When Xiaomi 13 was released, I was very excited, because that’s my ideal phone. when Xiaomi 14 was released, I was very happy, because my dream phone became perfect. Now that the Xiaomi 15 has been released, I realize I’m not as happy as I was before. Because my Xiaomi 14 is already great, why should I upgrade to Xiaomi 15? Is it that great? Is it worth buying? When I finished testing it, I had the answer in my mind.
Don’t forget that the Xiaomi 15 series is currently available at GeekWills. For those who want to get an early taste of this phone, you can get it by clicking the link below.
Design
The appearance is pretty much like what I covered in the hands-on video. Simply put, there isn’t much that has changed, but when you get your hands on it, it feels like it’s become more sophisticated. Don’t get it? Ok, you can go to an iPhone store, and then get your hands on the iPhone 16, that one is like the Xiaomi 14, and the Xiaomi 15 is more like the iPhone 16 Pro, both in terms of the premium feel and the size.
The frosted back cover and frame do make the phone feel more expensive, but it also means it’s more slippery, and I almost dropped it a couple of times, to be honest. I’d also like to complain about the ultrasonic fingerprint recognition area. Yes, it is better positioned and the speed is faster. It also doesn’t blind you at night like a flashbang.
The only cost is that you won’t be able to put whatever film you want on it. One advantage of a straight screen is that you can apply tempered film very easily and conveniently, but ultrasonic fingerprint recognition takes that away. Because ultrasonic waves can’t penetrate tempered film, so you need to buy special film, or you can only use TPU film, which makes it very difficult for me to accept as a tempered film lover.
And… There doesn’t seem to be anything else I can gripe about. It has all the features it should have, except for that headphone jack that’s been gone for a decade. Because it’s a globally sold model, it also has more network band support than other phones. If you don’t care about the film issue, then the Xiaomi 15 should be the perfect one as a 6.3-inch phone.
Display
The Xiaomi 15’s screen, compared to last year, has three main upgrades: brighter, narrower, and more power-efficient. The Xiaomi 14’s 3,000nit brightness is only achievable in 1% of the screen, but the Xiaomi 15 can reach that brightness in 25% of the area, and it is available while reading eBooks.
Narrower, meaning the bezels are narrower, the Xiaomi 15 has one of the narrowest bezels of any phone. The new M9 luminescent material, combined with a dual microcavity structure, has reduced the screen’s power consumption by 10%. And you have to keep in mind that this is a 6.3-inch straight screen, the phone is less than 72mm wide. This is the main reason why I like the Xiaomi number series so much.
Performance & Battery
I’ve put the benchmark scores for the Xiaomi 13 to 15 here. It is clear that the Xiaomi 15 with Snapdragon 8 Elite is the generation with the most improvements. Because of the new second-generation Oryon architecture, the CPU scores dust the previous generation by a mile. With every processor upgrade comes an improved gaming experience.
Again taking Genshin Impact as an example, the game doesn’t seem to be able to create trouble for current phones anymore, even last year’s Xiaomi 14 can run it smoothly. The advantage of a more advanced processor though, is that it’s able to achieve the same results with lower temperatures and less power. Even the frame rate jitter is a little bit less than the 14, which means it’s smoother.
Combined with the 5400mAh battery, the 15 consumes 2% less power than the 14 in just 20 minutes of gaming. Both gamers and non-gamers should be very happy with this chip and battery life, that’s for sure. This is probably where the biggest difference between the Xiaomi 14 and 15 comes in.
Charging
Since we’re talking about the battery, let’s also cover the charging part as well. The 90W wired charging and 50W wireless charging are basically the same as the Xiaomi 14, and a full charge takes about 40 minutes.
The Xiaomi 15 has a new mode in the battery settings: cold endurance mode, which limits performance to extend battery life, a very useful feature for those who live in extremely cold environments.
Camera
Just looking at the specs, the Xiaomi 15’s camera is almost exactly the same as the Xiaomi 14’s. Only the sensor of the telephoto camera has been upgraded a little bit. Very disappointing, right?
Actually, we all misunderstood Xiaomi, because it has actually improved quite a lot. I’ll be putting up a lot of samples here, and slowly you’ll be able to see how far ahead the Xiaomi 15 is compared to the 14. The photos taken by the 15 are clearly sharper and less noisy, and it’s ahead of the Xiaomi 14 on all fronts, whether it’s the main camera, the telephoto camera, or the ultra-wide camera.
But Why? Two reasons. One is because the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s ISP has gotten stronger again. The second is that Xiaomi’s algorithms have evolved again, and AI enhancements have become easier to trigger. So the Xiaomi 15 proves one thing: you can’t judge a phone’s camera by its hardware alone, algorithms can sometimes change the game.
In addition to the AI upgrades, the Xiaomi 15 also fixes a lot of issues that were on the Xiaomi 14. For example, the red color being oversaturated leads to color distortion, which is often seen on the Xiaomi 14. It was hard for you to see details on red objects. Then this year’s Xiaomi 15 solved that problem. The stability of the white balance has also been improved, so the food looks more tasty in the photos.
Thanks to the new ISP, the keying algorithm in portrait mode has also been greatly enhanced. It’s impressive to see that hair doesn’t get mushy even in very harsh environments.
Dynamic range has been improved and exposure has been bumped up a notch, which should make more people like this style.
However, this also leads to a drop in contrast, and personally I still prefer the photos from the Xiaomi 14. Of course, you can choose Leica Authentic mode to improve the contrast of your photos. Both phones have almost identical photo styles in this mode, showing that Xiaomi feels this is the best answer to Leica color on a phone.
Video recording
When it comes to video recording, the Xiaomi 15 has improvements and regressions. The improvement is that the HDR effect has been boosted once again, you can see the blue sky in the video taken by the Xiaomi 15, but it is just a white sky on the Xiaomi 14. Even with the front-facing camera, the Xiaomi 15 can record 4K 30FPS HDR videos, but the Xiaomi 14 can’t.
Lens flare is also being controlled better than the 14. You can see a petal-like ring of flare around the sun on the Xiaomi 14. Here’s a new con: it’s clear that the Xiaomi 15 has a serious purple-fringing issue. Maybe the photos taken can still be fixed by the algorithm, but the video completely exposes this shortcoming.
Overall, the Xiaomi 15’s camera system has been upgraded more than expected. If it is 7 out of 10 for the Xiaomi 14 camera system, then the Xiaomi 15 should get 8. That’s a very high score for a 6.3-inch phone.
HyperOS 2
I know you guys are concerned about how the HyperOS 2 really is. Since I haven’t had hands-on experience for a long time, I can only tell you how I feel about it in the past few days.
Compared to OS 1, the biggest feeling is that it’s much smoother. There are fewer dropped frames, a lot of blurring effects have been added, and the animations have become more dynamic. I’m going to put a few comparisons with HyperOS 1 here, so you should be able to see that, there are still a lot of optimizations in OS 2.
HyperOS 2 also has a lot of new features, such as the AI in it, which allows you to customize your dynamic wallpaper, and be able to access Apple’s ecosystem with a single app. Some of the features are not very stable at the moment, and some of them still need to wait for an OTA update to work. So give us, and Xiaomi some time, more HyperOS 2 features will be presented in the Xiaomi 15 Pro Review.
Now back to the question, is it great? Yes, it’s great! Even if the Samsung S25 hasn’t been launched yet, I am confident in saying that this is the best small-sized phone out there. Is it worth buying? Unless you don’t like small-sized phones, you will never regret getting them. If you are a Xiaomi 14 user, then check your wallet before you decide. The Xiaomi 15 is great, but the Xiaomi 14 isn’t bad either, so for those of you has the 14, maybe waiting for the Xiaomi 16 should be the more sensible option.
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