With a Leica lens that provides one enormous camera bump, there’s no hiding the biggest selling point of the Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
The high-end smartphone is already being touted as having one of the best camera setups of any phone in 2026.
With so many options, it is a camera that will appeal to those who love to play with settings, filters, zooms and a myriad of options to maximise their creativity.
We put it to the test during beach and rainforest walks, a weekend away at a nice hotel, as well as pooch portraits.
In our testing, it produced some exceptional photos and videos.
The colours were beautifully balanced, the focus was sharp and the bokeh effect on the portrait photos were among the best we’ve seen.
This is a camera for the real enthusiast, but it’s also easy enough to use as a simple point and shoot.
Out of the box, set-up on the phone was super easy and very similar to what you can expect with an Apple, Google or Samsung phone.
One thing we noticed is how vivid the display looks.
The phone has custom-built OLED panels with up to 3500 nits peak brightness, together with a 1–120Hz refresh rate, as well as features to reduce eye strain.
Some have rightly pointed out that Xiaomi phones, particularly those on the lower end of the scale, come with unnecessary bloatware pre-installed, apps you don’t need. You can simply delete them.
The phone also comes with plenty of decent AI options, including Google Gemini.
The Chinese phone, which comes with six years of software updates, is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor.
While it is thinner and lighter than last year’s model, it certainly doesn’t slip easily into the pockets of tight jeans with its massive camera housing.
But if you think of it more like a great camera that also makes phone calls, it’s a lot slimmer than a DSLR.
The Leica-branded camera system boasts a mechanical zoom which produces more realistic and professional looking photographs.
Even the sound effect when you take a photo sounds similar to a camera.
Xiaomi says the phone is built to be robust, with Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0 offering 30 per cent greater drop resistance than Xiaomi 15 Ultra, a high-strength fibreglass back, an aluminium alloy frame, and an IP68 rating for protection against dust and moisture.
Both the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and Leica Leitzphone models feature Xiaomi’s first one inch LOFIC main camera sensor.
Xiaomi says the Light Fusion 1050L image sensor uses cutting-edge capacitor technology to enable next-generation HDR performance.
The Leica 200MP 75–100mm camera features a 75–100mm mechanical optical zoom.
When you are taking a photo, you can switch from 0.6 x to 1, 2, 3-2.4.3 and then 8.6.
It expands to a 400mm (17.2x) equivalent focal length thanks to advanced sensor technology for long-range photography.
Leica filters include vivid, natural, two black and white options, sepia and blue.
Built to Leica APO optical references, the telephoto camera maintains high image quality with minimal ghosting and colour fringing across the entire zoom range.
In the video department, both the main and telephoto camera can shoot Dolby Vision or ACES Log recording at up to 4K 120fps.
You can shoot up to 8K video at 30 frames per second while video options also include a built-in teleprompter, which is handy for vloggers.
Going into settings in the camera, there are so many options for taking and editing photos and video.
Live cinematography settings include red carpet, portrait, freestyle and ultra HD live.
You can shoot in RAW and Ultra RAW formats and manually tweak settings like ISO, white balance and presets.
If you really want your phone to be more like a camera, you can add a photography kit pro set-up which includes a slip-resistant PU leather grip reminiscent of iconic Leica bodies, an integrated 2000mAh battery, a detachable shutter button, and a fastshot mode UI.
When it comes to power, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra has a 6000mAh battery capacity, supporting 90W wired and 50W wireless charging.
Xiaomi 17 series pricing in Australia
Xiaomi 17 Ultra comes in three colour options: Black, White and Starlit Green, with 512GB and 1TB storage variants. The RRP $1799 for 512GB and $1999 for 1TB.
Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi comes in Black and has storage of 1TB. RRP $2299.
Xiaomi 17 comes in four colour options: Black, Venture Green, Alpine Pink and Ice Blue, with 256GB and 512GB storage variants. RRP $1399 for 256GB and $1599 for 512GB.
Xiaomi 17 Ultra Photography Kit Pro comes in black with a RRP $349.
