Hands-on: Xiaomi 15 Ultra has a monster, 200-megapixel periscope camera

Xiaomi’s flagship phone lineup for photography enthusiasts has a new member: The Xiaomi 15 Ultra.

The company brought the new flagship to this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and handed me some units to play with ahead of today’s launch. And I can say that it definitely feels like the most powerful camera in a phone that I’ve ever used.

Xiaomi’s Ultra phones have always felt almost like experiments, with an absolutely massive camera array and every feature you can think of. The Xiaomi 15 Ultra takes this a little further, with a quad camera system that includes a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto camera with up to 4.3x optical zoom. Also on board are three 50-megapixel cameras: The main wide camera with a variable f/1.6 – f/4.0 aperture, a 50-megapixel, f/1.7 telephoto camera with 3.2x optical zoom, and a 50-megapixel, f/1.8 ultrawide camera.

To top all that off, on the front there’s a 32-megapixel, f/2.0 wide selfie camera.

I’ll get back to the cameras in a bit. But the rest of the phone has everything you could want from a flagship phone in 2025: A 6.73-inch, AMOLED display with peak 3,000 nits and 120Hz refresh rate, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12-16GB of RAM, and 256/512/1,024 GB of storage.

It’s all powered by a 5,410mAh battery with 90W wired, 80W wireless, and 10W reverse wireless charging.

Other tidbits include stereo speakers and support for 24-bit/192kHz Hi-Res Wireless audio, a fingerprint scanner, and two-way satellite communication. The phone is dust and water-resistant up to IP68 specs.

The phone comes in white, black, or a cool silver-chrome combo; that last one would be my choice as it definitely stands out from the pack.

On the software front, you’ll find Android 15 (with up to 4 major Android upgrades promised) coupled with Xiaomi’s HyperOS. Google’s Gemini is here and integrated into the phone to take care of AI-related tasks.

If you get the optional Photography Kit, your phone will look like an actual camera.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

Back to those cameras. While I’d need more time to really test out the Xiaomi 15 Ultra’s impressive camera system, It was very easy to take pretty great-looking photos with this phone at basically any magnification — Xiaomi says that by combining the two telephoto sensors it manages to produce lossless quality photos at up to 8.6x magnification, but dial it to 10x or even 20x and you’ll still be able to get a good photo.

It also felt like the snappiest camera on a phone I’ve ever tried; if you want to capture your dog mid-air or a race car passing by, this is your phone.

The bad news is that even without the ridiculously huge Photography Kit add-on, which is a case with an additional 2,000mAh battery and camera controls, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is a massive, top-heavy phone. All that power comes with a price, I guess, and that price, expressed in grams, is 229 (that’s the Silver Chrome variant, other colors are a hair lighter at 226 grams).

Liquid Silver Xiaomi 15 is an eye-catcher.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

The company also launched the Xiaomi 15 in Europe, which was originally made available in China last year.

It has a very different design from the Ultra, with a triple, 50-megapixel camera system located in a rectangular bump on the back. Xiaomi sent me a ridiculous (in a good way) Liquid Silver unit which will definitely get people asking about the phone, though you can also get it in black, white, and green.

Slightly smaller than the Ultra, the Xiaomi 15 still packs a big 5,240mAh battery.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable

The Xiaomi 15 boasts a 6.36-inch, AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12GB of RAM, 256/512GB of storage, and a 5,240mAh battery.