shots of a person as well.
200MP 100mm Periscope Telephoto Camera
Then, there’s the 200MP periscope telephoto camera at 100mm. Yep, 200 megapixels!
It’s using Samsung’s new HP9 sensor, which is 136% better in capturing light compared to the previous model. This means that when you zoom into 100mm, you get amazing details and brightness without having your photos look like a watercolor painting, where this is one of my favorite lenses to use during the day and night as well.
Then, finally, the 200mm mode is also amazing for far away shots, even though it is technically a digital zoom, the photos had amazing color accuracy, tack sharp, and had great dynamic range as well, perfect for capturing moments from far away.
Xiaomi AISP 2.0 & AI Computational Photography
So, yes, this proves that having top-tier hardware is one thing, but what really takes this camera system to a next level is Xiaomi’s AISP 2.0, which is basically Xiaomi’s AI photography brain.
And here’s where the selfie photos did a very great job too, whether or not it’s on a single person or even with two people in a shot too.
Master Videography: 4K Dolby Vision, 10-bit Log, and 4K 120FPS
[Check out the sample video footage in my YouTube video]
If you’re into videography, here’s where things get really amazing, because other than being able to record up to 8K, first off, Dolby Vision HDR recording is now available at 4K 60fps on every single camera. We can even switch the lens mid-recording without losing HDR consistency.
Speaking of HDR, this trippy footage of “In the Mind of Gaudi” inside of Casa Batllo was shot even without adjusting the exposure throughout, so it did handle the exposure extremely well.
Log Recording
Then, there’s the ACES-certified 10-bit Log recording, and this isn’t some random log profile, as it is industry standards color science from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
So, if you do some serious color grading, this is really big, as you can see with this particular log footage without and with color grading, it looks amazing, as you can see side by side.
Cinematic Slo-mo & Stabilization
Then, for the first time ever, Xiaomi also has 4K 120fps slow motion, and this is both on the main and the 4.3x telephoto cameras as well. This means you have cinematic slow-mo without dropping down to 1080p when you use both specific focal lengths.
Then, even stabilization also got a boost, where the Ultra Image Stabilization now uses a full sensor area, so it’s more stable than before.
Then, they even added the Focus Breathing Compensation, where even some Sony mirrorless cameras struggle very much on this, which means that when you pull focus, you won’t get that weird zooming effect.
Photography Kit
While the new photography kit for the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is really good for photos, but I specifically really love my experience when it comes to video recording, as the dedicated video recording button and the zoom slider have been such a godsend, and of course, the camera style of ergonomics with a built-in battery was also a huge plus as well.
Performance & Snapdragon 8 Elite
So, to power all of this, Xiaomi has included the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. This 3nm chip is 45% faster and 52% more efficient, and the GPU is also 44% better when it comes to the overall graphics.
Then, Xiaomi also took extra care when it comes to the cooling, as they designed the wing-shaped 3D dual-channel IceLoop cooling system, so even when you’re recording long videos or even gaming, you won’t feel any lag during recording or any heat at all.
What’s New in HyperOS 2
All right, let’s talk about the new Xiaomi HyperOS 2, because without it, the phone’s hardware wouldn’t be able to work. Because honestly, it is way faster, it is smarter, and more personalized than before.
Other than the performance being leveled up, the entire UI is smoother, animations feel more natural, and apps also load significantly faster. Xiaomi has definitely done some very serious optimization over here, making sure that everything feels snappy and even multitasking heavily.
Then, Xiaomi has also introduced AI-powered dynamic wallpapers, so now instead of a boring static image, you have subtle motion effects that make your phone feel alive.
But if you want a lock screen to look more like a movie poster, there’s the AI cinematic lock screen that adds a depth effect, blurring the background while keeping the subject sharp. So, this does give your lock screen a premium and cinematic aesthetic.
Then, there’s also some improvement on the AI photo editing tools, so removing unwanted objects, expanding images is even more accurate.
As for video creators, there’s the AI-powered auto-edit feature which makes instant cinematic video clips from your gallery, syncing everything to the beat of your music with professional-level transitions.
But probably the biggest game-changer is the deeper Google Gemini integration, because with the Xiaomi HyperOS 2, it lets Gemini analyze what’s on your screen, summarize web pages, explain images, and even suggest actions based on what you’re doing. So, now it’s basically an AI assistant that actually understands the context instead of just answering questions.
Verdict
So, is the Xiaomi 15 Ultra the best camera phone ever made?
Well, with a price of RM5,199 (~USD1,169) for the 512GB and RM5,699 (~USD1,282) for the 1TB option with 16GB of RAM on each, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is indeed something truly worth it.
Because if you want true DSLR-level control, next-gen AI processing, and the most advanced zoom system on any phone, this is it!
