While on the outside it looks almost identical as the year older Xiaomi 14, the new model carries a lot of hidden and meaningful improvements that should cement it’s position as one of the best compact flagship smartphone in current market.
Body
Xiaomi kept the same design and just redefined the every detail, something that for example happened with the Iphone 16. Same trio camera layout is still here, aluminium frame with the glass back, but this time with a velvet-like sandblasting, to offer a smooth and textured finish at the same time. You have a choice between 4 colors: Black, White, Green, and Purple.
And there is also a special liquid silver edition, that features a one of a kind rear glass panel that has undergone an hot-pressing process to create a textured ripple effect. This is something we haven’t seen before on any phone and it looks very interesting.
Weight wise, it is almost identical to the previous generation at 188 grams, but the weight itself is better balanced, so holding the phone is more comfortable. It retained the same IP certification of IP68 dust and water resistance.
Battery and charging
The Xiaomi 15 defies the norm that compact phones must compromise on battery size, packing an impressive 5,400mAh battery. Xiaomi has increased the battery capacity by 790mAh compared to the previous generation, all while making the device 2g lighter.
Charging stayed the same, offering 90W wired charging and 50W wireless.
Display
The biggest improvement in this area is that they managed to shrink the bezels even further and the Xiaomi 14 didn’t have chunky bezels by any means. It does make the phone look even more modern. Another improvement in this area is the peak brightness, up from 3000 nits to 3200 nits. Display itself is protected by the shatterproof glass.
Fingerprint sensor has also been changed, from the optical sensor to the ultrasonic one. The good news is that is blazingly fast and reliable, the bad news is that you can’t use the tempered glass as a screen protector since the ultrasonic waves can’t penetrate the temperated glass. Therefore you can only opt for special films or TPU.
Performance
This is where we have huge improvement because the Xiaomi 15 is now rocking the new Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU. In AnTuTu it scores over 2.7 million points, making it faster then 99% of smartphones. Just for a comparison, the last year’s model scores only around 2 million points.
While even the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is powerful enough for anything you can throw at the phone, the new 8 Elite is also more power efficient, throttles less and this will at the end mean you have a better battery life.
Camera
3 camera sensors stayed the same as on the Xiaomi 14, the one that got an upgrade is the telephoto. The telephoto lens uses a new 28nm sensor, supporting richer features while implementing the highly-praised floating lens design. While it looks dissapointing on the paper, the things in practice look far different. New chipset and AI process your photos a lot better, so without the hardware changes you get a lot better quality shots.
Photos taken on the new 15 are just sharper, less noisy and have a better dynamic range. That doesn’t just stand for the telephoto camera that got a sensor upgrade, the main and wide angle shots are also noticeably better. Oversaturation of red color has been fixed, exposure has been increased, meaning that while photos do look more bright, it does effect the contrast of colors in a bad way.
In terms of recording, no big changes on this front, you can still record up to 8k 30FPS videos, but the front facing camera can now record 4K 30FPS HDR videos, something that the predecessor was not able to.
Spec comparison with the Xiaomi 14
| Spec | Xiaomi 14 | Xiaomi 15 |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 188g | 190g |
| Build | Aluminium frame, glass back | Aluminium frame, glass back |
| Display | 6.36 inches, 460ppi, LTPO OLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 3200 nits peak, ~90.0% screen-to-body ratio | 6.36 inches, 460ppi, LTPO OLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 3000 nits peak, ~89.3% screen-to-body ratio |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 8 Elite 3nm | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 4nm |
| Battery | 5400 mAh | 4610 mAh |
| Charging | 90W wired, 50W wireless | 90W wired, 50W wireless |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Ultrasonic, under display | Optical, under display |
| OS | Android 15, HyperOS 2 | Android 14, HyperOS 1.1 |
| Memory options | 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM | 256GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM |
| Main Camera Sensor | 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), 1/1.31″, 1.2µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS | 50 MP, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), 1/1.31″, 1.2µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS |
| Telephoto sensor | 50 MP, f/2.0, 60mm (telephoto), PDAF (10cm – ∞), OIS, 3x optical zoom | 50 MP, f/2.0, 75mm (telephoto), PDAF (10cm – ∞), OIS, 3.2x optical zoom |
| Ultrawide lens | 50 MP, f/2.2, 14mm, 115˚ (ultrawide) | 50 MP, f/2.2, 14mm, 115˚ (ultrawide) |
Conclusion
If priced correctly, this is going to be the best compact flagship smartphone for the money. It really offers everything, from an amazing camera, best in class battery and battery life, insane amounts of power with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite, gorgeous display and sleek and premium design.
