(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

Each year, Xiaomi releases its flagship devices – often the first to announce with new Snapdragon hardware – before launching a sub-flagship model later in the year.

That's where the 'T' comes in, taking what the Xiaomi 15 started and making a few tweaks to result in a new device.

The biggest advantage is price, coming in at less than a typical flagship phone, but with specs and performance that, generally, rivals top devices.

Of course, the other consideration is that by the time a device like the T launches, we're about to head into a new cycle of next-gen devices.

The 15T is therefore a phone that's pitched at those who want to spend a little less, accepting that they aren't getting the latest hardware. The question is, how does it perform – and is it worth that compromise?

How much does the Xiaomi 15T Pro cost?

At the launch event in Germany, Xiaomi confirmed the price of the 15T Pro remains the same as the previous model, coming in at £649 / €799. This makes the phone hugely competitive and notably cheaper than models with similar specs from the likes of Samsung, Google and Apple.

Xiaomi 15T Pro vs Xiaomi 14T Pro

• Dimensity 9400+ power
• New 5x optical telephoto lens
• Lower peak screen brightness
• Larger 5500mAh battery, with 90W charging

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

The Xiaomi 15T Pro sits in the same position as the Xiaomi 14T Pro, as a sub-flagship offering. The core hardware moves from Dimensity 9300+ to 9400+, an incremental step up in the performance department.

There's a slight drop in screen brightness to 3,200 nits, down from 4,000 nits on the previous device.

The change that most will be excited about is the move from a 2.6x optical telephoto to a 5x optical telephoto, which is quite the shift in camera offering for this device.

That gives 115mm of optical zoom compared to 60mm, the sacrifice being a move from f/2.0 aperture on the Xiaomi 14T Pro to f/3.0 on the 15T Pro – which means that low-light performance on that long zoom could be a little hampered.

There's a slight bump in the battery to 5500mAh, but the sacrifice is a drop in the peak charging speed (from 120W to 90W wired). While some might see that as a loss, we're still talking about really fast speeds.

Xiaomi 15T Pro design and display

• 6.83-inch display, 144Hz refresh, 3200 nits brightness
• Premium flat rear with squared frame edges
• IP68 protection from dust and water
• Black, Grey, Mocha Gold colours

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

At first glance, the design of the 15T Pro is similar to the 14T Pro, the most obvious difference the pronounced bump for that camera. That's to accommodate the new 5x optical zoom sensor, so there's a little more bulk than the previous version.

Otherwise, Xiaomi hasn't wandered too far from the expected path, with a phone that's flat both front and back, with squared edges formed by the frame. It's basically the format for phones in 2025 – and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, there's nothing that really stands out either.

The inclusion of IP68 protection from water and dust is welcomed, while there's a factory-fitted screen protector on the front providing a little additional reassurance that you're not going to scratch the screen in the first few days. That screen protector is better than many, as after a couple of weeks of use, I haven't felt the need to remove it.

The display itself gets a higher grade of protection than the previous device too, with Gorilla Glass 7i. It's a 6.83-inch AMOLED panel, with a 2,772 x 1,280 resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate.

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

In practice it's bright and punchy, with enough settings to tweak it for your personal preference, and hitting key specs. There's support for high dynamic range (HDR10+ and Dolby Vision) to make your streamed services look better, if you can find compatible content online.

There's an interesting tweak here, with the 15T Pro offering 3200 nits peak brightness compared to 4000 nits in the older phone. That’s perhaps a strange step down for a metric that's very much of interest to buyers at the moment – but in reality, it's not about the number, it's how you use it.

For reference, peak brightness isn't about the whole screen, it's about how bright you can push those highlights for a greater impact. I compared some Ultra HDR photos on the Xiaomi 15T Pro to the Pixel 10 Pro and found them to be slightly brighter in those highlights, so it's doing its job, despite the notional drop.

Under direct sunlight I found the general brightness to be good – so there's little to complain about in that department. And that's what really matters.

Performance and battery

• MediaTek Dimensity 9400+, 12GB RAM
• 256GB storage
• 5500mAh battery
• 90W wired charging, 50W wireless charging

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

Sitting in that sub-flagship position, the major differentiator here from other flagship phones is the use of MediaTek's hardware rather than Qualcomm's Snapdragon offering, as found in the Xiaomi 15 and Xiaomi 15 Ultra.

That's typical for this level of device, with the Dimensity 9400+ offering a powerful flagship-like experience, but allowing that slightly cheaper price.

I've spent a lot of time playing Call of Duty Mobile on the Xiaomi 15T Pro and found it to be a slick and smooth experience, combined with that screen – which makes for a top-quality experience with plenty of MVP moments.

There's 12GB RAM to power things along, with storage options up to 1TB. There's no support for microSD, with a single SIM slot combined with the option for eSIM, which is where I encountered a problem.

Trying to equip the phone with an eSIM while travelling, I found that the eSIM wouldn't register on the Xiaomi phone, but worked perfectly on another device.

Xiaomi made a number of changes to the software – as discussed in the next section – and that doesn't always translate into a better user experience. The management of eSIM alongside physical SIM is one such area.

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

The battery capacity has increased to 5500mAh, which is generous for this size of device. I've found the battery performance to be good, the Xiaomi 15T Pro powering through day and night, not stumbling to deliver a great experience.

As I mentioned towards the opening of this review, the peak charging rate has dropped from 120W to 90W. That means it's going to take a little longer to recharge that battery. The reason for the reduction in speed isn't explicitly mentioned, but it's likely to be because the space to cool the battery during faster charging has been reduced to allow for a greater physical capacity.

That's an exchange I'm happy to make: while fast charging is great – and a real differentiator between the likes of Samsung and Apple versus Xiaomi – we're still talking about 90W wired charging here, which still puts popular smartphone brands to shame.

Software experience

• Xiaomi HyperOS 2
• Android 15

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

Xiaomi, in a move to own some of the software experience, uses HyperOS on its phones. This is a heavy reworking of the core Google Android offering, delivering the benefits of both the latest Android features (almost) and Xiaomi's customisation.

For anyone who has used a Xiaomi phone before, the offering will be familiar, and it behaves in much the same way as the Xiaomi 15 – while suffering some of the same problems, too.

At the time of launch, the Xiaomi 15T Pro runs on Android 15, so it's sitting on a version of Android that's now a little out of date. Sure, Android 16 isn't mainstream quite yet, but recent launches from some brands (like Samsung) have offered the new software.

Coming to the Xiaomi 15T Pro from the Pixel 10 Pro, the HyperOS offering now feels a little dated. Android 16 in its native form pours in some long-needed refinement that really improves daily use through Google's Material 3 Expressive design.

Google has updated its native apps – like Gmail or Google Photos, for example – which means you get something of a mish-mash here: there's bits of the latest Google sitting in Xiaomi's experience.

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

HyperOS tweaks at all levels, from how the settings are arranged, to the options that you're presented on the home screen. It's not a bad take on Android and it's easy enough to tame, but there's a lot of pre-installed apps and bloat. Cutting those out (most can be uninstalled or disabled) and you can get to a better experience.

You're still left with duplicates in some areas, including a second app store, which is super spammy, offering to install loads of apps you don't want as soon as you open it.

What remains unknown at the time of writing is how many years of software support Xiaomi is going to offer for this device. The previous model had a generous 5 years of updates.

Cameras

• Main: 50MP f/1.62 23mm OIS
• Ultrawide: 12MP f/2.2 15mm
• Telephoto: 50MP f/3.0 115mm OIS
• Front: 32MP f/2.2, 21mm

(Image credit: Future / Chris Hall)

There's a comprehensive camera offering on the rear of the Xiaomi 15T Pro, sitting in a housing that has four lenses. The "fourth" is actually a couple of sensors packed to look like an additional camera, so as to not spoil the design.

The three cameras that Xiaomi has equipped this phone with make for a great complementary set, covering most of the bases that you'd find in the most expensive flagship phones. I also found good colour consistency moving between lenses, so ultrawide and main camera shots had the same tonality, which is always a good sign.

There's a partnership with Leica on the Xiaomi 15T Pro and that can mean that some images are a little more contrasty and dramatic than you might expect: the clouds over the beach weren't as foreboding as they look in the photos that the 15T Pro produced (see my gallery below).

Low-light shooting is also good, avoiding the lightening that you'd get from something like the Pixel, so a good result overall.

If I had one cautionary note about the Xiaomi's main camera, it's that the f/1.62 aperture does make for a narrow depth of field, so if you get too close to a subject, you'll find that not much is in focus. The macro shooting experience, generally, isn't that great as a result.

The 5x optical zoom offers good quality results for close-up detail or to get closer to something far away, accepting that the aperture is smaller, so exposures are longer than the main camera on the whole, which isn't so good for low-light shooting.

On top of the 5x optical zoom, digital zoom out to 100x is offered, although at that far end the details can be a little mushy. The extreme zoom will also lose colour and overall sharpness, but not more so than other such systems.

The front camera offers good selfies, with good performance from the portrait mode, although it doesn't show the HDR image until you press the shutter button.

Xiaomi 15T Pro review: Verdict

The Xiaomi 15T Pro is a good sub-flagship phone offering plenty of power with great performance. This is backed by good battery life with useful fast charging, an excellent display, and a comprehensive camera experience.

With good value for money, these features have plenty of appeal, marred only by the software experience – which doesn't compare to the likes of Samsung, or the cleaner Google Pixel experience.

Also consider

The obvious rival to the Xiaomi 15T Pro would be the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, which offers a similar sub-flagship experience, but with a software experience that some might find smoother than HyperOS.

Elsewhere, the Pixel 10 comes in a little pricier, and while it doesn't have quite the same zoom camera experience, it still offers a great shooting experience. The design is more interesting, too, as is the software.