Every year, I get to review a pocket Leica camera. It also happens to be a phone from Xiaomi. In my past reviews, I’ve described the numbered series of Xiaomi as the most affordable Leica camera you can buy, and I’ve stuck with that pitch to friends who have always wanted a small flagship phone – a true rarity. Now, In between these flagship launches, Xiaomi would also introduce variations in the form of the “T” series. The Xiaomi 14T was an affordable follow up to last year’s Xiaomi 14 flagship. This year I get to play with the Xiaomi 15T Pro. Traditionally, this is supposed to be an encore to the flagship launched earlier this year but to be honest, this particular release packs so many improvements in just a few months, one would accuse Xiaomi of being too generous with this new edition of the Pro series.
Xiaomi’s T-series lands in a sweet spot of premium specs, but tuned for a crowd that doesn’t want to pay ultra-flagship prices. The Xiaomi 15T Pro is the newest to carry that torch, and after spending time with it, it feels less like a “step down” from the 15 but more of a recalibration, in the “OK we listened so here’s a follow up before we end the year” sort of recalibration. This is a device built for creators and power users who care about raw performance, serious mobile photography, and yup, AI.
Better chip, affordable chip
At the heart of the 15T Pro is MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400+, a 3nm flagship chip that runs cooler and faster thanks to its all-big-core design and beefed-up CPU cache. Xiaomi paired it with their new 3D IceLoop cooling system which addresses Xiaomi flagship heating issues. I believe this has more to do with the previous iterations being the “smallest flagship” so there’s not a lot of space to cool the device but the new cooling system does make a difference with heat management.
Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC on its predecessor, the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ holds its own. At this flagship level of performance there’s barely any noticeable difference in actual output in comparing the Qualcomm to MediaTek competition. On paper the Dimensity 9400+ has a slightly better GPU performance for gaming, but again we’re nitpicking. What’s important to note is that this phone is at least P10,000 more affordable than the Xiaomi 15 and that’s a huge win in savings without any compromise in performance.
Master Lens, now with better zoom
The Xiaomi 15T Pro addresses the biggest gripe with the master lens system: lack of zoom. With a new subclass of phones entering “concert camera” use cases because of their lossless zoom and optical image stabilization, the 15T Pro comes with this perk. In the past, Xiaomi would mask their lack of zoom with the 90mm “soft focus” portrait, calling it an artistic take on zoomed-in blurry shots. This didn’t work out very well. Xiaomi brought Leica back to the drawing board and gave the T-series its first 5x Pro telephoto lens, now at 115mm (a far cry from the old 90mm soft focus mode). That means 5x optical zoom, 10x lossless zoom, and up to 100x UltraZoom if you’re brave enough – but the first two are the most important.
The main camera uses a Leica Summilux lens paired with Xiaomi’s custom Light Fusion 900 sensor, giving you rich dynamic range (13.5EV) and low-light performance that doesn’t fall apart. It also comes with a 12MP ultra-wide lens for your 0.5 selfies.
On video, Xiaomi did something quite surprising adding 120fps support with 4K video. The camera supports up to 8K recording (at 30fps). For editing, the master lens system has 10-bit Log with LUT support for those who want serious control in post.
HyperAI is useful
The Xiaomi 15T series runs HyperOS 2.0 out of the box. Integrated into the OS is HyperAI, which is Xiaomi’s “bespoke” AI tools that are scattered around the phone. For photo editing, you have AI Enhance, Expand, Erase, Sky, and Reflection removal. More than that, the phone also acts like your personal assistant with many productivity and creator features like AI Interpreter and Translate, AI Subtitles, AI Speech Recognition (a transcriber within the Recorder app), and an AI Creativity assistant within the Notes app.
The use cases are many but the main apps to look forward to would be Notes and Recorder, apart from the camera app. On Notes, there’s a direct integration with HyperAI for prompts that lets you bypass the Gemini app (well it’s also powered by Gemini 2.5 so same same), but also the Recorder app auto transcribes conversations so you can directly copy and paste interviews in case you need subtitles for a podcast or for reference. The Recorder can also recognize and transcribe other supported languages including Filipino.
15T Pro vs. 15T: main differences
Both the 15T and 15T Pro share the same 6.83-inch AMOLED display with an insane 3200 nits brightness, but the Pro bumps refresh rates to 144Hz (versus 120Hz on the 15T). The Pro also takes charging further with 90W wired and 50W wireless (the 15T stops at 67W wired). While both have the same 5500mAh battery and IP68 rating, the Pro weighs a little more at 210g compared to the 15T’s 194g which is not really a lot.
Who is this phone for?
Although the “T” series is primarily a “budget cut” for the flagship series, the same cannot be said for the Xiaomi 15T Pro because this phone is in every way superior to the Xiaomi 15, and is also more affordable by P10,000 for the 512GB model.
Both versions of the “T” are great for everyday use but the Xiaomi 15T Pro adds better zoom and video and slightly better chip performance.
The Xiaomi 15T and 15T Pro are now available at the following price points:
Xiaomi 15T
- 12 + 256GB = P26,999
- 12 + 512GB = P28,999
Xiaomi 15T Pro
- 12 + 256GB = P37,999
- 12 + 512GB = P39,999
PRODUCT SPECS (XIAOMI 15T PRO UNIT REVIEWED)
- Xiaomi HyperOS 2.0
- 12GB RAM (+6GB memory extension) + 512GB storage
- MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ Octa-core Max 3.73GHz
- WiFi 7 support
- Dual SIM w/ eSIM support
- 5500mAh battery
- IP68 rating
- 6.8″ AMOLED screen with 144Hz refresh rate
- Summilux triple camera Master Lens system (15mm ultrawide, 23mm wide, 115mm zoom)
