- Hey!
Finally, my order of Xiaomi 15 Ultra has arrived.
This is the most premium smartphone for 2025 from Xiaomi.
And personally, my daily driver
is the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
And probably I might be able to tell you the differences
and the improvements from its predecessor.
Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite,
together with a 6,000mAh of battery,
a big 200MP periscope telephoto lens,
and Bluetooth 6 capability.
More details after this quick intro.
(introduction music)
This Xiaomi 15 Ultra that has 12GB of RAM
and 256GB of storage is currently priced
at around Php59,000 that you can buy
in UKDB Gadgets which I'll link
on the description box below.
But if you're looking for an online shop,
I'll also post it on the description box below.
Honestly, my first impression is that its camera
has become larger.
Its size has increased compared to the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
But one thing to like here is that its two-tone color
looks really nice and refreshing.
The other two colors that are available
are only black and white which I think are kind of boring.
This is the only color that's better since I think
it's being inspired by the Leica Camera.
You'll see the Ultra logo here which is something new
that's not present in the 14 Ultra.
And this time around, PU leather finish on one side
and I believe that this is a plastic finish
on the other side.
They're both not a fingerprint magnet
so it's okay for me.
It also has side aluminum frames and a lot of antenna bands
all over the phone.
The protection of its front glass is a Xiaomi Shield Glass 2.0
which is tougher than ever compared to its predecessor
which is the Shield 1.
And this is also an IP68 dust and water resistant
which I think is kind of lacking compared
to other flagship IP69-rated.
But of course, I always say don't try to dunk it
to the water if you don't need it,
because the worst thing that can happen to your phone
once you dunk it on water is that there might be fog
present on the camera lenses which there are many
who complained about it on the Redmi Note 13
and even on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
You can also buy a camera kit for the Xiaomi 15 Ultra,
but for me, I don't really find any practical usage
for me, personally, on my daily usage.
It has really great capabilities if you'll be able
to get the most out of it as a photographer
but I have an alternative way that I'll teach you.
Take a look.
Personally, I didn't buy the camera kit
of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. Why?
Because I don't really find any day-to-day real life usage
that'll be practical for it.
For the 14 Ultra, I bought a camera kit
and well, honestly, I just used it twice
for the span of two months.
So you won't really bring it.
So I found some alternatives that you can use
for the 15 Ultra.
If you're not the type of guy who'll always use
the camera kit, you can consider this option.
So I bought this from China.
It's a case where you can attach your filters on
which comes in really handy.
I'm not sure when it's going to be available
in the Philippines.
But if there's already one, I'll just pop it
on the description box.
What this does is that you can attach your filters
like what I bought from SmallRig.
I have here a CPL filter, black mist filter,
and also the VND filter that has 1-5 stop.
Now, what I can do here is just simply attach it here.
And it gets the job done.
So any time I want to use this, I'll just adjust
the variable as you can see.
So it does its job being a filter.
And another attachment that you can buy is this one
from Ulanzi, the CG01 smartphone cap grip.
It also has a Bluetooth shutter button here
which also can be a shutter.
And you can use it as a grip to mount it
as a camera.
So what you can do is...
It'll look like this after you attach everything.
Honestly, I don't really find the practical usage
of the camera kit of Xiaomi.
If you want to spend Php12,000, if you have the money,
and you find any practical usage, okay,
but if you're like me where you'll just use it
once a month, I'd rather buy something
like this one, from Ulanzi and a case like this one
so you can attach your filters and you spend your money
on the filters of SmallRig instead which I think
it's more practical.
And when you grip it, it looks something like this,
it has almost the same feel as the camera kit of Xiaomi.
What do you think?
So if you want to know where you can buy these kits,
I'll pop it on the description box below.
One of the best things here is that this has
a really powerful processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite.
It's the best for this year.
And another good news for you is that Xiaomi gave
the full potential of the chipset.
And I was surprised that I was able to get
a 2.7 million score on AnTuTu Benchmark,
rivalling the same as the REDMAGIC 10 Pro
which is a gaming phone.
This is not a gaming phone but Xiaomi gave everything to you.
You'd see on some of our other reviews
that has the Snapdragon 8 Elite,
like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra,
it's only got 2.1 million AnTuTu Benchmark score.
The Samsung S25+ only got 1.9 million AnTuTu score.
And if I remember it correctly, the realme GT 7 Pro
only got 2.2 million AnTuTu score.
And this is the breakdown score.
Good job, Xiaomi.
This is the benchmark score we got on Geekbench
for its CPU benchmarking
and GPU benchmarking.
Its loop score is 5,700 on Wild Life Extreme
with 76% stability.
Honestly, its thermals are okay except that it's kind
of rocky when it's about to finish,
and it throttled to 79% of its best performance.
Let's talk about battery.
It's a huge jump from its predecessor,
the Xiaomi 14 Ultra only has 5,000mAh of battery.
This China ROM variant of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra comes
with a 6,000mAh of silicon-carbon battery already.
But when you buy the global ROM,
it's only 5,410mAh which is still an upgrade
from the predecessor.
And what's good with the China ROM is that
it comes together with a charging brick
that's 90W HyperCharge of Xiaomi which is missing
on the global variant.
But they're both supported by 80W wireless charging
and 10W reverse wireless charging.
For my experience using this for a week already,
I would say its battery is fine.
Personally speaking, I think it is better
than the Xiaomi 14 Ultra which I think drains the battery
a lot faster.
Especially when I upgraded to the HyperOS 2,
I noticed my battery drains even faster throughout the day.
And another surprise that I got here is that
it was able to give me a 20 hours and 46 minutes
on the PCMark battery stress test
under 50% brightness and 60Hz of screen refresh rate.
For me, it's durable.
Let's talk about its display.
I noticed that one thing that it improved here
is probably the display compared to the 14 Ultra.
I feel like its screen is more vibrant
while browsing on socials.
Maybe because I'm also using the 14 Ultra
for exactly a year already.
But one thing I noticed is that its screen size
didn't change.
It still maintained a 6.73-inch LTPO AMOLED display
with 120Hz of screen refresh rate.
And of course, supporting Dolby Vision, HDR10+.
Its peak brightness also increased to 3,200 nits
to its predecessor which had 3,000 nits.
If you're only browsing on socials,
expect your experience to be good here.
Browsing on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, be it on Facebook,
Instagram, or TikTok, swiping on the reels,
I think you won't have any problem here.
As long as your internet connection is good, I guarantee you
your experience will be very smooth here.
If you're watching HD content on this phone,
because it has Level 1 Widevine Security Level,
for sure that you'll be really surprised
with how great its display is here.
Very punchy, bright colors, and the black
is definitely blacker.
By the way guys, I tried Globe, Smart, and DITO,
they all were able to get 5G signal here.
And currently, this one is running HyperOS 2
inside Android 15.
And this one comes together with four Android major updates,
so you should be updated up to Android 19.
Now guys, let's talk about the audio.
It has seven holes on the bottom and the other one
is coming from its earpiece.
So I just want to show you how loud it is.
Would the sound blow my mind or not?
(Season of Memories by GFRIEND)
Honestly, its sound is loud,
almost the same with the Xiaomi 14 Ultra
but you'll feel its bass and it sounds really pleasing
to the ears.
We've played four games on this smartphone
and I played Wuthering Waves, Farlight 84,
Genshin Impact, and Call of Duty Mobile.
One thing I noticed here is that its touch sampling rate
has increased from 240Hz on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra
up to 300Hz on the new Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
On Genshin Impact, I would say my experience here
was great.
I hardly felt any lags on this game.
My experience was so smooth.
Battling against the boss and clashing with many enemies
on the battlefield, you'll really feel that, okay,
it's very smooth, I didn't feel any frame drops.
If there are, it's almost negligible,
I didn't feel that much on this smartphone.
And the touch response was definitely fast.
The sound is giving me a good experience on this one.
It's really a flagship-level phone.
Even if it's not a gaming smartphone,
it's still powerful when it comes to gaming.
The hottest I achieved here was around 43°C
after 30 minutes of gaming.
Wuthering Waves, my experience was also good.
Though at times, I sometimes feel minor frame drops
when fighting bosses.
And another thing I liked here is that its response
is fast on every single touch on this phone.
Plus, its display is great.
But one downside when you're playing Wuthering Waves
on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is that it's quite hot at 48°C
after 30 minutes.
On Farlight 84, you won't have any problems here
maxing out the graphics.
One thing I noticed here is that the gaming experience
is smooth and I almost didn't feel any lags
along the way.
Playing for around 30 minutes of ranked matches here,
I really enjoyed here.
The touch response was fast and the display is good.
I reached 43°C after 30 minutes of gameplay.
On Call of Duty Mobile, it's very doable here.
And honestly, I also maxed out its graphics
and it gave me a really good experience here.
The display was nice and its sound is loud.
You'll really feel the footsteps coming from the left
and right.
And its gameplay was also immersive.
The hottest I achieved after 30 minutes of gameplay was 41°C.
Of course, right now we want to highlight the camera
of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
It starts off with the 50MP main camera sensor
with OIS that has an aperture of f/1.6.
This one is a Sony LYT900 sensor.
Followed by a 50MP telephoto lens
that has up to 3x optical zoom which uses
the Sony IMX858 sensor.
The next one is the 200MP periscope telephoto lens
of up to 4.3x optical zoom using the Samsung ISOCELL HP9.
And of course, there's a 50MP ultra wide lens
that has 115° FoV using the Samsung S5KJN5 sensor.
It can shoot you up to 8K video, and its front-facing camera
is a 32MP shooter which is an OmniVision OV32B sensor
which can let you shoot up to 4K and 60 FPS.
I've captured so many photos on my Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
And I'll show you some of the best ones
that I've captured here,
starting off with some of the outdoor shots that we got.
Now taking a look at this very simple shot,
I would tell you that it's so beautiful.
I would say it's so cinematic to my eyes.
And looking at all of the details here
on the building, it looks very sharp.
Especially on its clouds, when you zoom it in,
you'll see there are so many details preserved.
One of the good things I like about it is that
it's not oversaturated unlike its predecessors
like the 13 Ultra which tends to oversaturate it a bit,
even the 14 Ultra.
But on the 15 Ultra, it preserved it
to be a little bit more natural compared to its predecessors
which I hope we'd be able to make a comparison soon.
But this time around, we'll just simple concentrate
on the 15 Ultra.
This shot looks very nice though the sky looks
a little bit saturated but I love the way
how it was presented on this photo.
This is another great shot that we got on outdoors.
It looks very nice, especially on the details
of the clouds, I really like to look at it.
We've played with its different lenses
and I was able to get some really nice shots on it.
And this is an ultra wide shot,
1x,
2x,
3x,
4.3x,
10x,
30x,
60x,
and a 120x zoom.
So honestly, after 120x zoom, it's still very readable
and I believe this is being calibrated using AI
on the Xiaomi HyperOS 2.0.
On indoors, the lowlight photography shots
that you'll get on the 15 Ultra are also great.
And taking a look at this swimsuit,
it looks really nice and very vibrant,
the subject really pops out.
When you look at some signages,
when you take a picture of it, it's beautiful,
the PRADA logo pops out.
Even simple shots like this one looks very nice
and very captivating.
And I was able to take a quick snap on the 15 Ultra
inside the Xiaomi store and this is how it looks like.
This photo is also sharp.
This is probably one of my favorite photos I captured
so far on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
You can see that its focus on the filament looks great.
And blurring all the way to the background
with the natural blur, the shot on this subject
looks very good.
I honestly love this shot.
Plus, if you're trying to take some product photography,
its focusing is also great.
It focuses easily, just point and shoot
and you get a really nice photo like this one,
it can be put up as a poster.
And taking a look at this shot, the LED lights
were also captured nicely on the background
and it's not overexposed.
And taking a look at some of these food shots,
honestly, you'll be surprised on how good its camera is.
This shot was captured well.
Even though it's lowlight, you'll really be amazed
with the food shots that I captured on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
Just take a look at some of these really nice shots
that I got.
If you're trying to take some night photography,
it's also equally nice.
It was able to perform.
And I was able to take some quick snaps
while I'm on the road, and we've got some nice shots.
So while on outdoors, I was able to take
some night photography using the different lens.
And starting off with the normal lens,
this is how it looks like.
2x,
3x,
4.3x,
and this is a 10x zoom.
You'll see that the signage still looks great.
And this is a 30x zoom.
A 60x zoom.
And a 120x zoom.
You'll see that the lights are kind of overblown
when it comes to the 60x and 120x zoom.
But on the 30x zoom, it's still pretty much good.
I'll just show you this footage while I was playing
with the different zooming capabilities.
Sami Luo said that at 30x zoom at night,
the subject gets overexposed which I think
I kind of noticed.
But when I took the shot and showed you earlier,
it looks very decent.
One of the major improvement, for me personally,
is the selfie camera.
On the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, I was still not satisfied
with its selfie camera.
There are times it's smudgy, there are times
it's not that good and it's soft.
But on the 15 Ultra, it has improved,
personally, significantly I would say.
My 14 Ultra was my daily driver and getting some
of these sample shots on outdoors,
I'm really impressed.
Honestly, the photos are very sharp.
Just a bit of touch up on my face and it's almost perfect
for the photos that we got from the front-facing camera.
If you bring it indoors, surprisingly, the photos
that I got were great.
Normally on the 14 Ultra, you'll get some a little bit
more smudgy and soft photos, but on the 15 Ultra,
even on lowlight, it's still able to give me
some nice snaps, and that's probably one
of the biggest improvement that I noticed here comparing
to the 14 Ultra.
And this was a quick snap inside the Xiaomi store
inside the Megamall.
And I was able to take a groupie shot testing out
its ultra wide on the selfie which, for me,
looks pretty nice.
When you're vlogging using the front-facing camera,
I would say that on outdoors, it's clear,
the transition is smooth,
you won't have any problems even if you're just using
your bare hands.
And on indoor, well, honestly I'm impressed
with its video capabilities on indoors.
On Xiaomi 14 Ultra, you'd get a little bit more smudgy
but here, well, it's sharp.
For the rear camera, needless to say,
the 4K 60 FPS here is sharp and you can even use
a 4K 120Hz or an 8K video on this rear camera
of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
And you'd be able to capture some nice still moments.
Even if the chef is just cooking, the shot on the 15 Ultra
is still great.
Now guys, what's my verdict on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra?
Honestly, this is by far the best camera phone
that Xiaomi has coming off from the Xiaomi 14 Ultra,
of course.
And being able to review the vivo X200 Pro Mini,
this phone can easily compete.
Probably, for me, everything that I'm looking for
is already here.
It's just that there's a little bit more optimization
that's needed for it to have a smoother experience
on the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
But I'm so happy with the improvement
of its camera performance, especially on its selfie camera.
How about you guys, what did you like
about the Xiaomi 15 Ultra? Let me know in the comments.
And if you want to know where you can buy
the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, you can buy this
from UKDB Gadgets on Facebook or on the links
that I'll post on the description box below.
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