Xiaomi 15 series launches in China, featuring Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite

Xiaomi, having teased everyone at Qualcomm’s annual summit this year, has finally announced the Xiaomi 15 series smartphones for the China market. 

The phones come in two flavours: the regular Xiaomi 15, designed as a compact flagship alternative containing the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, and the premium Xiaomi 15 Pro, with the same chipset and touted by Xiaomi as the “pinnacle of smartphone photography.”

Both models also receive continued support from Leica’s partnership; we break down the official announcement details below.

Xiaomi 15

Xiaomi 15 will have a 6.36-inch LTPO AMOLED display. It uses a new packaging technology (LIPO three-dimensional) to help narrow its bezels to 1.38mm width, thinner than the OPPO Find X8 series announced a few days before Xiaomi’s big reveal. Xiaomi 15’s display panel also offers 1 to 120Hz refresh rates and 3,200-nits peak brightness, bearing the hallmarks of a high-quality viewing experience typically found on modern flagship handsets.

Xiaomi squeezed in a massive 5,400mAh battery capacity that supports 90W HyperCharge wired charging and 50W wireless HyperCharge. According to the company, the higher-than-usual capacity was due to a change in energy density and silicone content, giving the phone an extra 790mAh despite weighing 2g lighter than its predecessor, Xiaomi 14 (review here).

Its Leica partnership includes three rear cameras (main, ultra-wide, telephoto). While the exact megapixel count wasn’t shared in its written release, Xiaomi said the main camera features the 1/.31-inch Light Fusion 900 sensor (same sensor found on Xiaomi 14T Pro). The telephoto camera adopted a “floating lens design” and new sensor with support for 10cm focusing distance, and it’s finished off with a 14mm ultra-wide camera.

Besides its Summilux lenses and existing Leica filters, Xiaomi said its AISP 2.0 platform has been upgraded to process up to 4.3 billion pixels per second.

Interestingly, while the official press release doesn’t mention the chipset used in the regular Xiaomi 15, its China pre-order page states in very tiny text that it carries the Snapdragon 8 Elite, right next to the mention of its Summilux lenses.

Xiaomi also announced two variants of the Xiaomi 15, the Xiaomi 15 Custom Edition and the Xiaomi 15 Limited Edition. The four device colours for the standard edition are White, Black, Green, and Purple.

In China, the Xiaomi 15 starts at CNY 4,499 (~S$835.56) for the 12GB RAM / 256GB storage model and goes up to CNY 5,499 (~S$1,021.28) for 16GB RAM / 1TB storage.

Xiaomi 15 Custom Edition has a 16GB RAM / 512GB storage configuration at CNY 4,999, while its Xiaomi 15 Limited Edition goes at CNY 5,999 (16GB RAM / 1TB storage).

No details about its global release were shared during its China launch; stay tuned for further details.

Xiaomi 15 Pro

The key differences between the Xiaomi 15 Pro and its regular variant above are a substantially larger battery capacity, an upgraded cooling system, an added HyperCore system kernel for its processor, and greater imaging capabilities. 

The Xiaomi 15 Pro offers a larger 6.73-inch display and 6,100mAh battery capacity while reducing its weight by 10g compared to the Xiaomi 14 Pro (which was not officially available in Singapore; we got the Xiaomi 14 Ultra instead).

As mentioned, the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside the Pro variant gets an extra HyperCore system kernel made by Xiaomi, on top of an upgraded cooling system to widen its cooling real estate by 14%.

Xiaomi 15 Pro’s triple rear camera system consists of a main camera with an f/1.44 aperture, a Sony IMX858-backed sensor, and an ultra-wide camera, giving it a focal range of 14mm to 120mm. Xiaomi said the Pro variant offers “10x lossless zoom,” and 20x UltraZoom (which is equivalent to a 240mm focal length).

The main camera’s key improvements are increased light intake, faster shutter speeds, and more natural-looking background blur, which creates a “main character” effect in portraiture photos with bokeh around the subject. As with recent Xiaomi phone launches, these cameras are backed by Leica’s Summilux lenses, too.

Additional imaging algorithms also bolster the Xiaomi AISP 2.0 to help produce UltraRAW digital negatives in “a single step”.

Xiaomi 15 Pro and Xiaomi 15 will come with an updated Xiaomi UI called HyperOS 2 for the Chinese market, consisting of Xiaomi HyperAI, Xiaomi HyperConnect, and Xiaomi HyperCore. It remains to be seen if any of its featureset in these three aspects will make their way out of the Mainland.

Xiaomi 15 Pro comes in Gray, White, Green, and a special Liquid Silver Edition colourway that costs slightly more than regular colour variants. In China, it starts at CNY 5,299 (~S$984.27) for the 12GB RAM / 256GB storage model, going up to CNY 6,499 (~S$1,207.17) for the 16GB RAM + 1TB storage option.

We’ll update if there are global availability details and pricing at a later date.

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