Unfortunately, it also doesn’t have much to help it stand out from a crowded marketplace.
And that includes its sibling, the more powerful (and better looking) Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
In ways, you could even argue that it exceeds its Ultra sibling.
And I wish it would do more to outshine thebest Android phonesthat are more readily available.
Theres an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor under the bottom of the screen as well.
That said the Xiaomi 15 does still come with a High-Strength Aluminum frame and IP68 water and dust resistance.
At 191 grams (6.73 ounces), this model is also noticeably lighter than its 8-ounce Ultra counterpart.
The 0.31-inch thickness also makes it slightly slimmer than the Ultra.
So clearly Xiaomi must be doing something right.
The design of the Xiaomi 15 isnt quite as impressive as the Ultra, either.
But the Xiaomi 15 Ultras SilverChromeedition offers a retro-camera-inspired design that makes everything else look poorer by comparison.
They include a standard main lens, an ultrawide angle shooter and a telephoto lens sporting 2.6x optical magnification.
A 32MP selfie camera is up front on the phone.
Specs only tell us so much about what a camera is capable of, though.
So lets see how the standard model from Xiaomi compares.
That said, you could still see the effect of the setting sun in both images.
Jumping up to 2x magnification, and the story is more of the same.
Once again, the tower in the distance is sharper on the Pixel 9 Pro photo.
The differences are even more apparent when you jump up to 5x magnification.
Selfies are something of a mixed bag here.
However the image looks incredibly washed out, and doesnt look all that great.
The Pixel faces different issues.
A lot of the same issues seem to have happened with Portrait mode.
But without the sun at my back, things are a little different.
As for the bokeh effect, results are a little mixed.
Both phones are fairly evenly matched in the low light department, offering things that the other does not.
Unfortunately, the Pixel 9 Pro struggles to pick out some of the finer details in the dark.
That said, I wish Xiaomi hadnt switched on facial smoothing features by default.
Memory differs depending on which storage model you get.
The 256GB model features 12GB of RAM, as do some 512GB options.
Other 512GB and all 1TB models come with 16GB of RAM.
The model I tested was the 512GB Xiaomi 15 with 16GB of RAM.
So how does the Xiaomi 15 compare?
Using the Xiaomi 15, I didn’t notice excess heat mid-game, even with brightness turned to maximum.
Battery capacity is important, but its not the only thing that affects battery longevity.
Thankfully the Xiaomi 15s battery does seem to have some considerable staying power.
Our battery test involves playing aYouTubevideo at 50% brightness and 1080p resolution for 3 hours.
Sadly, the phone does not come with one, and youll need to buy it separately.
The battery reached 100% 19 minutes later, with a full 0-100% recharge taking roughly 49 minutes.
Some of them are obvious, like the AI-powered photo editing tools, but others are not.
AI subtitling worked well, at least when it actually worked.
But it wasnt able to treat all languages equally.
The AI editing tools on the Xiaomi 15 are something of a mixed bag.
However, it seems that painting the object manually means theres a much better chance itll be completely removed.
Adding more background to a night-time photo of a daffodil in grass?
Honestly I could barely tell that AI was involved.
But seeing if HyperAI can expand my rather complicated Lego display, I found it produced very mediocre results.
So temper your expectations, especially if youre trying to overcomplicate things on purpose.
Sky removal even altered the tone of the rest of the photograph to match whats going on above.
Sadly, thats not a problem unique to Xiaomi phones or HyperOS.
