Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: The Leica-branded phone it always wanted to make delivers in spades

Note: This review was first published on 25 April 2024.

Four cameras, six focal distances, one powerful phone

Xiaomi’s photography-focused Xiaomi 14 Ultra made its debut in Singapore at a tantalising price of S$1,699 (16GB RAM + 512GB storage).

How’s that price tag tantalising? That’s because Xiaomi promised the best of the best for its highest-end handset. You’re getting a highly sought-after 2024 flagship chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, powered by modern LPRRD5X RAM and the latest UFS 4.0 storage technologies. This phone is built to be fast in every way.

The TL;DR version:



It has all the parts money can buy, with its cameras pushing smartphone photography to the limit.



Note: You can find the Xiaomi 14 Ultra on Lazada and Shopee.

Another crazy aspect of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is the quad rear camera combo, with 50MP sensors for every lens and four optical zoom ranges (six if you include its in-sensor zoom ranges). All that is backed by Leica-branded lenses and colour science. We’ve gone into great detail about its cameras before, and our imaging section of this review will also explore this further.

It also heralds a new age for Xiaomi as it sheds its old MIUI in favour of HyperOS. This Android 14 phone packs Xiaomi's newest operating interface, which is designed to give all of Xiaomi's devices (like its electric car and home appliances) a consistent look and feel.

Finishing these perks off are a host of other features that are expected on the best phones money can buy, like a powerful AMOLED panel, a large 5,000mAh battery with 90W wired HyperCharge and 80W wireless charging, IP68 water-and-dust resistance, Wi-Fi 7 readiness, and NFC for payments.

So how does the Xiaomi 14 Ultra hold up as the best 2024 flagship Xiaomi mobile phone, and can it measure up against other premium alternatives in Singapore? Let’s find out.

Turn around, bright eyes

It’s hard to discuss the Xiaomi 14 Ultra without mentioning the elephant in the room. The phone’s centre has an oversized camera housing almost as thick as the handset’s body. Its predecessor had the same design, but the bulk wasn’t as severe.

Understandably, the housing is meant to host four powerful rear cameras and a combo flash-torchlight. But there's no getting around the fact that it makes the Xiaomi 14 Ultra a somewhat clumsy phone to handle.

We had to be extra careful not to scuff its dirt-prone chamfered edges. It cannot rest flat when faced up on the table, and it bestows a questionable-looking bulge when the phone is in your front pockets. The added weight of the camera housing also throws out the phone’s centre of gravity. It makes texting precarious, as if it could fall out of your hands if not supported with a finger. Fingering it risks dirtying the glass housing, where the cameras lie beneath.

This design choice's only saving grace is that it’s less ugly than the Honor Magic6 Pro, which shares the same aesthetic principles. The body of Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a modern touch with flat, half-polished angled rails that bank into its scratch-resistant nano-tech vegan leather rear. It could’ve been a very clean and beautiful-looking device if it wasn’t for the housing. It also feels very durable in hand, mainly because it uses high strength aluminium alloy (6M42 to be exact) for its frame.

Luckily, the display offers a much better user experience. Its 6.73-inch AMOLED, 1 to 120Hz refresh rate, 1440p-resolution, HDR-capable panel is colour-accurate out of the box. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is also legible under harsh sunlight with its 1,000-nits High Brightness Mode and 3,000-nits peak brightness, taking on all sorts of lighting conditions easily.

The display also comes with plenty of added perks at the cost of higher battery use. Under “AI Image Engine” inside the Settings app’s display submenu, you can upscale video resolution (Super Resolution), enhance subjects in images (AI Image Enhancement), improve HDR contrast (AI HDR enhancement), and add extra frames to videos to make full use of its high refresh rate (MEMC). 

It’s worth noting that Super Resolution and MEMC can’t be enabled simultaneously. Super Resolution is the catch-all choice if you’re unsure whether MEMC improves your viewing experience (since motion smoothening isn’t something everyone likes).

Otherwise, we feel it’s worth the extra battery consumption for a heightened viewing experience. The display is one of the most enjoyable parts of using Xiaomi 14 Ultra, with astounding accuracy, fluidity, and vibrancy.

Xiaomi HyperOS: moving on from MIUI?

In case you missed it, Xiaomi has retired MIUI in favour of a new inter-device platform called HyperOS. The phone version of this interface debuted on Xiaomi’s 14 series phones, including our Ultra review unit.

From the get-go, the phone setup makes it clear it uses HyperOS and offers its new (and optional) MiSans font for its interface. Suggested apps during setup are limited to Telegram and a bunch of Google necessities (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.). 

The interface is light on bloatware, with only first-party Xiaomi apps (most of which you won’t really need) and a small handful of third-party usual suspects, like Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Spotify, Amazon, and Netflix. Such minimal bloatware is usually a good sign of a healthier phone interface.

Compared to MIUI, HyperOS on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra feels cleaner and better organised. This is most noticeable when you’re navigating through the Settings app. Back on the Home Screen, notifications have almost consistent font and banner sizes, with intuitive sliders for brightness and volume.

The Lock Screen’s two shortcuts at the bottom of the display are also less prone to accidental input — to use them, you’ll need to swipe the icon. Most phones would trigger these shortcuts when you accidentally press them, so we’re glad HyperOS has this in place.

The Quick Settings menu (where you pull down to toggle Airplane Mode etc.) is also very tidy. Important controls take up the top half of the menu and there are customisable quick buttons below. 

We did wish that those optional buttons came with text to describe their purpose. Half of the logos used aren’t universally recognised and you’ll need to tap and hold to find out what they really do. For example, the Settings option is depicted using a nut, while the Settings app itself uses a tooth gear for its app logo. This inconsistency throws people off. What's also puzzling is that they have descriptions for each icon, but these are hidden away when you’re not customising shortcuts.

Overall, we think HyperOS was a much-needed improvement to Xiaomi’s previous operating interface. It has room for improvement but it’s a meaningful refresh that has cleaner navigation, a tidier layout, and is aesthetically easy on the eyes. If Xiaomi continues to make minor UX adjustments, it could be even better than Google Pixel’s Material You.

Where exactly is the AI?

If you remember, Xiaomi once crashed Qualcomm’s Snapdragon keynote to say it used Qualcomm’s generative AI perks on the Xiaomi 14 series phones. Our time with the Ultra showed no explicit or front-facing new AI features. That’s fine by us since it’s better than having underwhelming “AI features” that are indistinguishable from non-smart features.

Imaging Performance

Xiaomi's Ultra-branded phones have always featured photography as their main selling point, and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is no different. The Leica partnership continues, giving the 14 Ultra a set of Leica-brand lenses with the same non-optional Leica Vibrant and Leica Authentic shooting styles (here’s a refresher).

Here’s a quick look at what’s offered before we dissect its imaging quality. 

Of note is the main camera's f/1.63 to f/4.0 “step-less” variable aperture, which allows the camera to adapt better when faced with complex lighting conditions – much like the auto-resizing pupil of a human eye. The choice of using a Sony LYT-900 1-inch type image sensor for the main camera also improved its light intake and sensitivity (up to 25%), and Xiaomi claims 43% power consumption savings in photography and videography via this 50MP, 23mm shooter (35mm equivalent).

In all, Xiaomi’s quad rear combo covers a 12-120mm focal range. The main camera and 120mm telephoto camera offer in-sensor zoom technology, which crops into the sensor’s centre to retain detail while sacrificing pixel count (in this mode, your photos' resolution drops to 12.5MP).

This effectively gives Xiaomi four optical focal ranges: 12mm (0.5x), 23mm (1x), 75mm (3x), and 120mm (5x). That’s paired with two additional focal ranges via in-sensor zoom: 46mm (2x) and 240mm (10x). This combo offers optical or near-optical clarity and detail for most casual shooters across six zoom options. Stick to them, and you'll worry less about digital artefacts negatively impacting your shots.

Macro shooters are also given two options for macro photography. Besides the classic reliance on the ultra-wide lens, Xiaomi also made it possible to shoot macro on its 75mm telephoto camera thanks to its “floating telephoto” structural design. This allows the user to shoot macro as near as 10cm, as opposed to a non-floating design that cannot focus on close-up subjects within 45cm.

Finally, Xiaomi added a new portrait mode called Master Portrait. It exists in addition to Leica Portrait, and you can choose from either option when using the Portrait shooting mode in the default camera app. It offers a different tuning philosophy to make portrait shots appear “brighter” than the ones taken by Leica Portrait. Xiaomi recommends using Master Portrait for selfies or portraitures taken in backlight, cold light, or low-light situations.

If you’re checking this review out to see if the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s cameras are worth the money, the background information above should help you understand that the phone tries everything it can to cover every conceivable casual shooting need. While it doesn’t make the camera housing any less ugly, it does try to make it up to you by being one of the most versatile phone shooters money can buy.

Below are sample images straight from the phone’s cameras that are only edited to reduce their filesize. Note that it's compulsory to pick one of two Leica's Photographic Styles, so we went with Leica Authentic as the default choice across all images.

Short of some details being lost on the in-sensor zoom images, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is capable of producing very consistent looking colours and accuracy across its four cameras. We're more impressed by how stable each shot is despite using different cameras and focal lengths.

Yes, it may not have the most realistic looking colour profile (largely attributed to its Leica colour science), but its day performance is everything you could want in a smartphone camera. Low-light situations tend to struggle when it's trying to separate objects from background. You can see the orange frame of the arcade machine in the foreground almost blending into the machines at the back.

Benchmark Performance

Xiaomi 14 Ultra packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, facing off squarely against the best 2024 flagship phones out there like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Honor Magic6 Pro.

We've also comparing it to the most notable phones from other brands that are also available in our market.

Putting it to the test

To find out how the competitors line up specs and price-wise, check them out in this link.

To find out more about the tests we conduct and what they relate to, we've jotted them down here.

Benchmark Performance remarks

Google Chrome wasn't cooperating with us during its browser benchmarking, but be sure to check out this phone's sibling review - the Xiaomi 14 (coming soon) - for a better idea of its true browser performance. Otherwise, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra gave us really good synthetic performance that's expected from its hardware specs. It's on par with its two closest rivals (Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Honor Magic6 Pro), making it the third true premium flagship choice to get.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone's battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more. 

Xiaomi 14 Ultra's 5,000mAh battery offers a little more than 12 continuous hours in a single breath, which is plenty for extended use. A gentle reminder that the benchmark automatically stops at 20% battery, so you're still getting a little more juice than what the benchmarks say. And from our compairsons, you can also see that it's on par with the battery uptime you get on most other top phones. It's not as efficient as a Samsung, but it's still a decent showing.

Using a compatible 120W Xiaomi GaN charging adapter, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra took a mere 55 minutes to charge from 0% to 100%. The last 30 minutes took the phone from 50% to 100%, meaning it was blazingly quick to juice up at the start.

It’s one of the fastest charging speeds we’ve seen on a modern smartphone, a feat rarely achieved even among flagship handsets. Most phones need slightly over an hour to get a full charge, compatible charging brick provided or not. Others (with lower top charging speeds or no compatible charger provided) would need up to two hours to pump it up to a full tank.

What’s also helpful was HyperOS informing us that the phone started charging at 90W, before tapering off to normal charging speeds (60W and below) when it started getting closer to 100%.

All in all, we’re very satisfied with the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s uptime and charging capabilities.

Conclusion

For S$1,699, we expected Xiaomi 14 Ultra to be the best premium handset the brand has made thus far, and it managed to surpass our expectations by going beyond good overall performance with its display, battery, cameras, and overall high levels of refinement.

One of the standout features of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is its excellent camera system. It has four highly capable cameras that deliver six very usable focal ranges, making it one of the most versatile camera systems in a smartphone. What's remarkable to us is how Xiaomi paid equal attention to all four cameras, which is more than you can say for most other smartphones, even in this price range.

On another note, HyperOS has made meaningful design tweaks to its user interface. Xiaomi's old UI suffered from inconsistency and juvenile palettes, and we think HyperOS is just what it needed to be taken more seriously. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra makes it clear that the company is no longer the "budget phone brand" it started out with.

Also, after experiencing the Honor Magic6 Pro, we also have a better appreciation of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra for the finer details. Yes, the Xiaomi phone is S$300 more, but it also comes with a nicer design, better fast-charging compatibility, and a colour-accurate display out of the box. That’s not even considering other perks yet. Details do matter, and Xiaomi 14 Ultra makes it clear why it’s a premium option when other brands can make similar, cheaper rivals.

And although it's more affordable than Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra, we don't think it's any less capable. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is arguably the more desirable phone and it's AI features are admittedly nice to have, but in terms of nailing the basics and what makes a good flagship Android phone, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra acquits itself extremely well.

With how it's giving the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra a run for its money, we've decided to also award Editor's Choice to properly capture what the Xiaomi 14 Ultra represents in the Android smartphone space: there's always a new summit for innovation and improvements, and Xiaomi 14 Ultra finally feels like the Leica-branded phone it has always wanted to make.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra is now available at authorised Xiaomi stores, partner stores and Xiaomi's official stores on Lazada and Shopee. 

Get the Xiaomi 14 Ultra here:

• Official Lazada store
• Official Shopee store