Xiaomi 15 Is Compact Flagship Done Almost Right

News18

21-05-2025

Last Updated:
Xiaomi 15 is the new compact flagship phone in the market that will have plenty of competition in the next few months.
Xiaomi is facing a change in guard, which means the brand is now pushing beyond the comfort zone of being affordable, and aiming for the sky. The Xiaomi series is a clear evidence of this path with the Ultra model showing its ability to match up with the best.
The Xiaomi 15 is another iteration in its strategy that looks to entice people with its quality, and assurance of giving value. There is going to be a lot of clamour for compact flagship phones this year, and Xiaomi has a definite leg up over its rivals in this regard.
The Xiaomi 15 has Leica-powered cameras, flagship battery and a fast charging battery too but does the whole package give you that premiumness that the price tag commands. We went looking for these answers over the last few weeks.
The Year Of Compact?
Xiaomi 15 is a breath of fresh air in terms of its size, dimensions and such a relief to hold in the hand and sometimes even forget you have a phone in the pocket. The 6.36-inch display is the perfect form factor that more brands should adopt and 2025 could show us that happening widely.
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Brands have stressed on the need to use big-screen phones, because you watch movies and even read pieces. But this compact size slightly over 6-inch is the sweet spot to follow.
Besides that, the Xiaomi 15 gets 8.5mm thickness and weighs around 192 grams which means it is not compact and not bulky either. The design balances out nicely and you don't feel the top being heavy by any means. The aluminium frame along with a glass body with IP68 rating gives you the ideal durability points that check most boxes.
So, yeah, the compact flagships are here and welcome more brands to bring them to the market.
The Other Flagship Pluses
We've decided to combine the display quality and performance in the same segment because that's the least you expect from a phone that claims to be a flagship. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and you are getting the single 12GB + 512GB variant in the country. The SoC has shown its class, levels and what it can deliver with the right tuning and the Xiaomi 15 benefits from its grade to good effect.
You can enjoy gaming albeit with some noticeable heating, one that dissipates quickly to ease the concerns. Having said that, you get a feeling the chipset has been throttled to give a balanced performance.
The 6.36-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, as well as Dolby Vision and HDR10+ gives it the right viewing package. The 3200 nits peak brightness could have been slightly higher as readability in harsh sunlight can be a challenge.
The screen itself delivers as highlighted in the specs and it performs well to your rough usage which involves keeping the phone with keys and coins in the pocket or a bag. That's where you have Xiaomi's Shield Glass showing its worth.
The colours on the panel are bright, crisp and you will enjoy watching videos or shows for hours without feeling the weight of such long viewing.
You get the HyperOS 2.0 version based on Android 15 with the Xiaomi 15 and the brand is promising 4 years of OS upgrades along with 6 years of security patches for the device. Xiaomi's update cycle has been sketchy over the years but we are hoping the flagships get better support from the company.
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The OS is lighter than the MIUI version but you still have to disable a few apps to stop them from throwing push alerts and ad suggestions for apps. Xiaomi also has a slew of AI features baked into the OS which we first got to try out on the 15 Ultra model this year and they work well too.
Leica, Once Again
Xiaomi 15 gets a triple camera setup using the Leica-powered lenses. The 50MP primary and a 50MP telephoto lens combined with the 50MP ultra-wide angle lens have shown their quality over the last few years and the new model is no different. The main sensor captures clear and crisp images with colour tones that are linked to the Leica ecosystem.
The overall details are what you expect from a flagship-grade setup and the Xiaomi 15 delivers on most fronts. The 50MP primary and the telephoto sensors are able to shoot quality photos in both day and low light conditions. The portraits with the telephoto come out with good levels of detail and the skin textures are retained to give the natural effect.
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Out of the three, the ultra-wide lens continues to miss out on autofocus which makes it the less appealing in the system. It does well in normal lighting with the details clear but still expected better results, especially when it comes to low light imaging.
The 32MP front shooter does better than the earlier models but the skin tones are still not clearly defined and natural even in the regular mode.
Small But Not Weak
Xiaomi 15 may be a compact phone but with its 5,240mAh battery it manages to last for well over a day on a single charge. We were slightly worried about its performance levels, especially with the noticeable warming up of the device but over a couple of weeks with the device we mostly got around 12-14 hours of standby time, after which we needed to charge it up using the 90W bundled charger.
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These are definitely not the best figures in the market, especially the 20 hour PCMark battery score, but good enough for most people, who want to charge their phone once and use it the whole day and most parts of the night. The 90W charger takes around 50 minutes to go from 5 percent to 100 percent which works for most people.
Xiaomi 15 is a compact phone with serious performance levels, a reliable and quality Leica camera system packed into a package with HyperOS getting between each iteration and a battery life that will work for most people out there. There are some throttling issues which result in warming up of the device but nothing that can be termed as a deal breaker.
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tags :
xiaomi
Location :
Delhi, India, India
First Published:
May 21, 2025, 10:05 IST
News tech Xiaomi 15 Is Compact Flagship Done Almost Right