I really wanted the Xiaomi 15 to be a clear Samsung Galaxy S25 beater, but it’s not quite there

That’s where the €999 (~$1,037) Xiaomi 15 comes in. The Chinese manufacturer just launched the phone globally in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, coming several months after the Chinese release. Can it excite me in ways the Galaxy S25 didn’t? Well, yes… but sadly, I still don’t think it’s enough.

When you unbox the Xiaomi 15, the first thing you might notice is its small size relative to most other flagship phones. Unfortunately, it’s by no means a Compact or Mini device, but it’s roughly as large as the standard Pixel 9. Holding it, nevertheless, makes for a refreshing change compared to the 6.7-inch+ beasts I’ve been using in recent months. It sports a 6.36-inch OLED screen (1.5K, LTPO) that’s thankfully flat. Xiaomi says the display has a peak brightness of 3,200 nits, but that’s not relevant for 99% of users who won’t ever see those peaks. Thankfully, in real-world terms, I had no issues using this phone in the sun.

Due to the rounded corners and flat aluminum edges, you’d also be forgiven for thinking it’s a Samsung or Apple phone. But you only need to look at the back to see it stands out from those rival handsets, largely due to a prominent, square camera housing protruding from the rest of the rear cover. It’s not a huge bump, though, nor does it attract dust. The phone also has a glass back, and I’m glad to report that it’s not a fingerprint magnet by any measure, unlike its predecessor’s glass-clad variants. Still, I really wish we saw more imagination from manufacturers in 2025 instead of yet another phone with a glass back and flat edges.

Xiaomi is also promising its own Dragon Crystal Glass protection, claiming its strength has improved tenfold over conventional tempered glass. But brands with their own protective glass solutions don’t usually make comparisons to Gorilla Glass, so it’s hard to tell how tough this is compared to other top Android phones. Toss in an IP68 rating, and you’ve got a device that should be durable in the long run. However, there is one major omission here as Xiaomi told us that the rear cover only has “standard” glass rather than Gorilla Glass or its own protective solution. That doesn’t make me confident that the rear cover will survive any drops, and it’s particularly disappointing when the Galaxy S25 has Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the back.

The Xiaomi 15 ships with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is the best Android phone processor on the market right now. Previous Snapdragon 8 Elite phones have been a hit-and-miss experience in testing, as a few phones have experienced heating issues during demanding stress tests. Unfortunately, the Xiaomi 15 is more of a miss.

We put the phone through our three preferred 3DMark GPU stress tests (Wild Life, Wild Life Extreme, and Solar Bay) and it failed to complete any of them while being uncomfortably hot, particularly along the top of the frame. This suggests that the combination of the Snapdragon 8 Elite and a smaller frame makes for very poor thermal management. It’s also not the first or even second time we’ve seen Snapdragon 8 Elite phones failing to complete a stress test. In fact, we encountered similar issues when testing the premium Xiaomi 15 Ultra that launched globally alongside the Xiaomi 15. The difference here is that the Xiaomi 15 is the first to outright fail to complete any 3DMark GPU stress test despite repeated attempts.

CPU testing via Geekbench 6 reveals some very interesting results, too. The stock app offered scores that were generally in line with rival Snapdragon 8 Elite phones, while a stealth version of the app offered scores that were way off Samsung and HONOR’s flagship phones. The OPPO Find X8 Pro (running a Dimensity 9400 SoC) had significantly higher single-core scores than the Xiaomi 15 running the disguised Geekbench 6 app. These results suggest benchmark manipulation of some kind. However, the disguised PC Mark app yielded a slightly higher score than the stock result. Weird.

Thankfully, I had no issues with real-world performance. The Xiaomi 15 flew through system menus and multitasking, while games like Genshin Impact and heavyweight console port GRID Legends all ran at a fluid pace. The phone did get quite warm after a while of playing these games, but it never got hot. Either way, the heating issues do make me wonder about demanding games a few years from now and how it’ll fare when put under stress by the increasingly more advanced crop of retro emulators.

The Xiaomi 15 has a huge, 5,400mAh silicon-carbon battery stuffed into its compact frame. That’s a welcome upgrade over the Xiaomi 14 (4,610mAh) and a little larger than even the Galaxy S25 Ultra (5,000mAh). I was usually able to get around seven to eight hours of screen-on time with usage that consisted of WhatsApp, Reddit, and plenty of time playing my new obsession, Bomber Ace. That’s not spectacular in light of the screen and battery combo, but it’s good nonetheless. I generally found that I had to charge the phone after work on day two with this kind of usage.

Xiaomi offers some impressive charging speeds on paper thanks to 90W wired and 50W wireless charging. This review unit didn’t come with a charger, ostensibly reflecting the EU model. Unfortunately, it took over 75 minutes to get a full charge via my 65W USB-PPS charger, suggesting limited USB Power Delivery PPS support (this is backed up by ChargerLab’s test results which showed a maximum of ~26W for some Power Delivery PPS chargers). That’s still in the same ballpark as the base Galaxy S25 with its 25W speeds and much smaller battery, but I’m still disappointed you need a Xiaomi charger to hit anywhere close to the 90W wired charging claims.

The phone ships with HyperOS 2 on top of Android 15, and it’s not my preferred Android skin. That’s largely due to the split notification shade/control center, incessant notifications from system apps, and the ads in said system apps. In fact, I even found that the Game Turbo overlay menu could be taken over by an ad overlay in some games. I’ve only found it in one game so far, but it’s annoying nonetheless. Check out the screenshot below. I’m also not a fan of the phone automatically offering a persistent Mi Video player widget in the control center. Who thought that was a good idea? At least this can be disabled.

It’s not all bad on the software front. Xiaomi continues to excel when it comes to the sheer number of features at your disposal. It’s also kept abreast of the AI trend and offers features like recorder transcription and article summaries, though a lot of it feels underbaked at launch (our Xiaomi 15 Ultra review goes into more detail on this). The Xiaomi 15 will receive four major OS updates and six years of security patches, which isn’t the best update policy in the business but is respectable nonetheless.

While it doesn’t challenge the very best camera phones like its Ultra sibling, the Xiaomi 15 does bring a respectable triple rear camera system, consisting of a 50MP 1/1.3-inch main camera, a 50MP ultrawide lens, and a 50MP 2.6x telephoto lens. Photos taken with the main camera during the day generally offer plenty of detail, little noise, and accurate white balance. I found colors to be way too saturated at times with the Leica Vivid color profile, but switching to the Leica Authentic profile made a huge difference. The primary camera generally delivers the goods at night, too, thanks to bright, detailed snaps that don’t look like a daytime photo.

The telephoto camera is a slight downgrade on paper compared to the Xiaomi 14’s 3x 50MP snapper. However, it’s worth noting that the older phone actually offered 2.6x optical zoom as well rather than 3x. In any event, photos taken at 2.6X and 5X look good during the day while maintaining consistency with the main shooter. You can sometimes get decent 10x snaps in ideal conditions thanks to the AI Zoom feature, but I often found that punching up to this zoom level yielded blurry, blown-out shots (particularly with scenes featuring people). The telephoto camera also captures sharp portrait mode images, although the depth effect isn’t always completely accurate.

The telephoto camera is capable of snapping some great shots when the sun goes down, although 5x images generally don’t look good at all. I also noticed that this camera occasionally took downright blurry snaps at night. That’s in contrast to the main camera, which reliably takes sharp low-light snaps. In any case, I’m glad to see that the telephoto camera offers macro focusing, allowing you to get as close as 10cm to a subject before losing focus.

Meanwhile, the ultrawide camera is clearly the weakest shooter of the lot. That’s largely due to the very noticeable softness on the edges of the frame in both daytime and night-time conditions. This camera also occasionally captures shots that simply aren’t consistent with the other cameras in terms of color, dynamic range, and white balance.

The Xiaomi 15 also brings plenty more camera features worth knowing. This includes a Master Cinema mode for 10-bit HDR video, a motion capture option for fast-moving subjects, a long exposure suite, various bokeh styles (e.g. swirly, bubbles) for portraits, and a Fastshot mode for street photography. I also quite like the ability to drag the shutter button around the viewfinder, allowing you to easily take snaps no matter how you’re holding the device.

I was generally happy with the video quality here too, but the video options lag behind several rival devices. The Xiaomi 15 specifically misses out on 4K/120fps support and only has a 1080p/30fps ShootSteady mode when other brands are offering much higher resolutions and frame rates for their stabilized modes. You do still get options like 8K/30fps, Dolby Vision, and 4K night video capture, though.

There’s a lot to like about the Xiaomi 15, especially if you’re looking for a smaller phone with some bells and whistles. It’s roughly the same size as the Pixel 9 Pro while offering a ton of performance, a huge battery, fast wired/wireless charging, and great durability. The addition of 256GB base storage, a bright, flat screen, and flexible camera hardware all sweeten the deal.

The phone isn’t without its flaws, though. It clearly struggles with thermals under sustained workloads, the 90W charging is only accessible with a Xiaomi adapter, and the ultrawide camera is unsurprisingly mediocre. It also doesn’t help that the highly customizable HyperOS is stymied by ads and annoying system notifications. The €999 (~$1,037) price tag is also slightly steep compared to rivals

There’s no shortage of alternatives to the Xiaomi 15, either. Easily the most notable rival is the dull but ever-reliable Samsung Galaxy S25 ($809.99 at Amazon). The S25 is a little smaller than the Xiaomi handset, has a longer update policy, better USB-PD support, a more durable back cover, much more palatable software, and wider availability. But Xiaomi’s device offers longer endurance, faster charging (if you’ve got a Xiaomi charger), and more impressive cameras. So it’s tough to choose one as the sure-fire better option here, which is surprising considering how little the Galaxy S25 did to upgrade over the Galaxy S24 (and even the Galaxy S23!).

If you want a similarly priced phone that is pushing the envelope, the OnePlus 13 ($899.99 at OnePlus) is a powerful, long-lasting, and fast-charging smartphone with innovations like an IP68/69 rating and a dual-cell 6,000 mAh Silicon Carbon battery. It’s not as small as the Xiaomi 15 but offers similarly great cameras, a higher-quality screen, and the well-received OxygenOS skin.

Finally, you should consider the Google Pixel 9 ($799 at Amazon) and Pixel 9 Pro ($999 at Amazon). Both phones are pocket-friendly offerings with great cameras and bright screens. Google’s phones lag behind Xiaomi when it comes to horsepower, base storage, charging speed, and sheer battery capacity. However, Google offers a longer update policy, more palatable software, exclusive Pixel features, and a 5x camera on the Pro model.