Xiaomi 14 Ultra: The Ultimate Flagship Smartphone Review | Specs, Features

The Xiaomi 14 series smartphones have consistently ranked among the top flagship phones in terms of reputation, product power, and sales, achieving unprecedented success. This is undoubtedly due to Xiaomi's steadfast pursuit of the correct path to challenge high-end flagship phones, making it one of the few flagship smartphones that balance performance and feel.

With the impressive performance of the regular and large cup versions, the all-new Xiaomi 14 Ultra "extra-large cup" also brings a comprehensive imaging advancement experience. Through deep cooperation with Leica, Xiaomi's mobile imaging style has gradually formed and steadily improved. Each generation of products brings us surprises. This time, how much of an upgrade does the Xiaomi 14 Ultra offer compared to the previous Xiaomi 13 Ultra? Can it set a new benchmark for high-end imaging? Let's take a look together.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra comes in three color options. Both black and white use Xiaomi's nano-tech leather material, which not only provides a delicate touch but also excels in stain resistance and is less prone to fingerprints, earning praise from a large number of users. The third option is the Dragon Crystal Blue color, which is crafted using Xiaomi's exclusive Dragon Crystal ceramic. The surface is very delicate, offering a warmer touch, and the unique blue color stands out among similar products, ensuring high recognition. The design of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's back continues the style of the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, maintaining Xiaomi's design language, including the layout of the camera deco and the "Xiaomi" brand logo. However, there are more changes in the details. Firstly, the camera module features Parisian nail decorations, creating a finely scattered light effect. Coupled with the gold decorative ring around the lens module, the exquisite feel of the entire lens is more pronounced. Another point is that the back of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra adopts a flat design this time, eliminating the "small slope" transition, resulting in a more even distribution of the phone's weight and a better grip in daily use.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra also utilizes Unidiv's integrated molding technology, with the middle frame made of high-strength 6M42 aluminum alloy material, ensuring the overall strength of the device. The transition at the back frame edges is more natural, providing a better grip that fits our palm well and offering a narrowed grip feeling, convenient for daily use. The front of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra features a highly acclaimed fully equal deep curved screen, with almost the entire front being the screen, achieving ultra-narrow borders without major angle bending, thus minimizing image distortion. Additionally, in daily use, the fully equal deep curved screen offers a smoother touch experience. Moreover, the screen is covered with tougher Xiaomi Dragon Crystal Glass, providing 10 times the drop resistance compared to the previous generation, making it more durable.

In terms of screen quality, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's screen size is also the mainstream 6.7 inches for flagship-level smartphones currently. However, with a width of 75.3mm, the actual grip feels very good, allowing smooth execution of most single-handed operations in daily use. The screen adopts a professional-grade screen jointly developed by Xiaomi and Huaxing Optoelectronics, featuring the latest C8 emissive material, 2K ultra-clear high resolution, support for 120Hz VRR variable refresh rate, a peak brightness of 3000nit, and DC+1920Hz eye protection dimming. As an imaging flagship, this screen also supports Dolby Vision and ultra-dynamic display, accurately displaying the details captured by the imaging system, tailored for imaging flagship smartphones. Moreover, the color tuning of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is also strict, supporting CIE2015 color space calibration, P3 color gamut, and fully automatic color management, ensuring consistent color across devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and TVs, providing a unified visual experience. This is very suitable for professionals to adjust the color of the captured materials in post-production, ensuring the same visual perception on different devices and avoiding color deviations.

As the current high-end imaging flagship, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's imaging system is also top-notch, featuring a four-camera six-focus full coverage setup. This includes a 12mm ultra-wide-angle lens with a Sony IMX858 sensor and ALD ultra-low feedback film for higher light input, resulting in a 150% improvement over the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The main camera uses the LYT-900 lens with a 23mm focal length and an f1.63-f4.0 large aperture, along with a 75mm IMX858 portrait lens and a 120mm focal length periscope 5x optical zoom lens. The sensor also uses the IMX858 and can cover six focal lengths through cropping: 12mm, 23mm, 46mm, 75mm, 120mm, and 240mm, basically covering all commonly used focal lengths and providing greater creative space, allowing for stunning shots with ease.

The main camera features a Sony LYT-900 one-inch large bottom sensor, specially designed for mobile imaging, with support for a 14EV single-frame dynamic range, enabling faster capture, making it an excellent tool for street snap photography. Paired with the Leica Summilux optical system, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra can achieve a super-large aperture and higher light input, resulting in more details and astonishing resolution in capturing scenes. The main camera also features a physical infinitely variable aperture. In default mode, the aperture size automatically adjusts based on the light input. This feature ensures that when shooting videos from low-light to bright environments, the video and image frames will not be overly exposed. This professional-level performance in the field of mobile imaging is currently unique among mobile phones, allowing the aperture of the main camera to switch infinitely between f1.63 and f4.0, creating unique lighting effects.

In the third year of cooperation with Leica optics, the color tuning of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has reached an extremely high level, with better detail restoration and presentation. When shooting with the 23mm main camera, the display of light and shadow details is better, giving the images more texture and clearer layers in the content, allowing us to clearly feel subtle changes in light, creating a comfortable visual experience without excessive embellishment, in line with the aesthetic preferences of the vast majority of users.

The new street snap mode interface allows us to easily switch between commonly used focal lengths, enabling better capture of partial close-ups and half-body shots while strolling, expanding our creative space. In addition to partial close-ups, the 75mm and 50mm focal lengths are also suitable for shooting portraits during daily strolls. This focal length allows us to take partial close-up shots in appropriate positions, not only for portraits but also for partial close-ups of objects. For example, take the above-mentioned flowers: the layers of petals are clear, and the fine edges are well restored, presenting a fully bloomed rose in front of us.

In portrait mode, we can shoot at 23mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 75mm, selecting the appropriate focal length according to different scenes to capture facial details and highlight the subject. Combined with the Leica Master Imaging, portrait images become more layered and textured, ensuring minimal embellishment while maintaining color accuracy and enhancing the attractiveness of portraits. Thanks to the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's use of the new ALD ultra-low reflection coating, the light input of the lens has greatly increased, resulting in excellent performance in night scenes. It captures more details of light and shadow, better replicating the rich colors visible to the naked eye. The overall image has a richer layering, showcasing the optical tuning advantages of Leica's style.

If powerful hardware is merely the cornerstone of excellent imaging performance, then Xiaomi's imaging brain takes it a step further in terms of algorithms. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is equipped with the all-new Xiaomi AISP, which is the world's first AI large-model computing photography platform, boasting an astonishing 60TOPS of powerful computing power. With the help of large-model capabilities, it can achieve continuous shooting of 150 frames without slowing down or losing algorithms, ensuring that each picture receives the optimal solution. The all-new Xiaomi Professional Imaging Suite is a must-have set for photography enthusiasts. For photography enthusiasts or professional photographers, Xiaomi has introduced a new professional imaging suite, which has been significantly upgraded with more powerful functions and easier operation.

This time, the professional suite comes in pure white, also using the material of nano-tech leather, with a very delicate touch. The suite includes a phone case, a handle, a 67mm adapter ring, and a metal, silver-colored decorative ring. The installation method differs from the previous generation, opting for a mounting method similar to a camera lens mount instead of directly screwing on, enhancing the sense of ceremony and making it more akin to a professional camera. The handle contains a 1500mAh battery, which, when installed, can provide additional power for the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. This change is more pronounced. Additionally, there are adjustment wheels on the shutter for adjusting the focal length and another wheel for adjusting EV, making the operation very similar to a professional camera and improving the grip, allowing professional users to create freely and enhance shooting efficiency. In terms of operation, after connecting the handle, the system will automatically pop up a connection prompt, and users can customize the settings of the suite according to their usage habits in the system, with the default being a dial-style adjustment of EV for photography.

Supporting TTsat Satellite Communication to Solve Signal Issues in Remote Areas
As more and more users begin to enjoy outdoor adventures, satellite communication capabilities allow us to stay in touch with the outside world in special situations and avoid being out of touch. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is currently Xiaomi's first smartphone to support satellite communication and requires a telecom SIM card with satellite communication capabilities to be activated. The top of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is equipped with a satellite circular polarization antenna, which emits signals in a spiral upward manner, transmitting faster and more stable signals. Paired with the internal Surging T1 satellite chip, it ensures stable satellite communication. Furthermore, in terms of satellite connection speed, after the Xiaomi 14 Ultra finds the satellite, it only takes about 20 seconds to connect to the satellite for communication, with high efficiency. This is also thanks to the Xiaomi-exclusive satellite signal booster, which, when combined with the imaging suite, can be used as a lens cap in daily life and transformed into a signal booster when opened, allowing for faster satellite signal locking and ensuring call quality.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra undoubtedly features the third-generation Qualcomm flagship mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 8 processor. This processor's performance in terms of energy efficiency and graphics processing is truly remarkable. With its new 1+5+2 core architecture, CPU peak performance is increased by 30%, GPU peak performance is increased by 35%, and compared to the previous generation, CPU and GPU power consumption are reduced by 34% and 38% respectively. It also has AI capabilities, with AI performance improved by 98%, bringing more powerful AI performance. Overall, its performance is fully capable of handling all gaming applications on the market, with outstanding performance. After actual testing by Antutu, it can be seen that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's score exceeds 2 million, demonstrating its powerful performance. 3DMARK is comprehensive software for testing the performance and image performance of mobile devices. In this software, we can see that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra performs excellently, with many scores reaching the limit of the test, capable of smoothly running games at 2K resolution with outstanding performance. GeekBench 6 is also a cross-platform testing software used to test CPU and GPU comprehensive performance. It is often used as a hardware benchmark testing software. In the latest version of GeekBench 6, the CPU's single-core score is 2110, the multi-core score is 6622, and the GPU score is 14121, showing excellent overall performance, which can handle most applications on the market with outstanding performance, meeting the flagship level.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra uses Xiaomi's Jinsha River battery, with a capacity of 5300mAh, which is 8% smaller in volume than the previous generation 13 Ultra. With an energy density of 779Wh/L, it is currently the highest in the industry. And thanks to the battery's 6% silicon content, it can still maintain 80% of its capacity after 1600 cycles. In terms of charging performance, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra uses Xiaomi's Surging P2 and G1 battery management chips, which can achieve 90W wired fast charging and 80W wireless fast charging, so battery life is not a concern. As for heat dissipation, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra uses the all-new dual-path circular pump heat dissipation technology, adding an exclusive heat dissipation loop for the camera area to ensure stable operation of the camera for a long time. Compared to traditional VC board heat dissipation, this heat dissipation technology achieves an efficiency of 68mA/℃. As the flagship among flagships, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has no shortage of other configurations, including a 10Gbps USB 3.2 interface, support for 4K DP output, symmetrical stereo, independent leak-proof earpiece, 4-Mic high signal-to-noise ratio array recording, and AI call noise reduction, with excellent usability performance.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra combines the pinnacle of current imaging technology and is a flawless Ultra flagship smartphone. With the leading imaging system in the industry, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, combined with the physical infinitely variable aperture and Xiaomi's imaging suite, can transform into a professional mobile imaging device. With full-focus imaging coverage, users do not need special training and can easily capture stunning shots, gaining more creative space. If you have higher requirements for imaging, then the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is undoubtedly the best choice for the current high-end mobile imaging flagship, worth considering.