It’s finally here—if you’ve been keeping up with the latest in smartphone tech, then you might have been keeping tabs on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, which is one of the more impressive camera-centric smartphones that we’ve seen in a while. That said, the phone is now official for global markets, and does pose as a nice alternative to offerings from Samsung and Apple.
In front, the phone features a large 6.9-inch OLED panel with up to 3500 nits of peak brightness, in addition to a 120Hz refresh rate and a 2608 x 1200 pixel resolution. Much like the Leica Leitzphone, one of the 17 Ultra’s biggest highlights is its camera setup, which features a quad-camera array consisting of a 50MP main sensor with LOFIC HDR technology, a high-resolution 200MP telephoto lens, a 50MP ultrawide camera and a 50MP selfie camera. As for video recording, the phone can capture footage at up to 8K resolution.
Like a lot of Xiaomi’s other recent high-end flagships, the 17 Ultra also comes with custom camera software courtesy of Leica, which offers users a handful of dedicated shooting modes and filters.
Inside, the 17 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, paired with up to 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. You’re also getting a large 6000mAh battery with 90W charging support, and relatively-fast 50W wireless charging. It’s priced starting at £1299.