Xiaomi 14 Ultra hands-on review: photographic phenomenon

Introduction

According to Xiaomi, this is what peak cameraphone looks like. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is an uncompromising, photography-first flagship smartphone, which has the hardware to give any established rival serious cause for concern. And with Leica assisting with the image processing smarts, there’s really little else like it. I’m just stoked it’ll actually be launching outside of China; the firm’s last Ultra effort was limited to home turf only.

Rivals talk a big game when it comes to camera hardware, but none can be had with dedicated accessories that add physical controls or filter threads for pro-grade results. That’ll be key to the Xiaomi 14’s success, given it’ll set you back as much as a top-spec Apple or Samsung.

I got the chance to try one out at the firm’s global launch event at Mobile World Congress. Should it be top of every phone photographer’s shopping list?

Design & build: all about that bump

The 14 Ultra is an evolution of last year’s Xiaomi 13 Ultra on the styling front. It keeps the vegan leather rear, which was inspired by Lecia’s iconic M-series cameras and should help hide light scratches in a way no glass panel can. The mid-frame is milled from a single block of aluminium, which promises extra rigidity this time around. Proceedings are still dominated by the giant circular camera bump at the rear, while up front screen bezels are satisfyingly slim.

I’m a big fan of the White colour, which uses a lighter shade of aluminium for the frame and creates a striking contrast with the black camera module. The black version is a little subtler. Sadly the titanium special edition remains exclusive to China.

Every version gets IP68 dust and water resistance, and is protected by bespoke Xiaomi Shield Glass. The firm reckons it’s especially scratch resistant, but it doesn’t have the uncanny reflection-absorbing properties seen on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra‘s Corning Gorilla Armor glass.

The phone feels satisfyingly dense, tipping the scales at almost 230g. It’s big, too; that camera bump protrudes quite a way. Seeing how all the phones at Xiaomi’s event were tethered, I’ve no idea how easily it slips in a pocket.

Screen & sound: when is curved not curved?

Xiaomi calls the 14 Ultra’s front panel an “All Around Liquid display”, which basically means the glass is lightly curved at all four sides. I think the firm has found an ideal middle ground between flat glass (which is all the rage right now in rival flagships) and curved-edge panels. There’s no uncomfortable sharp edges, with the glass flowing neatly into the mid-frame, but equally there are no usability or visibility issues on account of the very, very subtle curvature.

The underlying panel is a 6.73in AMOLED of top quality, with a very detailed 3200×1440 resolution, 1-120Hz LTPO adaptive refresh rate, and Dolby vision support. It’ll nudge close to 3000 nits peak brightness for HDR content, and should kick out more than enough light to be perfectly visible in direct sunlight. At least, that’s the theory; I wasn’t able to take one outdoors to confirm.

Colours looked exactly the sort of vibrant and zingy that I’ve come to expect from AMOLED. Xiaomi continues to offer an extensive number of ways to customise it to your own tastes, with multiple colour modes, a colour temperature wheel and individual RGB sliders. I wish more manufacturers gave this much control over their screens.

Cameras: the main event

Clearly from the look of the thing, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s reason for being is that quad-lens camera setup. Each one has a 50MP sensor, with the lead lens using the same superb 1in LYT-900 as the Oppo Find X7 Ultra. Only here it has a stepless variable aperture, ranging between f/1.6 and f/4.0, which should mean beautiful bokeh when you want it and superbly sharp shots when you don’t.

Xiaomi has stuck with the 0.5x, 1x, 3.2x and 5x zoom levels seen on the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, or 12mm, 23mm, 75mm and 120mm if you prefer 35mm equivalent focal lengths. The shorter telephoto lens gets an f/1.8 aperture, while the longer one has an f/2.5 setup; both have optical image stabilisation, and impressively close minimum focus distances.

Everything sits behind Leica-developed glass, and offers a pair of image processing modes. Leica Vibrant boosts saturation for a more pleasing picture, while Leica Authentic delivers more muted hues for a more natural appearance. There’s a whole lot more going on behind the scenes, and a bunch of shooting modes I didn’t get a proper chance to test during my limited hands-on. Suffice to say there’s something here to please every type of photographer.

I can’t speak for image quality just yet; that will have to wait for a full review. But given the impressive hardware and Xiaomi’s history of effective image processing, I have very high expectations for this phone.

I’m betting the optional camera kit will be a must-buy, too, although it wasn’t on display during the launch event. This slip-on case adds a 1500mAh battery bank for extended shooting sessions, along with a more ergonomic grip, two-stage shutter button, zoom lever, customisable command dial, and separate video recording button.

Software experience: and here comes the AI

The 14 Ultra is among the first phones to run Xiaomi’s new HyperOS. It’s a more radical Android skin than most, with a focus on cross-device connectivity – if you also have a Xiaomi tablet, anyway. I think there’s a lot of MIUI in there, with many of the same apps and similar menus, just with a slightly tweaked visual style.

That means plenty of iOS influences, including the split notification tray (swipe down from the left for notifications, down from the right for quick settings shortcuts. Expect a heap of own-brand apps, including an app store of questionable value on a handset destined for the global market, where the Google Play store is installed right out of the box.

There will eventually be a bunch of AI abilities thrown in, but they weren’t available for testing during the launch event. Some sound useful for accessibility, like live subtitles for video calls; others are aimed at creatives, with generational image editing split between on-device and in-the-cloud processing.

I’m in two minds about Xiaomi’s promise of four years of Android updates and five years of security patches. This is less than what Google or Samsung are promising for their flagships, sure – but neither company has actually delivered on their promise as yet.

Performance & battery life: as good as it gets

Xiaomi has doubled down on performance for the 14 Ultra, courtesy of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 CPU and 16GB of RAM, paired with 512GB of fast flash storage. It benefits from a beefier cooling system than the vanilla Xiaomi 14, which should ensure consistent performance even when you’re deep down a Genshin Impact hole.

I didn’t get the chance to properly try any games on the device during my hands-on session, but Xiaomi is confident the large vapour chamber cooling can handle 60fps gaming for at least a 30 minute sustained stretch without any temperature woes. That bodes well for gamers, and should mean this phone doesn’t feel the heat when filming or editing 4K video, either.

It felt perfectly speedy on the Android home screen, loading apps almost instantly and showing no signs of stuttering when split-screen multitasking. That’s exactly the sort of performance I’d expect from a flagship phone.

There’s only one storage capacity due in Western markets: 512GB is plenty of space for most, even if you’re regularly recording vids for YouTube or constantly tapping that camera shutter button.

Battery life is an unknown right now, but the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is at least well equipped on that front. a 5000mAh cell puts it up there with the best Android flagships, if slightly behind the newly-revealed Honor Magic 6 Pro. Only the Chinese variant gets the larger 5300mAh capacity battery. Still, I’m expecting at least a day of use between charges here, though exact figures will have to wait for a full review.

Charging speeds are suitably rapid, topping out at 90W over USB-C, and a potentially even more impressive 80W wirelessly on a compatible Qi pad. That means you should never need to wait more than 31 minutes for a complete top-up, putting the Xiaomi 14 Ultra leagues ahead of either the Pixel 8 Pro or Galaxy S24 Ultra. Reverse wireless charging is a welcome addition, though I’m still a little disappointed Qi2 magnetic charging hasn’t made the cut here.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra initial verdict

It’s still early days, but the Xiaomi 14 Ultra might’ve just raised the bar for smartphone photography. The firm’s partnership with Leica appears to have delivered a superb combination of top shelf hardware and nuanced image processing, which could give Samsung, Apple and Google a run for their money.

A flagship-grade display, supremely quick processor and large capacity battery are exactly what I’d expect from a phone costing four figures. Xiaomi’s AI elements are untested for now, though, and I need to spend more time with HyperOS to learn its quirks.

I’ve also yet to see what battery life is like in the real world, and haven’t had the chance to compare photo samples against the current class leaders. That means a star rating will have to wait until a full review – but first impressions are that this is a phone that should appeal to any keen photographer. I can’t wait to get my hands on one.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra technical specifications