Bli plusmedlem

Generous battery life

Review: Xiaomi 15 - Flagship with that little extra

Impressive battery life and really good cameras make the Xiaomi 15 a flagship with the potential to attract many.

Erik Mörner
Published Modified

This phone includes most of what you should demand from a top mobile today without having an excessively high price tag. What makes a flagship mobile today is primarily performance that not only suffices today but promises to keep the phone fast even in the coming years. It is a sharp, bright screen, it is professional and versatile cameras. All of this is fulfilled by Xiaomi 15.

Fastest

Xiaomi 15 is powered by the fastest system chip on the market, Snapdragon 8 Elite, and it places the phone in a clear flagship class where competitors with the same engine under the hood can cost anything from 9500 kronor up to 22,500 kronor, so in that company, this phone belongs to the budget group. So far, there are not many phones launched with this sharp performance, Xiaomi 15 is one of the first released, but it is still clear that the three cameras on the back, all at 50 megapixels and with optical zoom up to 2.6 times magnification and good pictures beyond that actually all the way up to 60 times magnification, which is as much as the camera app allows. Sure, the quality is then reduced, but it is still about usable pictures, I realise when I zoom in maximally to take pictures of the houses on the other side of the water, with Stockholm's stream between me and the subject.

With the help of Leica

The camera app and even colour calibration and optics have been developed by Xiaomi with the help of Leica. It shows. The cameras are something of the phone's ace up its sleeve, and especially the colour reproduction and dynamic range impress with lifelike results. Portraits get a particularly natural bokeh effect with background blur that you can also adjust, along with precise detail and sharpness as well as natural skin tones. The camera loses a bit in the dark, the more extreme low-light performance is left to the Ultra model or other more expensive competitors, but as long as you can see in a dimly lit room, the Xiaomi 15 has no problem taking good pictures there. 

The colour reproduction and dynamic range are handled well by the cameras, except for the wide-angle lens, which is noticeably worse in this regard and therefore deviates. 

Beyond the camera and despite top performance, the battery life in the Xiaomi 15 impresses. In our battery test, we get over thirteen hours of constant video streaming, which is among the best results for a phone with performance in this class. Xiaomi and their system seem to have managed to combine performance and energy efficiency in a format that is still not excessively large. The phone sits well in the hand and is easy to grip comfortably. However, when the phone is working hard, it can become dangerously hot. This only happens under prolonged and high load, but it means that the performance tests we run simply cause the phone to lock up and prompt us to wait until it has cooled down. To even complete all the tests, we have to put the phone on ice. Luckily, the phone is water-resistant.

Placed on an ice bed to avoid overheating

It is normal for phones under significantly high load to throttle performance to manage heat development, but to completely interrupt the process as it does here is not something we should accept. This is not the first time we have noticed this in Xiaomi phones, but hopefully, it is something Xiaomi can adjust in a future software update. Strange that it hasn't already happened considering previous problems. This occurs despite the fact that the Xiaomi 15 is equipped with a new cooling system with a wing-shaped design inside the phone specifically aimed at dissipating heat particularly effectively. 

Related articles

Comfortable mid-size

The screen is just over six inches, which means this phone is in the same size class as the iPhone 16 Pro and half a centimetre taller than the Samsung Galaxy S25. Around the screen on the Xiaomi 15, there is only a thin frame, and other features of the screen include, for example, a 120 hertz refresh rate and always-on display so that you get both a smoothly flowing interface and the ability to see notifications, clock, and weather on the lock screen without it taking too much on the battery life.

Good screen, therefore, and in it, we find Xiaomi's interface Hyper OS and Android 15. Xiaomi adds a lot of its own apps to Android and provides quite a few different setting options, but it is not as clear what is actually added in terms of function that Android does not already offer. Xiaomi's interface can be perceived as a bit cluttered, and even though you can relatively easily uninstall unwanted apps and get the system to a state where it is efficient and clean, Hyper OS would benefit from a refresh. 

With the phone, Xiaomi promises four years of system updates, and even in this area, competitors have an advantage. Xiaomi is better in terms of battery life and cameras. 

Questions and Answers

Does Xiaomi have a package with AI services?

Yes, there are a bunch of editing features in the photo app, so you can expand images, remove distracting objects, and improve sharpness. We also find various AI tools to help you write, translate in real-time, and transcribe voice recordings directly. However, with limited Swedish language support.

Fingerprint sensor?

Yes, it's located in the screen and is really fast, probably because it uses ultrasound and is not optical.

Many apps included?

Yes, quite a few unnecessary ones, like Booking.com, Amazon, Aliexpress, and WPS Office. At least they can be uninstalled. 

An Alternative

Samsung S25 is a more compact phone with roughly the same price, but with longer promised Android updates.

Camera example:

Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15
Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15
Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15
Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15
Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15
Bilspel: Bildexempel Xiaomi 15

It is possible to take nice portraits, there is generous zoom for most occasions, and the colour reproduction is fine.

xiaomi product tests leica android product reviews xiaomi 15

Latest reviews

Top How-tos

100 latest articles