Xiaomi 15 review

A familiar triple camera with an upgraded telephoto

The Xiaomi 15 borrows almost its entire camera setup from the Xiaomi 14. This effectively makes it one of the best-equipped, relatively compact flagships around. What Xiaomi swapped this time is the telephoto sensor. Instead of the Samsung ISOCELL JN1, the telephoto now uses the upgraded ISOCELL JN5, plus a new lens offering 2.6x optical zoom instead of 3.2x.

Besides that, the main camera is the same and still based on the OmniVision OVX9000 Light Fusion 900 sensor. The ultrawide hasn't changed either and uses the Samsung ISOCELL JN1 sensor. The selfie camera is familiar as well - the 32MP OmniVision OV32B.

• Wide (main): 50 MP OmniVision OVX9000 Light Fusion 900, f/1.6, 23mm (wide), 1/1.31", 1.2µm, dual pixel PDAF, Laser AF, OIS, OIS; 4320p@24fps, 2160p@60fps
• Telephoto: 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN5, f/2.0, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 60mm (telephoto), PDAF (10cm - ∞), OIS, 2.6x optical zoom; 2160p@60fps
• Ultrawide: 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.2, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 14mm, 115-degree (ultrawide); 2160p@60fps
• Front camera: 32MP OmniVision OV32B, f/2.0, 1/3.14", 0.7µm (wide); 2160p@30/60fps

Xiaomi is promising that the Xiaomi Imaging Engine (AISP 2.0) ensures a consistent tone across the cameras as white balance and exposure settings are derived from the always-on main camera.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The main camera delivers flagship-grade image quality during the day. It has everything nailed down - sharpness, fine detail, wide dynamic range, accurate color reproduction, and consistent outdoor and indoor performance.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP main camera samples

Here are some full-resolution 50MP shots as well. These don't really differ all that much from the regular shots.

Xiaomi 15: 50MP main camera samples

2x zoom

Unlike last year's Xiaomi 14, the main camera sensor does particularly well with 2x digital zooms now. The photos have really good sharpness and contrast and no obvious artificial-looking processing.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

Other than that, the rest of the quality characteristics are the same as 1x shots.

Telephoto camera

The new telephoto camera doesn't zoom nearly as much as last year's model and now has a 60mm equivalent lens. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. On the plus side, the sensor has been upgraded from the Samsung ISOCELL JN1 to the JN5. The JN5 should be theoretically better, though it's not like we didn't love last year's telephoto already.

The telephoto in the Xiaomi 15 captures excellent stills with superb detail, great contrast and dynamic range. The colors also look great and match the main camera well.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP telephoto camera 2.6x samples

5x is not a native zoom level for any of the cameras, but it is available a a quick toggle in the camera app. Shots are actually cropped and zoomed from the telephoto. Here are some samples.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP telephoto camera 5x samples

The Xiaomi 15 lacks autofocus on its ultrawide, but it does have a dedicated macro mode that uses the telephoto. It can't really focus all that close to the subject with a minimum of around 10cm of distance, but it still does a great job of macros.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP telephoto camera macro samples

Portraits

The Xiaomi 15 can capture portraits with its main camera and telephoto. Xiaomi includes a total of four zoom presents in the UI. There is a 23mm one, which is the native zoom of the main camera. The other presets seem a bit arbitrary. These are 35mm, which is also shot with the main camera and then 60mm and 75mm, which come from the telephoto camera.

Xiaomi 15: Portrait shots at 23mm, 35mm, 60mm and 75mm

Quality-wise, we can't find any major faults here. Subject detection and separation are nearly perfect, and the quality of the background blur is great.

Ultrawide camera

The stills from the ultrawide aren't bad in any particular way but aren't spectacular either. We always tend to expect more of these cameras, especially on flagships, but the reality is that most simply don't deliver for one reason or another.

There is visible softness in these images, especially near the corners. There is more to be desired in terms of detail as well as contrast. Dynamic range isn't stellar either, with frequently crushed shadows.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP ultrawide camera samples

Colors look nice but are not particularly well-matched to the other cameras, which becomes really apparent in indoor shots.

Selfie camera

The selfie camera on the Xiaomi 15 captures nice-looking stills. You get very pleasant skin tones and a good dynamic range. These are a bit excessive in size at 32MP, and despite the high resolution, they are soft if you pixel peep. They could have just turned them into very good 8MP images, but that is what it is.

Xiaomi 15: 32MP selfie camera samples

Detail is excellent, and so are the contrast and dynamic range. Colors look great, too.

Low-light camera quality

The Xiaomi 15 seems pretty generous with the Night mode, and often prefers to use it. Either way, the difference between the standard Photo and Night modes is almost non-existent. You will get clean, sharp and detailed photos in both cases. We are impressed with the level of detail in the shadows as well as the adequate handling of highlights and light sources.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

Here are some forced night mode samples for comparison.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

The 2x zoom mode produces somewhat usable images but with considerably lower detail, inferior sharpness and lower contrast compared to the standard 1x shots.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP main camera low-light 2x zoom samples

The dedicated telephoto camera shoots much better zoom shots by comparison, but these are still imperfect. Surfaces come out looking a bit soft and artificial thanks to noise reduction and sharpening.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP telephoto camera low-light 2.6x samples

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP telephoto camera low-light 5x samples

There is plenty of detail on the plus side, and colors look great. The dynamic range is nice and wide, and contrast is good.

The ultrawide camera doesn't shine in low light, but it still does alright as far as ultrawides go.

Xiaomi 15: 12.5MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

Video recording

The handset supports recording 8K videos of up to 30fps with its main camera and 4K@60fps using its auxiliary cameras. The Xiaomi 14 could only do 8K@24fps. Steady Video mode with enhanced EIS and Steady Video PRO mode are also available. All these modes cap at 1080p@30fps. HDR/Dolby Vision recording and Pro mode are also on the list, while an array of 4 microphones enable directional audio recording. The microphones are placed on the front and back of the device. And although the Dolby Vision recording isn't a new feature, Xiaomi highlights that the built-in video editor supports Dolby Vision edits.

Videos get saved in h.265/HEVC by default to save on space with a stereo AAC audio stream inside an MP4 container. You can opt to use the older h.264/AVC format instead for better compatibility, but you need to specifically do that.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

Regarding quality, there is no room to complain at all. The Xiaomi 15 is up there with the best of them, especially its main camera, which captures stellar 4K videos with abundant detail, great colors, dynamic range, and practically no noise.

The dedicated telephoto camera also captures great 4K videos. These are very detailed, with great colors and no noise. They are just a bit softer than videos from the regular camera, but that is to be expected.

Even the ultrawide has some formidable video recording chops. The quality is pretty great, with plenty of detail and no noise. There is slight fringing on smaller details, but that's all.

The low-light 4K video taken with the main camera is also very good - it has above-average dynamic range and level of detail, even in the darker parts of the scene.