After the Chinese New Year, Xiaomi eagerly released its 14 Ultra. Not just in China by the way, this phone will be launched globally as well, showing that Xiaomi is finally coming up with the confidence to let people all over the world use this photography monster. I’ve taken a lot of photos with the 13 Ultra over the past year, so I’m probably more excited than anyone to see what new things this phone can bring to the table.

Unboxing

This year’s Xiaomi 14 Ultra still comes in the same black box, and the appearance remains unchanged.

The accessories at the top are the same: card pins, manual, and phone case. The phone case has gone from a soft case to a hard one. Interestingly the blue version is clear frosted while the black version is black frosted.

At the bottom are the charger and charging cable. The charger is still 90W, just like the 13 Ultra.

Hands-on

In terms of looks, not much has changed from the 13 Ultra. The design language is roughly the same, with a frame that extends to the back panel and a round camera module in the center that still catches our eye.

But when I took the 13 Ultra out for a closer comparison, I still spotted a few small changes. The biggest change is that the slope next to the lens module has been removed, and it looks like the lens module sticks out more. The metal frame that extends out has also become more rounded.

So the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has become more phone-like to hold than the 13 Ultra. This year’s Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a new blue back cover version that I really like. You know what, I don’t even care if it’s blue, red, or any other color, I like it because it’s a ceramic back cover, which makes a vegan leather hater like me very happy.

And the ceramic back cover has been weighted down so that it’s not much heavier than the leather version. Now I am sure, this blue-colored Xiaomi 14 Ultra is what I need.

Although not much has changed on the back, there is a big change on the front. Yes, the screen is the same one that’s on the Xiaomi 14 Pro, even the protective glass is the same Dragon Crystal Glass. With bezels of almost equal width on all four sides, and all of them are a little bit curved, it looks and feels like the perfect screen in my mind.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra‘s processor is of course the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Instead, it’s the battery capacity that’s a shocker. Even though the camera module is getting bigger, the phone is getting lighter, and the battery capacity has increased by 300 mAh.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra also adds two new Surge T1 chips and Satellite Calling, so the price getting higher is to be expected. What do you think of the price, post your thoughts in the comments section.

Speaking of the Ultra, the cameras are naturally the strongest selling point of this phone. I do love the Xiaomi Ultra series, so I took the 13 Ultra out on vacation and snapped these photos. Very pretty right? It must be hard for the 14 Ultra to top it with a similar camera.

Yep, the cameras on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra haven’t changed much compared to the 13 Ultra, with all four cameras having the same focal lengths and sensor sizes. The upgrades are things that the average person doesn’t really care about, such as a larger aperture and no digital crop on the 3.2x telephoto camera. There’s also a new AI platform added.

They said that the 14 Ultra supports four cameras switching at will in 4K 60fps video recording, I’ve tested it, and it’s truly awesome. Like the other phones in the 14 series, the front camera can now record 4K 60fps video. More about its camera system will be covered in the FULL REVIEW. What’s certain now is that it’s definitely more powerful than the 13 Ultra.

Unfortunately, there’s not much about this phone that I can tell you right now. This is because a lot of the features need to be tested by us, to know how well it works. As always, we’ll make the FULL review video as soon as we can. Remember to subscribe to our channel to make sure you don’t miss our videos.