While not a household name in the US, Xiaomi sells more phones worldwide than anyone but Samsung and Apple. Unlike Huawei, it isn’t banned from selling phones in the US; it just doesn’t. That’s too bad because Xiaomi’s phones are rarely boring — Recent examples include foldables, phones that can charge at 200W, and one with a massive one-inch Sony image sensor. Beyond phones, Xiaomi makes TVs, air purifiers, smart home devices, fitness bands, and lighting products, among others.
I’m busy testing the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s camera but please take a minute to appreciate this gorgeous photography accessory kit. It updates last year’s version with a beefier battery that can power the phone. Just feast your eyes on that gorgeous two-stage shutter button!
One thing I’m noticing so far? It’s heavier than the previous version. That’s not so hot.
It’s sleek, blue, and runs Xiaomi’s Hyper OS to integrate with the company’s phones and other smart products. It’s loaded with cameras on the outside from what I can see, and can do zero to 100km/h in 2.78 seconds. The EV on display here at MWC is spinning around on a pedastal much, much slower than that.
The bezels attach and detach with a simple twist, and you also get a choice of over 180 watch faces to further customize the watch’s look. The watch’s features include the ability to track winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, ice-skating, and curling, and there are also some Apple Watch-style one-handed gesture controls for good measure. It’s joined by a new Wear OS smartwatch, the Xiaomi Watch 2. Prices start at €149 for the S3, and €199 for the Watch 2.
Just with beefed-up specs like a 144Hz display and six speakers with Dolby Atmos support, the company said at Mobile World Congress today. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and the company says it can get to a 100 percent charge, thanks to 120-watt charging.
And of course, it will have lots of AI features like generating images from your sketches. It costs €699.
As well as bringing its currently China-exclusive 14 smartphone to a global audience, Xiaomi is announcing a completely new device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this week. CEO Lei Jun has teased the design of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra phone on X, and announced its telephoto camera specs. It’ll also be Xiaomi’s latest device to use a massive 1-inch-type sensor for its main camera.
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun is making the jump from smartphones to EVs before the debut of the long-rumored Apple car or Sony’s Afeela. The SU stands for “Speed Ultra,” and when the SU7 debuts, it will accelerate from 0 - 100 km/h in 2.78 seconds. A Xiaomi Pilot autonomous system is powered by Nvidia’s Drive Orin chips, and at the end of the launch event, two cars drove themselves onstage.
It claims up to 800km of range (497 miles), an 800V platform that can get 390km worth of charge in 10 minutes, and Qualcomm-powered “HyperOS.” No word on pricing just yet.
Former Verge reporter Sam Byford has a lengthy rebuttal in his Multicore newsletter to the criticisms of Leica partnering with Xiaomi that popped up recently.
Sam has actually tested and used many of the Xiaomi phones (along with countless other devices from Chinese OEMs that never come to the states) and can state unequivocally that they are good products with excellent cameras. Beyond that, he notes that it makes sense for Leica, which has never been shy with licensing its brand all over the place, to want its brand in front of millions of aspirational customers.
Sam goes deeper into the history of why Chinese smartphone software looks and works the way it does, too. It’s a good read and smart perspective that we don’t always see in Western coverage.
[www.multicore.blog]
During Xiaomi’s 14 series launch event (the slideshow below is taken from the video), the company showed off this generative AI tool in development for its HyperOS. Fed several pictures of a particular person, it can create new photos in new places, with examples showing generated pictures of them at the base of a mountain or in front of the Eiffel Tower — like a supercharged version of HeadshotPro.
While impressive, this tool goes way farther than Google’s new generative AI photo features — is the what-is-a-photo apocalypse already here?
Camera grips are back, baby.
Founder and CEO Lei Jun has announced a launch date for Xiaomi’s latest foldable, the Mix Fold 3, alongside a short teaser trailer. We’re not expecting the phone to be available outside of China given Xiaomi’s previous foldables, so we’ll have to appreciate its massive four-strong camera bump from afar.
Less than a day after Samsung announced its new foldables, Xiaomi is teasing the Mix Fold 3, which will be announced in China next month with an interesting rear quad-camera setup and Leica branding.
Let this serve as a reminder that a) hot foldable summer is alive and kicking and b) China gets a lot of foldables that never make their way to the West.
One of the world’s first 200-megapixel smartphone cameras is here. Too bad it’s mostly a gimmick.
Bringing better hardware to the computational photography fight
