Xiaomi 14 Ultra changes the camera but not much else

Xiaomi’s new flagship is as iterative as the S24 Ultra, but the few changes are where it counts

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Xiaomi’s 2024 flagship, the 14 Ultra, is the first in the series to get a global launch, just days after its unveiling for the Chinese market on Thursday — though, as ever, read ‘global’ as ‘not North America’.

If you ever followed last year’s 13 Ultra, then the new model won’t pack too many surprises: this is about as iterative an update as Samsung’s S24 Ultra, with subtle design tweaks and the obligatory jump to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — but just enough camera upgrades to justify the new model.

Same phone, new camera

Let’s start with the camera. It is, once again, absolutely enormous, with four lenses squeezed into the back and one on the front.

The primary shooter is the only one with a meaningful upgrade, but given the 13 Ultra’s photography prowess last year, any bump in specs here could help keep it in competition with the best camera phones of the year.

Xiaomi has swapped the sensor on the main lens, using the new 1-inch Sony LYT-900 — so far only seen on the Oppo Find X7 Ultra. It’s paired with a variable aperture lens, a repeat trick from last year, but now extended to a broader f/1.63-f/4.0 range and with stepless variation.

Xiaomi’s even taken that wider aperture as an excuse to throw on Leica’s ‘Summilux’ branding, usually reserved for its f/1.4 aperture lenses.

Together with the new sensor that means better light capture in a wider range of conditions, something the 13 Ultra already excelled at. A few minutes with the phone after Xiaomi's press conference is hardly enough time for me to put the sensor through its paces, but for my money the 13 Ultra had the best primary camera in 2023, and on paper this should be even better.

The other lenses are a little more familiar. The selfie lens is unchanged, and once again there’s a trio of rear supporting lenses, all using the same IMX858 sensor: an ultrawide, a 3.2x telephoto, and a 5x periscope. The only real change here is a shift to a wider f/2.5 aperture on the periscope (from f/3.0 last time out), but it’s fair to say that unlike Samsung and Vivo, Xiaomi hasn’t bet the house on zoom photography this year.

Looks like a Leica

Get beyond the camera, and the 14 Ultra still looks and feels similar to its predecessor, with an expansive 6.73-inch display, faux leather finish, and that attention-grabbing circular camera island. Unlike last year there’s no sloped ‘step’ up along the back of the body, but otherwise there’s not much the design team could do to hide how enormous the four-lens setup is.

Xiaomi has at least managed to shave a few grams (literally: it’s 3g lighter) off the phone, which comes in black or white. Sadly, the global launch has no sign of the titanium special edition the company unveiled in China, so here it’s not-technically-leather or bust.

That’s not a problem though: I’m a fan. Together with the large Leica logo and OTT camera island, the leather calls to mind a ‘real’ camera, and makes the extravagant proportions feels a little more intentional, and a little less ‘we couldn’t find any other way to fit everything in’.

No doubt that’s why the company has decided to repeat the trick of launching an optional ‘Photography Grip’ alongside, featuring a chunky grip, 1,500mAh battery back, two-stage shutter button, and filter ring.

There are also durability benefits — the textured rear is a lot less vulnerable to scratches and small cracks than any glass would be, albeit not invulnerable. On the front of the phone you find ‘Xiaomi Shield Glass’, an in-house rival to toughened Gorilla Glass, and the whole phone comes with an IP68 rating.

Quad-curved, but just barely

The biggest design change this year (and I use ‘biggest’ liberally) is the display, which is now curved all over. That might sound perverse in the same year that Samsung finally ditched the curvy panel for good, but Xiaomi’s approach actually makes sense (and, whisper it, I think I prefer it): the display is curved ever so slightly on all four sides.

It’s not a steep enough bend to affect visibility or touch sensitivity on the edges, but it makes the phone more comfortable to hold, with no sharp edges to dig into your palms. Xiaomi isn’t the first manufacturer to take this approach, but it remains, for my money, the best of both worlds solution to the thorny issue of how much to curve.

Naturally, the panel packs the specs you’d expect from Xiaomi’s top-end model: a 1-120Hz LTPO AMOLED with up to 3,000 nits peak brightness and support for Dolby Vision. A Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powers the phone, which will ship in Europe with 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage, all supported by a 5,000mAh battery and fast charging: 90W wired, and only slightly slower 80W wireless.

Xiaomi isn’t quite matching Google and Samsung’s software support, but will give the 14 Ultra four years of Android OS updates, with a fifth year of security patches.

This is also one of the first global Xiaomi products to run HyperOS, the company’s new Android skin to replace MIUI. Xiaomi calls it a ground-up redesign that improves performance and packs inevitable ‘Xiaomi ecosystem interconnectivity’ and AI features.

I’ve actually been using HyperOS for a little while on a Xiaomi Pad 6, and it’s a streamlined, sleeker operating system that certainly looks better than MIUI ever did, but otherwise doesn’t feel like a radical overhaul. It’s launching on the Xiaomi 14 series, but rolling out to other recent Xiaomi phones and tablets in the coming months too.

The 14 Ultra was launched at MWC alongside the regular Xiaomi 14, though the Pro was a no-show — that phone seems to be sticking to China. In Europe they'll cost €1,499 and €999 respectively.

The company also unveiled the 12.4-inch Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro, a Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra rival with a huge 144Hz display, though an odd restriction to the year-old Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

There’s also a trio of wearables, some of which might make it to Amazon US via importers if we get lucky. A Pro version of the Smart Band 8 was followed by two smartwatches, the WearOS-powered Watch 2 and HyperOS-based Watch S3, whose unique trick is detachable and interchangeable bezels in various designs.