Round or square, which camera island do you choose? The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has two optical zoom lenses, while the Xiaomi 14 places more emphasis on price.

With the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and the OnePlus 12, two flagships with a strong focus on photography have come onto the market in the last few weeks. Xiaomi now joins this list with the launch of two new devices: Xiaomi 14 and Xiaomi 14 Ultra. The latter is particularly characterized by a strong focus on the cameras including a variable aperture on the main camera.

Before we take a closer look at the top model, let’s first take a look at the Xiaomi 14. It has a compact, curved 6.36-inch OLED screen with LTPO technology that allows you to vary the refresh rate from 1 to 120 Hz can. Inside you will find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with WiFi 7 and 12 GB of RAM. The Xiaomi 14 supports fast charging with up to 90 watts and can even charge wirelessly with up to 50 watts. The battery capacity is 4,610 mAh. Both devices are waterproof to IP68.

All three rear cameras have a 50-megapixel sensor and are bundled in a square camera island. You can choose between standard, wide angle or 3.2x optical zoom. Each camera is equipped with Leica Summilux lenses. Every camera, with the exception of the wide-angle one, has optical image stabilization on board.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

The absolute top model in terms of camera technology this year is the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. On the back you will find four cameras in a round camera island, including two with optical zoom (3.2x and 5x). Again, each camera has a 50-megapixel sensor, but the spotlight is on the main camera. Behind it is a 1-inch camera sensor from Sony, which is supported by a variable aperture that can go from f/1.63 to f/4.0 in 1,024 stops. It reminds us a little of the Samsung Galaxy S9, but is much more usable thanks to the 1,024 aperture instead of two.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a large 6.73-inch flat OLED screen, which can also vary between 1 Hz and 120 Hz via LTPO. In addition, this device differs little internally from the Xiaomi 14, except for a slightly larger battery (5,000 mAh), 16 GB of RAM and wireless fast charging with up to 80 watts. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is the first smartphone that can be charged wirelessly so quickly.

Price and availability

Both the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and Xiaomi 14 can expect four generations of Android updates and five years of security updates. Both devices ship with Android 14.

The Xiaomi 14 is available now and costs 990 euros including VAT in the basic version with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. The version with 512 GB costs 100 euros more. There are three color options: green, black and white.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is now available to buy for 1,499 euros including VAT and is available in one variant: 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage. You can choose between two colors: black or white.