Xiaomi recently announced its newest flagship, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra along with its Australian availability.  The official release of a Xiaomi flagship in Australia is something we only dreamt of not long ago, but in recent times, Xiaomi has officially been pushing into Australia and we are glad they have.

Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer with 13% of the market share (behind only Apple, 20% and Samsung, 19%), so you would expect their flagship smartphone to include everything but the kitchen sink, and it nearly does.

In just an 8.29mm thick stylish body, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, features a massive 6.9-inch HyperRGB OLED display with an LPTO refresh rate of 1-120Hz and brightness of up to 3500 nits, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of onboard storage.  Add in a 6,000mAh battery and support for 90W wired and 50W wireless charging, and you have a powerful phone.

The phone is designed to be a camera powerhouse too with a triple rear camera which includes a 1-inch 50MP image sensor and a 50MP autofocus selfie camera.  

Design + Display

I received the Starlit Green version of the Xiaomi 17 Ultra and it is stunning.  I’m not sure why you would choose white or black if they’re the same price, since the Starlit Green just sparkles and jumps out at you.

The front of the device houses the large flat display – curved displays have been and gone for flagships, thank goodness.  The bezels are incredibly small, in keeping with the usual on a flagship smartphone.  

The display is a 6.9-inch HyperRGB OLED with an LPTO refresh rate of 1-120Hz and up to 3500 nits of brightness, and it looks great. All premium flagships these days have amazing AMOLED displays, and the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is no exception. It responds incredibly quickly, and is super bright with amazing colours.

Under the display is an ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint sensor which is fast, accurate and reliable. Most are these days but it is certainly one of the fastest I have used. Xiaomi has also included face unlock, which they call AI Face Unlock. I’m not entirely sure what AI is about it, but it is fast but not secure enough to use for biometric security — you’ll still have to use your fingerprint for bank apps and your Google Wallet.

The buttons on the right-hand side of the phone are separate volume buttons (no rocker here) and a bigger power button.  This separation makes it easier to quickly discern between the two.

The rear of the phone houses the massive camera island and relatively subtle Xiaomi branding.  The camera island is so big that when the phone sits on its back on a table or desk it looks to be at quite an angle – and it is.  The advantage of the camera island, as Xiaomi has designed it, is that it sits in the centre of the top of the rear of the device, so when using it while sitting on the desk, it remains stable and doesn’t wobble from side to side.

Inside, the device sports the latest Snapdragon chipset and Qi wireless charging.  You may have noticed that I said Qi, and not Qi2, and you’d be spot on.  There is no Qi2 charging, no magnets for positioning aids on charging coils or accessories, and that is disappointing.  Qi2 is available on some phones, but manufacturers still seem reluctant to include it (Samsung, OPPO, and now Xiaomi have forgoen adding it to their flagships – Google has included it).

In the hand, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra feels extremely premium, with solid build quality and a decent weight that isn’t too heavy.  

Of note, Xiaomi has included a basic hard clear case in the back that snaps on and fits perfectly.  If I were going to buy this though, I would be buying a case with the magnetic positioning aids to help with car mounts, etc.

Camera

The rear camera on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a beast in terms of specs.  The three cameras in the setup are:

  • Leica 23mm main camera,
    • 50MP
    • Light Fusion 1050L image sensor
    • 1″ sensor size
    • 3.2μm 4-in-1 Super Pixel
    • ƒ/1.67
    • OIS
    • 23mm equivalent focal length
  • Leica 200MP 75-100mm telephoto,
    • 200MP
    • Samsung HPE image sensor
    • 1/1.4″ sensor size
    • 2.24μm 16-in-1 pixel size
    • ƒ/2.39-ƒ/2.96
    • OIS
    • 75-100mm equivalent focal length
  • Leica 14mm ultra-wide camera
    • 50MP
    • Samsung JN5 image sensor
    • 1/2.75″ sensor size
    • 1.28μm 4-in-1 pixel size
    • ƒ/2.2
    • 14mm equivalent focal length
    • FOV 115°

Also included are a host of camera software features, including:

  • Two Leica photographic styles (Leica Authentic Look, Leica Vibrant Look)
  • Leica filters | Leica classic shutter sound | Leica watermark
  • Xiaomi ProFocus (Motion tracking focus, eye tracking focus and motion capture)
  • Lightning Burst
  • Digital zoom up to 120x
  • Xiaomi ProCut
  • HDR
  • Dynamic shot
  • 50MP (Wide/Ultra wide/Telephoto)
  • 200MP mode (Telephoto)
  • Live Cinematography
  • Super Macro
  • Supermoon (Auto)
  • Fastshot
  • Long Exposure
  • Panorama
  • Portrait mode
  • Documents mode

How many of these did I actually use, and how many are you going to actually use? Very few — but they are still nice to have in case you ever want. The main issue you’ll have is remembering they are there — maybe this is where the AI Scene software can help by suggesting a certain setting. It is meant to do that but sometimes I would like it to be a bit more aggressive with its recommendations and notifications. It isn’t just Xiaomi, I want to do this, but all manufacturers.

Camera software has come a long way in recent years, so why not tell us in real time what to do and how to do it? Google has some software that can help — Camera Coach but that is not quite the same.

Video recording at up to 8K at 30 fps is also possible, along with slow motion, ShootSteady video recording, Night Video, and Time-lapse video.

The pictures the Xiaomi 17 Ultra produces are stunning, as you would hope for an expensive ultra-premium flagship.  As you can see below, the colours and detail are stunning, and if you want one of the best cameras on the market, you couldn’t go wrong with this phone.

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Night images are good but the shot seems to take longer than that of a Pixel 10 Pro, but about the same as other flagships – the Pixels are that good.  Keep that in mind when attempting to take an action shot in low-light conditions.  Xiaomi has included LOFIC HDR technology, which boosts highlight control to capture low-light details.

HyperOS 3 Software

Like many Chinese manufacturers in the early days of Android, Xiaomi’s software was cartoonish, looked cheap and nasty, and just didn’t translate well to the rest of the world.  Like most other manufacturers, though, Xiaomi has also come a long way with its software, now very similar to that of Google’s Pixel devices, while adding far more enhancements to make the phone easier and more powerful to use.

It is difficult to list all of the enhancements in the Xiaomi HyperOS 3 operating system but it is more than just about every other operating system on the market. There are gestures, theming of everything, a personalised Always-on display, fingerprint effects, floating windows, quick ball and more. It’s safe to say that you can set this phone up to work exactly how you want it to.

Not only can it do so much, but it looks good too. Even if you don’t like Xiaomi’s styling, you can apply your own themes to it.

The software on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is fast. The optimisation, combined with the top-notch Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform chipset inside, has resulted in an extremely snappy experience. It doesn’t have the Pixel-smoothness, but it’s fast, and at all times. I can play any game I want and have as many apps in memory as I want. I’m not a fan of running benchmarks — I’d much rather just use it to its fullest, all day, and see how it handles real-world usage. The answer here is yes, it works extremely well, the entire day running all tasks asked of it.

There are also a few Xiaomi apps pre-installed on the phone too such as Gallery, App Mall, Mi Browser, Xiaomi Home and Mi remote. Mi remote works ok but it did not seem as quick to set up nor as fully functional as that on the OPPO phones. I ran through the setup for my Samsung TV, and when I finally said, “Yes, it did turn the TV on,” very few of the other buttons worked — so you have to lie and say it didn’t work? Either way, it was a bit hit-or-miss.

AI is, of course, everywhere, with nothing special more than the usual derivations that we see of Google’s Gemini in every other smartphone.  Xiaomi mentions AI Writing, AI Speech Recognition, AI Interpreter, AI Search, AI Dynamic Wallpapers, AI Creativity Assistant, and more. Then there is the Google-created Circle to Search with Google and Google Gemini.

Battery and charging

Xiaomi does not include a charger in the box, which is disappointing, as one of the phone’s headline features is its support for 90W HyperCharge, but you need to use a supported Xiaomi charger.  OPPO include one in their box for their 80W SUPERVOOC Charging, so it is disappointing Xiaomi does not.  

So, to test it out, I purchased a Xiaomi 120W HyperCharge Combo (Type-A), on sale for $44.50, plus $10 postage.  As you can see from the charging graph below, the 90W charging is different to most other charging graphs we see. It is a straight line rather than a curve that most phones follow. The straight line, combined with the proprietary 90W HyperCharge technology, resulted in the phone charging from empty to full in under an hour.

The Xiaomi 7 Ultra also supports 50W wireless HyperCharge, which is nice, but you are stuck with buying a Xiaomi wireless charger if you want fast wireless charging. Qi2 charging speeds for all Qi2 chargers would have been nice, as would have been the positioning magnets including in the Qi2 protocol.

While the battery charging is fast you most likely won’t need it. The battery will last you an entire day, as it did for me, unless you are a serious power user running all types of connectivity throughout the day. If that is you, though, just carry the charger and plug it in for 20 minutes at any time and get another 40% of battery. The straight-line charge allows for fast charging at any battery percentage.

Final Thoughts

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an amazing phone. It looks amazing in the Starlit Green (don’t buy any other colour, this one is ‘lit’) and is extremely well built. It has everything you could want in a phone except for Qi2. It has wireless charging that is faster than Qi2 but you have to buy a Xiaomi wireless charger, plus you miss out on the positioning magnets included with Qi2.

With a Xiaomi 120W charger, you have the fastest-charging phone on the Australian market, and when combined with one of the best smartphone cameras and the best smartphone performance chipsets, you have a powerhouse of a smartphone.

The software is extremely customisable, is snappy and looks great. What more could you ask for? Impressively, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at just $1,799 for the 16GB/512GB version, much less than other equivalent ultra-premium smartphones. Add on another $200 if you need 1TB of storage.

At that price it is a very compelling smartphone. I’m not sure how Xiaomi has done it, but they have long been known for extremely affordable devices for along time. Now it seems that they are here to stay in Australia, and based on this offering, it’s a big win for Australian Consumers.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra comes in three colour options: Black, White, Starlit Green, with 512GB and 1TB storage variants — RRP $1,799 AUD for 512GB and $1,999 for 1TB. For more information check out the Xiaomi website.