Chinese tech giant Xiaomi showed up to MWC 2026 in full force. The star of its product-filled MWC keynote was the Xiaomi 17 Ultra—an absolute beast that’s more camera than phone. Tech specs include a 6.9-inch “HyperRGB OLED display” with a 120Hz refresh rate that’s capable of hitting 3,500 nits of peak brightness, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, 16GB of RAM with either 512GB or 1TB of storage, and a 6,000mAh battery that can fast charge at 90W or fast wireless charge at 50W.
For cameras, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra has some stacked sensors, too: a 1-inch, 50-megapixel f/1.67 wide, 200-megapixel f/2.39-2.96 telephoto (75-100mm equivalent), and a 50-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide with a 115-degree FOV. The front camera has 50 megapixels with an f/2.2 aperture and 90-degree FOV.
The hardware is enough to make any gadget nerd drool, but the special edition “Leica Leitzphone by Xiaomi” pushes everything over the top. Not only do you get the camera maker’s famous red dot logo (so everyone knows you spent lots of money on the Leica version), the giant circular camera bump also has a physical control ring with a knurling around it that you can turn to make various camera adjustments.
As always, Xiaomi’s phones aren’t officially sold in the U.S., so you’ll need to import one if you want it. Neither phones will come cheap: the Xiaomi 17 Ultra costs 1,499 euros or about $1,755 USD and the Leica Leitzphone costs 1,999 euros or about $2,340 USD as of this writing.
There’s also a special photography kit that adds a grip, buttons for the shutter and video recording, a dial, and an adapter for adding on filters. This accessory will set you back 199 euros, or about $233 USD as of this writing. —Raymond Wong
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