Xiaomi 15 Ultra hands-on review: Held back by the software

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is only the second of the brand’s top-end smartphones to come to the UK, after the series debuted for us last year with the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Given that I wasn’t all that blown away by the compact Xiaomi 15, it’s all riding on the Ultra for Xiaomi this year.

And from my first experience with it, I can see the Xiaomi 15 Ultra standing tall with the best flagship phones on the market. The design is sleek and eye-catching, the specs are about as high-end as they come right now, the display is large, bright and crisp and the camera suite looks to be versatile and powerful.

We’ll know for sure after fully testing it but, from my first hands-on at the MWC mobile tech show in Barcelona, it feels like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra could spell trouble for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Xiaomi 15 Ultra hands-on review: Specifications, price and release date

• 6.73in, 3,200 x 1,440, 120Hz, LTPO AMOLED display
• 4.32GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
• 16GB RAM
• 512GB or 1TB of storage
• Rear cameras: 50MP (f/1.6); 50MP (f/1.8) 3.2x telephoto; 200MP (f/2.6) 4.3x periscope telephoto; 50MP (f/1.8) ultrawide
• Selfie camera: 32MP (f/2.0)
• 5,500mAh battery
• 120W wired and 80W wireless charging
• IP68 dust and water resistance
• 75 x 9.4 x 161mm (Black, White); 75 x 9.5 x 161mm (Silver Chrome)
• Weight: 226g (Black, White); 229g (Silver Chrome)
• Colours: Black; White; Silver Chrome
• UK price: £1,299 (512GB); £1,499 (1TB)
• UK release date: Available now; Check price at Xiaomi

Xiaomi 15 Ultra hands-on review: Design, key features and first impressions

Those prices may give the impression that the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is more expensive than its counterparts from Samsung and Apple – which start at £1,249 and £1,199, respectively – but that’s just because Xiaomi hasn’t included an entry-level 256GB model like its rivals. Compared to the 512GB alternatives, the Xiaomi is actually £50 cheaper than Samsung and £100 cheaper than Apple.

Last year, I called out the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s lack of storage options, stating that it either needed to offer a cheaper model, a higher-storage variant or, ideally, both. That didn’t quite happen, but Xiaomi has at least included a 1TB model this time around and, once again, it undercuts Samsung and Apple by £50 and £100, respectively.

Whichever storage variant you choose, you’re also getting the 4.32GHz Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and a massive 16GB of RAM. This platform has consistently impressed me in my testing, so I expect strong performance scores from the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, though it’s worth noting it will likely not match the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which uses a slightly overclocked “for Galaxy” variant of the chipset.

The 5,500mAh battery is higher in capacity than the Xiaomi 14 Ultra (5,000mAh), as well as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (5,000mAh) and iPhone 16 Pro Max (4,685mAh). While that doesn’t guarantee it will deliver better battery life than any of them – the Galaxy S25 Ultra in particular will be hard to rival, as it matches its predecessor as the best battery life we’ve ever recorded in a smartphone – the large battery and power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset certainly paint an optimistic picture for battery life.

A big advantage that the Xiaomi 15 Ultra has over rivals is its charging speeds. Both the 120W wired charging and the 80W wireless charging are much faster than Apple (25W/15W) and Samsung (45W/15W).

The exterior is just as high-end as the internals, too. I’m a big fan of the two-tone Silver Chrome colourway but you can also pick one up in more traditional black or white. All three variants use an aluminium frame, so you aren’t quite getting the same prestigious materials as the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, both of which have titanium frames, but the IP68 rating at least certifies it as equally dust and water resistant.

Fronting it all is the large, bright and colourful 6.73in AMOLED display. The WQHD+ (3,200 x 1,440) resolution yields a fantastic pixel density of 522ppi, making everything on screen look razor sharp, and the dynamic refresh rate can adjust between 1Hz and 120Hz on the fly.

Set in a holepunch notch at the top of the display is a 32-megapixel (f/2.0) selfie camera, while a large circular housing on the rear collects the rest of the lenses together. The main camera is a 50-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/1.6 and OIS support and it’s joined by a 50-megapixel (f/2.2) ultrawide camera and two telephoto cameras.

The first telephoto is another 50-megapixel effort, with OIS support and an f/1.8 aperture, that can achieve a 3x optical zoom. Our fourth lens is a massive 200 megapixels (f/2.6) periscope telephoto camera, again with OIS support, that hits a 4.3x optical zoom. Finally, you can hybrid zoom up to 120x – I’ll need to test this out to see if it’s worth going that high, of course.

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Xiaomi 15 Ultra hands-on review: Software

I’ve been fairly complimentary up until this point, and with good reason. The Xiaomi 15 Ultra makes a hell of a first impression, with some of the sleekest and most powerful hardware on the market offered up for an enticing price.

As with all Xiaomi products, however, there’s a massive “but…” coming, and that caveat is HyperOS. Xiaomi’s proprietary software relaunched with last year’s Xiaomi 14 series, intending to overhaul the much-maligned MIUI OS, but what we got was less a makeover and more a paper-over-the-cracks job.

In addition to my usual bug-bears like excessive bloatware as standard and the counter-intuitive split notification bar, HyperOS found a way to further aggravate with its redesigned control centre. Not only are the labels removed from the tiles as standard, general settings is also shuffled into the mix, making it more of a pain than it needs to be to access simple settings quickly.

HyperOS has done nothing to improve upon these issues, focusing instead on cramming in more AI features. These are the usual suspects that we’ve seen from other major brands, with things like translation, note taking, photo eraser and reflection removal included, so Xiaomi is at least on par with the competition here.

Software support could do with being longer, too. Xiaomi is pledging four years of OS updates and six of security patches, whereas Samsung, Google and – as of this week – Honor all offer seven years of security support for their flagship phones.

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Xiaomi 15 Ultra hands-on review: Early verdict

If my drastic shift in tone between sections didn’t make it clear, the software offering is by far my biggest issue with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. Everything else looks crisp and polished, while the software continues to languish with its cluttered design and baffling decisions. Equally, with Honor stepping up alongside Samsung and Google to offer seven years of software support, Xiaomi is officially falling behind.

Otherwise, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra made a very strong first impression on me. I expect great things on the performance front, thanks to the powerful hardware, and the diverse range of cameras could prove to be some of the most versatile and dynamic on the market. We’ll know for sure when we fully review it, but for now the Xiaomi 15 Ultra looks like it could well be a bargain alternative for those seeking to escape the Samsung and Apple hegemony.