What seems like ages ago, Xiaomi launched its 2025 flagship in China late last year. Fast-forward four months, and the Xiaomi 15 finally arrived in the West. It brings its recipe of flagship hardware, Leica-branded cameras, and fast battery charging in a compact form factor. Keep reading to find out how the phone performed in real life.
Good
- Good build quality
- Great ergonomics
- Excellent main camera
Bad
- Weak ultra-wide camera
- No charger included
- Bloatware and ads
Xiaomi 15: All deals
Familiar Design and Display on the Xiaomi 15
| Design and Build Quality | |
|---|---|
| Display |
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| Dimensions and weight |
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| Resistance |
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The Xiaomi 15 is mostly unchanged in design and display compared to the Xiaomi 14 tested last year. The phone is relatively compact for a 2025 model, and its size leads to excellent ergonomics and in-hand feel.
Rated for IP68 resistance against dust and water, the Xiaomi 15 features an aluminum frame that feels good to the touch and is slightly curved without the uncomfortable sharp corners that seem to be the trend in other phones. The box conveniently comes with a simple case, and our review unit came with a display protector pre-applied (removed for the studio pictures).
The back is covered in a matte glass finish that can be either black, white, green, or silver, stays mostly free from fingerprints, and is easy to clean. The camera island is unnecessarily big, but its size can be used to support your index finger, and helps the phone to not rock so much when lying on a flat surface.
On the front, the flat 6.36-inch OLED display is surrounded by thin bezels, which help keep the phone’s dimensions compact. The Xiaomi 15 like its Ultra sibling can reach high brightness levels and is easily readable outdoors, but it also can go low for use in the dark.
Like most recent flagship phones the refresh rate can range from 1 to 120 Hz, offering smooth animations while scrolling through content, while also saving power on more static content by not updating the screen as often. The Xiaomi 15 resolution is a sharp 2670 x 1200 pixels, and different from other phones, there is no option to save more battery life by switching to a lower resolution.
Xiaomi 15 with HyperOS 2 and Android 15—and Ads
| Software | |
|---|---|
| Operating system |
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| Update policy |
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If you read the Xiaomi 15 Ultra review you can skip to the next section. The vanilla Xiaomi 15 comes with HyperOS 2.0.7.0 on top of Android 15, and while Xiaomi promises lots of AI features for its system, all first-party ones will be available only after this review goes live.
Xiaomi promises AI-powered tools for writing, live translations, semantic search, and the usual generative AI features such as object erasers, image enhancement (supersampling), image expansion, and picture editing features like reflection removal and sky edits.
Gemini support is on board, which by default replaces Google Assistant, but is not as integrated to the first-party apps as on rival phones.
After updating a clean installation on the Xiaomi 15, we got the same 10 third-party apps as in the Ultra model, but used storage was slightly lower at 38.7 GB. Be prepared to see that number go up as the new AI features arrive OTA, especially if you buy the base 256 GB model.
As for software support, Xiaomi promises four OS upgrades and security updates for 6 years. It is not on the same level as Google’s or Samsung’s seven-year support but still pretty good for a flagship phone.
More Than Enough Performance for Apps and Games
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Processor |
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| Memory |
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| Connectivity |
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Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and either 256 or 512 GB of UFS 4.0 storage, the Xiaomi 15 offered smooth performance in daily tasks as expected. We didn’t notice any practical differences to the Ultra model with even more RAM, and expect the phone to age well through its support lifetime.
In synthetic benchmarks, the Xiaomi 15 performed on par with other phones powered by the same processor, while graphical tests from 3DMark could not be run for this review.
| Xiaomi 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite) |
Xiaomi 15 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite) |
Galaxy S25 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite) |
OnePlus 13 (Snapdragon 8 Elite) |
Xiaomi 14T Pro (Dimensity 9300) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu | 2,660,490 | 2,712,233 | 2,341,216 | 2,695,676 | 2,013,101 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test |
n/a | n/a | Best loop: 6986 Worst loop: 3253 Stability: 46.6% |
Best loop: 8751 Worst loop: 4410 Stability: 50.4% |
Best loop: 4095 Worst loop: 2712 Stability: 66.2% |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad Light Stress Test |
n/a | n/a | Best loop: 2581 Worst loop: 1363 Stability: 52.8% |
- | Best loop: 1605 Worst loop: 1240 Stability: 77.2% |
| Geekbench 6 | Single: 3023 Multi: 9119 |
Single: 2997 Multi: 8951 |
Single: 3187 Multi: 9947 |
Single: 3125 Multi: 9697 |
Single: 2188 Multi: 7142 |
In games, the Xiaomi 15 ran PUBG Mobile and Grid Autosport smoothly, and remained cool to the touch, even with high graphical settings, just like a flagship should. On the other hand, Xiaomi managed to slap ads even to the game sidebar overlay, which feels out of place in a $1000 device.
Great Main Camera, Mediocre Ultra-Wide
| Camera | |
|---|---|
| Main Camera |
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| Ultra-Wide Camera |
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| Tele Camera |
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| Selfie Camera |
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| Max. Video Resolution |
|
Not being an “Ultra”, the Xiaomi 15 makes some sensible choices in the camera department, with the tried and tested kit with a wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto camera. The first one is clearly the star of the show, with a bigger 1/1,31’’ sensor packing 50 megapixels, and a fast f/1.62 aperture lens.
The other two sensors have the same size, at 1/2,76’’, with the ultra-wide featuring a f/2.2 aperture, and the 3x zoom telephoto f/2.0. In the front, the 32-megapixel selfie camera has a f/2.0 lens.
The days testing the Xiaomi 15 were cloudy and dull, not the ideal scenario to judge pictures taken with it. Despite that, we were pleased with the results from both the main camera and the 3x telephoto, which in some cases can offer good results up to 5x or 10x magnification.
The ultra-wide pictures were not on par, with similar colors but less sharpness. The difference grew larger with low-light situations, with much darker results for the ultra-wide camera.
At night, the limitations of the ultra-wide camera become evident, as it struggles to capture enough light, resulting in soft, low-detail images when viewed at their original size. Night mode provides some improvement, making photos more suitable for smaller screens (e.g., messaging apps or social media), but not enough for high-quality prints.
In contrast, the main and telephoto cameras perform better in low-light conditions, particularly in handling light sources without excessive glare. Night mode further enhances these shots, boosting brightness without overexposure. The dedicated portrait mode offers two distinct options, while the large main sensor contributes to an appealing bokeh effect (background blur).
The Xiaomi 15 also returned good selfies, with natural skin tone, enough sharpness, and especially, without beauty effects. Portrait mode was better than expected, dealing well with background separation, even around loose strands of hair.
Big Battery With Xiaomi 15
| Battery | |
|---|---|
| Battery Capacity | |
| Wired Charging Speed | |
| Wireless Charging Speed |
Despite the compact dimensions, the Xiaomi 15 packs a big 5240 mAh component. And for normal usage on messaging apps and some content consumption, the phone lasted through the day with some spare capacity.
Longer gaming sessions and constant GPS navigation will require a recharge throughout the day, and it took 49 minutes for a full recharge in our tests using a 120 W charger from Xiaomi. Half an hour at the wall was enough for 80% of the charge, which should last for an entire day for most use-case scenarios.
| Charging | Xiaomi 15 (5240 mAh | with 120W charger) |
Xiaomi 15 Ultra (5410 mAh | 120W) |
Galaxy S25 Ultra (5000 mAh | Samsung 45 W PD) |
Xiaomi 14T Pro (5000 mAh | 120W ) ["Fast" option] |
Pixel 9 Pro XL (5060 mAh | 140 W USB-PD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 minutes | |||||
| 30 minutes | |||||
| 1 hour | |||||
| Full charge |
|
||||
| PC Mark Battery test |
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|
|
|
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On the PCMark battery test that simulates a constant workload with the screen on, the Xiaomi 15 lasted 17 hours running the test between 80 and 20% charge, which is a good score for such a compact phone.
It is worth mentioning that while the Xiaomi 15 supports up to 90 W wired charging using the brand’s proprietary HyperCharge adapters, the phone doesn’t include one in the box. Wireless charging is also available at up to 50 W but with no Qi2 support. And finally, there is reverse wireless charging.
Should You Buy the Xiaomi 15?
Despite not having the flashy specifications or upgrades of its Ultra sibling, it is easier to recommend buying the Xiaomi 15 due to its flagship performance at a lower price. The phone makes sensible compromises to reach the competitive €999 (around $1,040).
Against similarly priced phones such as the Galaxy S25 and iPhone 16, the only things that take points away from the Xiaomi 15 are the shorter software support policy and the amount of bloatware and ads. Long-time Xiaomi customers are probably used to them by now, and there are always methods to turn most of them off.
For owners of the Xiaomi 14, on the other hand, the differences are mostly related to the processor and longer software support, so for them, we recommend waiting for a more substantial change. The Xiaomi 15 even got a shorter focal length on the telephoto camera (i.e. "less zoom"), without the big sensor upgrade the Ultra model got.
Where to Buy the Xiaomi 15
The Xiaomi 15 is not expected to be officially sold in the US but should be available through third-party sellers like its predecessors. In Europe, prices start at €999 for the 256 GB storage model (around $1,040) and will be available both in the online Xiaomi Store and the usual retailers and online shops.
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