With Xiaomi recently announcing the Xiaomi 15 series for the Malaysian market, both existing and new customers are eager to know if its worth the jump or consideration, right down to the level of whether it’s even worth jumping from last year’s champion model, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
Today, let’s take a quick look and recap to see if it can indeed help with your consideration.
Key Differences Between Xiaomi 14 Ultra and Xiaomi 15 Ultra
Imaging Approach
First off, the greatest difference here is how the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is now doing cameras. While still very much working together with Leica (congrats on 100 Years btw), the entire camera system gets a mild rework with major changes to engineering.
Main Sensor
The champion of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra back then was the LEICA VARIO-SUMMILUX 1:1.63-2.5/12-120 ASPH packed in a LYT-900 sensor, its best selling point were physical aperture blades, allowing you to shift between f/1.6-f/4.0, complete with micro-adjustments thanks to a stepless architecture.
The Xiaomi 15 Ultra now packs the same sensor, with major changes to the optics, which is now the VARIO-SUMMILUX 1:1.63-2.6/14-100 ASPH. Both are 1″ in size, but is now without the physical aperture blades, making essentially just f/1.63 on a hardware level. While I would consider this a downgrade, this key decision was impacted by AI and a superior ISP from the Snapdragon 8 Elite Chipset, which, in tandem with Xiaomi’s own recipe for post-processing, aims to be an improvement over the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, promising sharper, more detailed images with the same Leica color science which everyone had come to love. This results in a totally different approach to the way we see and use the camera app, especially in the Pro Mode.
| Xiaomi 15 Ultra | Xiaomi 14 Ultra |
| 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), 1.0″ dual pixel PDAF, OIS | 50 MP, f/1.6-f/4.0, 23mm (wide), dual pixel PDAF, OIS |
| 50 MP, f/1.8, 70mm (telephoto) 3x zoom | 50 MP, f/1.8, 75mm (telephoto) 3.2x zoom |
| 200 MP, f/2.6, 100mm (periscope telephoto) 4.3x zoom multi-directional PDAF | 50 MP, f/2.5, 120mm (periscope telephoto) dual pixel PDAF 5x zoom |
| 32 MP, f/2.0, 21mm (selfie) | 32 MP, f/2.0, 22mm (selfie) |
Zoom
The Zoom department gets a major overhaul, with the biggest difference being in the periscope telephoto. The Xiaomi 15 Ultra now packs a higher resolution 200MP periscope telephoto with up to 4.3x optical zoom capabilities. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra had a 50MP shooter capable of 5x optical zoom. In this aspect, we see a favorable trade-off, we get high resolution zoom shots in exchange for focal length. Another aspect worth taking note is the Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF).
When examining autofocus technology, it’s crucial to understand the distinctions between multi-directional Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) and Dual Pixel PDAF. While both aim to achieve rapid and accurate focus, their implementation and capabilities differ significantly.
Multi-directional PDAF:
- Foundation:
- This technology builds upon the core principles of PDAF, which involves detecting phase differences in light to determine focus.
- “Multi-directional” indicates that the system can analyze phase differences in various orientations, enhancing its ability to track subjects moving in complex patterns.
- This is an advancement over standard PDAF, by improving the accuracy of focus detection, in a wider range of shooting situations.
- Functionality:
- Typically, multi-directional PDAF utilizes dedicated pixels on the sensor to perform phase detection.
- The ability to detect phase differences in multiple directions provides a more robust and reliable focus, particularly when dealing with subjects that move unpredictably.
- Limitations:
- While effective, traditional PDAF, even in its multi-directional form, relies on a limited number of dedicated focus pixels. This can sometimes result in reduced accuracy or speed in challenging scenarios.
Dual Pixel PDAF:
- Innovation:
- Dual Pixel PDAF represents a significant leap forward by utilizing every pixel on the sensor for phase detection.
- Each pixel is designed with two photodiodes, effectively creating two light-sensitive elements within a single pixel.
- Advantages:
- This design allows for vastly improved focusing speed and accuracy, as the entire sensor contributes to the focusing process.
- The ability to rapidly analyze phase differences across the entire sensor enables exceptional tracking performance, particularly for fast-moving subjects.
- It also improves low light focusing performance, because of the sheer amount of data that is being gathered.
- Key Difference:
- The fundamental difference lies in the sheer volume of focus data. Dual Pixel PDAF provides a much denser and more comprehensive focus map compared to multi-directional PDAF.
In essence, while the Xiaomi 15 Ultra takes a step back on a hardware level, the upgrade path seems to be towards the software side, which is becoming a trend in the smartphone industry these days.
The Other Changes
The Xiaomi 15 Ultra, being the latest flagship, would get the latest topshelf specs, starting with chipset. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is considered a slightly more powerful version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 , offering marginally better performance across CPU, GPU, and RAM speeds, primarily due to a smaller manufacturing process (3nm vs 4nm) and potentially optimized settings for specific high-end devices. Storage is also slightly faster, with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra getting UFS 4.1 over last year’s UFS 4.0 from last years model.
Durability is also enhanced too, with Xiaomi’s 2nd generation Xiaomi Shield Glass 2.0, offering better protection from mishaps such as drops and scratches. Finally, battery gets about a 9% bump in capacity, adding 410 mAh to last year’s 5000 mAh capacity, to keep up with this year’s more powerful hardware. Charging protocol remains largely the same between the 2.
| Xiaomi 15 Ultra | Xiaomi 14 Ultra |
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm) | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 |
| Xiaomi Shield Glass 2.0 | Xiaomi Shield Glass |
| Up to 1TB UFS 4.1 storage | Up to 1TB UFS 4.0 storage |
| HyperOS 2 (Android 15) | HyperOS (Android 14) , upgradeable to Android 15 |
| 5410 mAh silicon carbon battery 90W wired, PD3.0 80W wireless | 5000 mAh silicon carbon battery 90W wired, PD3.0 80W wireless |
Conclusion
In hindsight, it may look like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra has taken steps back on the hardware department and it really shows in the camera department. I hold the stepless aperture system very close to my heart, and I was personally shocked when I heard it wasn’t being carried forward / be improved upon on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. From what I see, the real upgrades are faster storage, a higher resolution periscope telephoto, a much faster chipset and lots of focus on AI, which Xiaomi believes is more than enough to be a competent upgrade from the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
I remain optimistic, as I’ve been a fan of the Xiaomi Ultra series since the Xiaomi 11 Ultra right up till now, and I will be paying close attention to my review process to see if these steps Xiaomi has made would bear any fruit.
