Having spent the last year with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra as my daily driver, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Incremental upgrades are the norm in smartphone cycles, and the 15 Ultra set an already formidable baseline. But after two weeks with Xiaomi’s latest flagship, I can say with confidence, this one genuinely surprised me.
The jumps in camera capability, display quality, and battery life are more substantial than I anticipated, here’s my full review of the new Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
Design & Build Quality
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a premium device that looks and feels the part. The aluminum frame is solid and well-finished, and the flat glass back carries a refined, understated quality that suits the price point. The camera module, a substantial circular housing developed in collaboration with Leica, dominates the rear, but it isn’t just an aesthetic statement. In practice, it doubles as a natural grip point, allowing your finger to hook comfortably underneath when shooting one-handed.
That said, I do have one reservation. Coming from the Xiaomi 15 Ultra’s gently curved display and ergonomic profile, the flat front glass of the 17 Ultra took some adjustment. For quick tasks and photography sessions, the flat panel is genuinely excellent, but during extended use, especially longer reading or browsing sessions, I found myself missing the way the 15 Ultra curved naturally into the palm. It’s a minor but real trade-off, and whether it matters will depend entirely on how you typically hold your phone.
Display
This is where the 17 Ultra makes an immediate and lasting impression. The 6.9″ OLED panel is among the finest I’ve tested on any smartphone. Brightness reaches extraordinary levels, making outdoor readability a non-issue even in direct sunlight, and the automatic brightness adjustment is impressively intuitive. It just gets it right, consistently.
Colours are rich without tipping into oversaturation, viewing angles are immaculate, and the overall experience is one of those rare cases where a display genuinely elevates everyday tasks. Scrolling through photos, watching video, reading articles, everything looks better on this screen than it did on the 15 Ultra, and that device was no slouch.
Performance
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, paired with 16GB of RAM, and the performance reflects that. App launches are instant, multitasking is seamless, and demanding titles, like Red Dead Redemption, run without a hint of throttling or frame drops.
The ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is a welcome inclusion, fast, accurate, and crucially reliable with wet fingers. Stereo speakers round out the package, delivering audio quality that’s genuinely impressive for a smartphone, with clear separation and enough volume to fill a room. If you’re pushing this device through heavy workloads, intensive gaming sessions, or professional use, it won’t flinch.
Software Features
Android 16 ships alongside Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3 interface, and there’s a lot here to appreciate. The UI is visually polished, the animations are fluid, and the depth of personalisation on offer is genuinely enjoyable to explore. Lock screen customisation in particular stands out, with some beautifully designed options available.
The device also arrives with a notable amount of pre-installed third-party software. The saving grace is that bloatware can be uninstalled quickly. Moving forward, hopefully future versions of Hyper OS will address the bloatware issue and Xiaomi’s commitment to six Android version upgrades and seven years of security updates is reassuring for long-term buyers.
Cameras
This is the headline act, and the Xiaomi 17 Ultra delivers on every expectation. Having loved the camera system on the 15 Ultra, I came in with high standards, and this system clears them convincingly.
Three cameras make up the array: a 50-megapixel primary shooter, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 200-megapixel telephoto offering a variable 3.2x to 4.3x optical zoom. All three were developed in collaboration with Leica, spanning both hardware and software. The result is a cohesive, consistent system where switching between lenses never feels like a compromise.
Daytime photography is exceptional. Dynamic range is superb, edge detail in architectural shots is razor-sharp, and the interplay of light and shadow gives images a depth that feels genuinely photographic. Portrait performance is the best I’ve seen on any smartphone, with skin tones, background separation, and subject rendering all outstanding.
The front facing 50MP selfie camera, which now supports autofocus, also does a great job of capturing detail with balanced lighting.
Night photography holds up equally well, handling low-light scenes with composure and retaining detail without the aggressive noise reduction that flattens images on competing devices. Two shooting profiles offer flexibility, Leica Vibrant for punchy, saturated results, and Leica Authentic for a more neutral, true-to-life rendering.
Zoom performance is strong up to 8.6x via sensor crop, and AI upscaling pushes to 120x digitally, though results at that extreme vary by subject, as you’d expect.
This is, simply, the best smartphone camera system I’ve used.
Battery Life
The 6,000mAh battery is a significant step up from the 15 Ultra, and it shows in day-to-day use. The 17 Ultra achieved over 24 hours in benchmark testing, and in real-world conditions that translates to a full day of heavy use without anxiety. The endurance improvement over the 15 Ultra is meaningful and practical.
Charging tops out at 90W, with a full charge taking around 65 minutes via a compatible universal charger, and faster still with Xiaomi’s proprietary power supply. It’s worth noting that the charger is sold separately.
Conclusion
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a remarkable piece of hardware that raises the bar in almost every area that matters. The camera system is class-leading, the display is stunning, and the performance is flawless. Having come from a year with the 15 Ultra, I expected to be impressed but not by this much, and yet here we are. The upgrades across camera, display, and battery life are substantial enough to make this feel like a true generational leap rather than a minor refresh.
On a personal note. the flat display is a design choice I respect but don’t fully prefer, particularly for extended handheld use where the 15 Ultra’s curved ergonomics had a natural advantage. These are, however, fixable or adaptable issues. The hardware underneath is outstanding.
Xiaomi 17 Ultra Pricing & Availability
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is available now from Harvey Norman, priced from €1,499 for the 512GB model.
REVIEW: Xiaomi 17 Ultra
- Design & Build Quality
- Software Features
- Performance
- Cameras
- Battery Life
Summary
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a remarkable piece of hardware that raises the bar in almost every area that matters.
