Xiaomi is one of the biggest smartphone brands in the world and its Ultra series of smartphones have existed in the cutting edge. Over the last few years, its placed a heavy emphasis on content creation with impressive camera systems and top-tier specs. This year’s model is its most impressive yet, featuring 8K video capability, four 50MP cameras with some smart tweaks and AI enhancements and Sony’s latest 1-inch mobile camera sensor and Leica optics. It also has the latest and greatest specs for exceptional performance. Starting at $999, it competes with the best smartphones available today and is surprisingly affordable in comparison.
Specifications
Current Price: Starting at $999 (AliExpress, Giztop)
Xiaomi 14 Ultra - What Is It?
Display, Internals, and Charging
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is Xiaomi’s most premium offering, taking the kitchen sink approach with everything it offers. The Ultra line has always been about luxury, offering the highest-end specs and features with a finish that truly feels refined. It packs the biggest, best screen, but camera systems, best photo and video quality, a massive battery and ridiculously fast HyperCharging. It’s Xiaomi’s challenger to the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy flagships every year, and every year, it competes well.
As a 2024 flagship, it has all of the staple features you would hope for. That starts with a bold 6.7-inch AMOLED display. It runs at 1440x3200 resolution for a crisp 523 pixels per inch. It’s also rated to cover the DCI-P3 color spectrum and render 12-bit color for HDR videos and content creation. It gets exceptionally bright with a peak luminance of 3,000 nits. When paired with the infinite blacks of its AMOLED screen, it’s a great choice for HDR content and supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+. It also runs at an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate for smooth motion and improved gaming performance (or you can leave it at 60Hz for improved battery life).
Supporting this is a pair of Dolby Atmos-enabled stereo speakers that are surprisingly full-bodied for their small size.
It’s a big phone and is slightly bulkier than the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Despite that, it manages to feel good in the hand due to solid ergonomics and grippy material choice on the back. The screen features a 3D curve along the end which can help it feel more secure when carried and gives it a more premium appearance (though will surely prove to make tempered glass screen protectors more expensive and difficult to install).
Like the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, it mixes its glass front (Xiaomi Shield Glass, which the company claims makes the 14 ten times more drop resistant than the last-gen) with high-strength aluminum sides and a nano-tech vegan leather back, available in white or black. It lends the phone an elegant look and makes it much less slippery in the hand.
Internally, it’s sporting the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, which offers the best performance on the market currently. It’s no stretch to say that the phone is able to handle just about anything you would care to throw at it at this point, including high-spec games. To support that, Xiaomi has integrated a new IceLoop liquid cooling system. Since it’s so photography and video-centric, the camera system has its own dedicated cooling loop to prevent over-heating.
It’s available in several memory and storage configurations. The base model, which retails for $999, includes 256GB of storage and 12GB of memory. Stepping up to 512GB or 1TB of storage nets you a full 16GB of memory for $1,149 and $1,299 respectively. Sadly, as is the standard, the phone doesn’t support expandable storage.
It sports a 5,000 mAh battery with multiple protections to help ensure its longevity. It also comes with a 90-watt fast charger that can restore the battery to 100% in just 33 minutes. Impressively, it also supports wireless charging up to 80 watts and can replenish itself in just 46 minutes. The charging brick is very large and, strangely, a step down from the 120 watt charger Xiaomi used to include, but this is the second Ultra we’ve seen at 90 watts, so it may be gone for good.
The phone uses Xiaomi’s new HyperOS layer on top of its Android installation. It feels familiar if you’ve ever used a Xiaomi phone before and doesn’t take long to adapt to from Android phones in general. It’s very responsive and fast, but just as importantly, is a key step in unifying the use experience between Xiaomi devices. This OS is also present on the new Xiaomi Watch S3, for example, and is planned for more products in the future. Sync’ing and integrating between apps should occur more seamlessly thanks to this new unified layer.
Camera System
The camera system is the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s biggest selling point and for good reason. It uses a circular array of four high-performance 50MP cameras. Its lead shooter is a wide-angle with a 23mm equivalent focal length. It utilizes Sony’s latest LYT-900 1-inch sensor, allowing it to gather more light for better low-light performance and detail. It also features a stepless physical aperture, allowing you to shift between f/1.63 to f/4.0 at will and adjust your depth of field.
Its other cameras consist of a 75mm equivalent f/1.8 telephoto lens, a 120mm equivalent f/2.5 periscope lens, and a 12mm equivalent ultrawide lens with an f/1.8 aperture. Each of these is driven by a Sony IMX858 sensor, which can deliver impressive results when implemented well. Each also supports macro photography with the 12mm camera supporting shots as close as 5mm.
The front camera has a resolution of 32MP and supports a 90-degree field of view to capture yourself and a friend or two or more of your environment. It uses an unnamed sensor that Xiaomi describes as being 1/3.14-inches in size with an aperture of f/2.0.
The system supports up to 8K resolution at 30 FPS on the highest end, but more options open up if you step down to 4K. Ultra HD video can be captured up to 120 FPS to produce high quality slow motion in post while also supporting frame rates down to a cinematic 24 FPS. Recording at 4K also allows you to record Dolby Vision at 60 FPS or traditional HDR at 30 FPS. 1080p is supported at 30 or 60 FPS and 720p is capped at 30 FPS. The dedicated slow motion mode can reach up to 1920 FPS using the main shooter, although the videos are so dark, you’re better suited at 960 FPS unless you have dedicated lighting.
The front camera is more limited but still very capable. It can record up to 4K60 or 4K30 with HDR. 1080p is the same while 720p is limited to 30 FPS.
Another meaningful change generation is that all four cameras base their white balance on the main lens. This makes transitioning between them much less jarring. You can still notice a difference in sharpness, of course, but colors are now mostly seamless.
The camera system is incredibly rich. Leica helped develop the optics, but the software has also been enhanced. Upon launching the camera for the first time, you’ll be able to choose between Leica Vibrant and Leica Authentic photo styles. The former is brighter and slightly more saturated while the latter is more natural and has more contrast. The sample pictures in this review were taken using the Leica Vibrant mode.
You can also choose from a number of Leica-driven options within its portrait system. My favorite lies in its Master Lens system which emulates full-size DSLR lenses. You can choose from a 35mm documentary lens, a 50mm swirly bokeh lens, a 75mm portrait lens, or a 90mm soft focus lens. Each of these adjusts the final image with lighting, contrast, and bokeh.
There are many different modes to capture your shots and record your videos. As expected, there are panorama, night, and pro modes for both photo and video. There are also Movie mode that applies a portrait-like bokeh and allows active subject tracking for cinematic videos.
Like the Samsung Galaxy S24, Xiaomi is also leveraging AI in photography with its new AILM computation photography platform. Using machine learning, it applies color, tone, lighting, and bokeh corrections to make images look better than ever. And it works well.
The camera system really is something special here and makes the Xiaomi 14 Ultra stand out
Xiaomi 14 Ultra Photography Kit
Like it did with the 13 Ultra, Xiaomi is releasing an updated photography kit with this release. Includes a two-part specialized case that essentially turns the 14 Ultra into a point-and-shoot camera. The larger portion of the case features a special mount that can accommodate two different decorative rings that surround the camera bump and a special 67mm mounting ring to attach an ND filter or polarizer.
The base of the case is made to form an integrated grip and includes a 1,500 mAh battery, a shutter button that supports half-press focusing and has a zoom lever integrated into its outer ring, and a customizable dial that can be used for focus, ISO, exposure compensation, and more. It connects to the phone using its USB-C connection and supports pass-through charging.
This kit is certainly specialized, but if you’re a mobile creator, it’s honestly fantastic. It’s made in the style of Leica cameras, complete with the black and silver finish with a grippy, textured material. Once it’s plugged in, you can raise the camera using it and even enable a rapid shot mode where pressing the shutter button will instantly snap a picture, even if the screen is locked, allowing you to be faster with your shots.
The ability to add an ND filter also makes the Xiaomi 14 Ultra more capable for outdoor photography where conditions are very bright. Using it, you can keep your aperture wide open for the best bokeh and detail, and still have a perfectly exposed shot.
I adore it, frankly. It impacts its pocketability, to be sure, but as someone who doesn’t want to carry a bulkier camera setup everywhere I go, this is an excellent middle-ground that really leverages the 14 Ultra’s photo capabilities.
Xiaomi 14 Ultra - Camera and Photography Examples
The camera system is something special. Between the naturally sharp details of its LYT-900 sensor and the enhancements of its computational photography platform, it delivers the best image quality yet and noticeably exceeds even the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. As an Android user, I wasn’t able to test it directly against the iPhone 15 Pro Max, though there is plenty of coverage out there that indicates it’s roughly on par with the S24 Ultra.
Let’s look at some sample photos.
Let’s start by looking at the focal ranges of its four preset zoom settings. We have ultrawide (0.5x), wide (1x), 3.2x, and 5x. The lenses offer a good amount of range. When you begin to zoom past the native reach of the periscope lens, AI kicks in to refine the details of your images.
To see the impact of AI, let’s take a close look at a barn from a neighboring yard, starting at 1x, taken from halfway across my living room.
Can you make out much detail in the bark of the trees or the barn? I can’t. Let’s step up to
There we go. Considering this was taken halfway across my living room, that’s not bad already. The image is crisp, color accurate, and has good dynamic range.
The following pictures start at 10x and proceed to 20x, 30x, all the way to 40x
That is, frankly, incredible. Here’s a side by side of 1x versus the 40x digital zoom.
There’s a bit of the painterly effect that comes with artificially reconstructed detail, but this is far better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra produces with the same shot. This could pass as a natural shot, while the S24 absolutely cannot.
Moving on, we have my son (on his 10th birthday!) posing for some portraits with the 50mm and 75mm modes. The bokeh is great and looks very natural to my eye. White balance and exposure are also spot on.
The camera is also quite snappy, even in its portrait modes and handles challenging lighting very well. Here, you can see my youngest son in full play mode but the camera captured him perfectly. I didn’t have to do anything other than point and shoot here.
This shot demonstrates the dynamic range of the main camera. It does a good job of maintaining detail in both the dark and light area of the screen.
The selfie camera occasionally hiccuped. As you can see in the gallery above, infrequently, it would just be too dark. Changing modes fixed this (the second is in Portrait mode), so it’s likely a glitch in my pre-release software version.
Here, you can see two pictures taken in the relatively low light of my shed. The first, with my song retrieving his swing set, you would be hard pressed to tell that it was even a dark shot. This is the LYT-900 and AILM at work. The selfie camera, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same advantage and rendered a much darker (but more true to life) shot. Note the remaining detail and lack of grain, however, as it is evidence of the AI systems helping preserve image quality.
The portrait system is also effective with more than people. Using tap to focus, it also works very well on animals and inanimate objects.
Finally, we have the macro and super macro modes. While light is always a concern, these lenses do a great job with macro photography. The dandelion in particular highlights its capability. Do note that if you get too close to a subject with the main lens, it will automatically switch to macro mode. This can be disabled in the settings.
Simply put, this is an incredibly impressive camera. I lack the tools to get into the intricate details of dynamic range, etc. but the real world results speak for themselves. It’s color accurate, handles exposure well, captures exceptional detail even in low light, and works quickly while also allowing for less futzing about with settings. It’s great.
Xiaomi 14 Ultra - Performance
Since it’s running the latest processor, it should come as no surprise that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra delivers exceptional performance. I tested it for more than a week as a daily driver and put it through its paces with synthetic benchmarks and stress tests. I also used it for real world gaming. It was consistently high performance.
In Geekbench 5, it scored highly. It excelled particularly well in multi-core performance, which lines up with our prior experiences with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
This shot really puts it in perspective. Here, you can see how it compares with both last year’s model and the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which is running the same chipset. The performance difference is drastic, especially when you consider how much cheaper the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is.
Moving onto gaming, I’ll say from the get-go that you’ll have no issues playing games on this device or streaming them from cloud services. I tested it with Genshin Impact, Diablo Immortal, and Call of Duty and it played smoothly on every title, even after upwards of 30 minutes of continuous play.
These results are echoed in the 3DMark Mobile suite of benchmarks. It earns high marks across the board, even with its most demanding Solar Bay test.
To test thermal performance, I put it through repeat tests of the Solar Bay 20-minute stress test. This is the same benchmark ran on a 20-run loop. While it did become noticeably warm, it didn’t get uncomfortably hot. Likewise, it didn’t noticeably thermal throttle.
In this graph, you can see that there is a slight decline from the initially boosted performance, but the chip leveled out well after it heated up and delivered consistent results.
Overall, the performance on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is excellent.
Xiaomi Watch S3 - What Is It and Impressions
Current Price: $123 to $159 (Giztop, AliExpress)
The Xiaomi Watch S3 is the latest flagship smart watch from Xiaomi and launched slightly ahead of it. It’s designed to be as stylish as it is functional. With interchangeable bezels and watch straps, two week battery life, health monitoring and tracking for more than 150 sports and activities, and seamless integration with HyperOS smartphones like those covered in this review, it has a lot to offer for it’s $120ish dollar asking price (depending on where you buy it).
It features a 1.43-inch OLED display that’s bright enough to use easily in direct sunlight (600 nits with automatically adjusting brightness, to be exact). Its 466x466 resolution is crisp and looks good with rich colors that make watch faces look engaging. Interacting with it involves the usual horizontal and vertical swipes, taps, and holds. There are also two low profile buttons on the right to navigate menus and raise apps. A helpful tutorial walks you through the basics of use and navigation when you first set it up, but you’ll need to spend some time on your phone enabling permissions for everything to work correctly (like syncing events from your calendar).
It’s a tad on the bulky side, despite being thinned down from last generation. I also wish there were more sizes available for smaller wrists. Its size does make navigation and reading notifications easier, though.
For its cost, it’s surprisingly full featured. On top of tracking more than 150 activities, it’s also water resistant up to 5 atmospheres and safe to swim with. It features dual-band GNSS satellite tracking for more accurate positional data (feeding into its activity monitoring), and automatically detects changes in motion and heart rate automatically engage activity tracking should you forget to enable it yourself. It also alerts you if your heart rate is too high or low as a built-in safety feature.
I swapped out my TicWatch Pro 5 to really live with the watch for the last couple of weeks. Despite being less than half the price, I found that it worked very well and accomplished just about everything you would want a smartwatch to do with ease. I was able to take calls, receive notifications, monitor my heart rate, oxygen, stress levels, steps, and far more besides. All while being substantially more stylish than the TicWatch and, presuming you get the strap and bezel you like best, any other smartwatch that doesn’t offer these customizations.
The watch integrates with the Mi Fitness app for all of its customization and long-term, deeper health monitoring services. So, any smartphone will phone running at least Android 8.0 or iOS 12 will do just fine. HyperOS makes connecting faster and easier but it’s not a requirement if you’re not already invested in the Xiaomi ecosystem.
The biggest drawback is that the watch does not support WearOS, which allows for deeper Android integration. That means you won’t have access to the Google Play store and its wider library of apps. The Mi Fitness app has a deep catalog of watch faces and its clearly very full-featured, but it would be hard for any brand to trump a long-standing storefront and Xiaomi is no different. It’s not a deal-breaker, by any means, but depending on what you need from a smart watch, it’s definitely worth keeping in mind.
Final Thoughts
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is a big win for content creators, mobile photographers, and anyone who wants great performance for less. As always, you’ll want to compare its 4G and 5G bands to your carrier to ensure it will work (and that it will activate on your network in the United States), but I was pleased to see that it actually covers most of the primary bands from the big carriers. With that in mind, it checks the most important boxes. While it does feel like an iterative update from the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, it remains excellent and all around impressive.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
