Xiaomi’s latest flagship series has debuted in China as the first phones to feature Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. Other than the usual Xiaomi 15 and 15 Pro, we also received a new surprise model that brings more than 20 colors to choose from.

Design and Display

The display size is no different from before at 6.36 inches and the back camera design is nearly identical as well. The screen is based on a flat LTPO OLED panel that boasts a 1,200 x 2,670px resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Sunlight viewing should be quite easy with its 3200 nits of peak brightness with support for DC dimming for darker environments.

Finally, it has an ultrasonic fingerprint reader that should be faster and more consistent than optical sensors from the previous generation. The display is protected by Xiaomi’s own Dragon Crystal glass for the first time, which the company claims is 10x stronger than Gorilla Glass Victus.

Internals and Software

The new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip not only brings performance improvements, but also power efficiency, cooling, and AI tasks. This can be paired with up to 1 TB of UFS 4.0 type memory and 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM.

Alongside the phone launch, Xiaomi has also unveiled HyperOS 2 based on Android 15, which brings performance improvements, better animations, new AI features, and more. We will cover that in detail in a separate article.

Cameras

The main camera setup only brings minor changes. It is a trio of 50MP cameras just as before, starting with the main sensor based on the 1/1.31” sized Light Fusion 900 sensor from OmniVision. It has a 23mm lens with OIS support and 5x lossless zoom as per Xiaomi’s claims.

The telephoto shooter can still double as a macro camera, but the lens has been updated from 75mm to 60mm. The ultrawide shooter has a 115° field of view and video recording now goes up to 8K 30 FPS instead of 24 FPS.

The selfie camera is a 32MP shooter that can record 4K footage at 60 FPS.

Battery and Pricing

Battery capacity has received a massive upgrade. It is now a 5,400 mAh cell, up from 4,610 mAh, though fast charging numbers remain the same at 90W wired charging and 50W wireless. Xiaomi’s in-house G1 battery chip promises to maintain 80% battery health after 16oo cycles.

Xiaomi 15 has a starting price of $631 in China, but it is also accompanied by a Diamond Edition which has a crocodile leather back, and an actual 57 facet diamond embedded on the side. This one costs $842, but will likely not be available outside China.

Then there is the custom edition with 20 colors to choose from. It is priced at $702 in China.

Xiaomi 15 Specifications