Xiaomi 15T Pro review: Predictably good

Out of all the phones in Xiaomi’s lineup, I like the “T Pro” series the most. It’s not the company’s flagship – this accolade is reserved for the typically very powerful but bulky “Ultra” variant – but an in-betweener which offers great performance for a reasonable price.

With the Xiaomi 15T Pro, which follows last year’s Xiaomi 14T Pro, the company did exactly what was expected: It upgraded the phone in several key ways while keeping the price at the same level.

Before I continue with the review, I’d like to highlight just how odd a year this will be for Xiaomi’s lineup. The Xiaomi 15T Pro was just launched. But the company’s President of mobile phones Lu Weibing announced that the company will also launch the Xiaomi 17 series this month.

You read that right, the Xiaomi 17 series, which follows the Xiaomi 15 series, meaning that the Xiaomi 16 series will just get skipped (the new name being an obvious nod to Apple’s iPhone 17). And that’s on top of the company cramming in two important phone launches so close to one another.

Fortunately, it’s not necessary to sweat any of these details if you’re in the market for an affordable phone with flagship-level performance, because that’s exactly what the Xiaomi 15T Pro is. With that out of the way, let’s continue with the review.

Xiaomi 15T Pro: Price and specs

Xiaomi 15T Pro is a straightforward evolution of its predecessor, the 14T Pro. It looks similar, but has a larger display, more advanced camera, more powerful chip inside, and a larger battery. Xiaomi basically upgraded the phone in every way that matters. Here’s a quick overview of the specs.

• 6.83-inch AMOLED display with a 44Hz refresh rate

• 50/50/12-megapixel triple rear camera with 5x optical zoom

• MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chip

• 12GB of RAM

• 256GB/512GB/1TB storage

• 5,500mAh battery with 90W wired and 50W wireless fast charging

Xiaomi 15T Pro: Design and display

Xiaomi didn’t take any chances with the design: It’s still a slab of glass with a punch-hole selfie camera on the front, and a simple polished aluminum surface on the back, with a large camera bump with four black circles which houses three cameras and some sensors. That’s pretty much what the last model looked like, though the unit that XIaomi sent me has a nice, chocolatey Mocha Gold color which makes the phone look fancy.

The display, however, has grown in size. It now measures 6.83 inches (roughly the same as Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max) with very thin bezels on the side. It’s bright, beautiful, and very smooth, thanks to the adaptive 144Hz refresh rate. The display is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 7i, which should make it quite durable, and, as is customary for Xiaomi and most other Chinese phone makers, it comes with a pre-applied screen protection.

Oh, and there are two other colors on offer: Black, and Gray. Booooring. Get the chocolate one.

Xiaomi 15T Pro: Performance and AI

MediaTek’s Dimensity chipsets aren’t what most people have in mind when they think about top mobile chips. This is wrong. The chip inside this phone, the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+, is roughly as powerful as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for most tasks, only lagging slightly in GPU performance. Here, it’s coupled with 12GB of RAM, making my day-to-day usage very smooth.

I played a few games of PUBG, and I never noticed any frame rate drops, even when I maxed out the settings. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but this phone is powerful enough for my needs.

On the AI side, you get Google’s Gemini, a familiar option that’ll do just fine for most folks. You can invoke it with a long press of the power button on the side or by saying “Hey Google,” and immediately start annoying your friends by asking the AI about any topic that comes up in conversation.

Underneath Xiaomi's HyperOS skin you get Android 15, which is annoying, given that Android 16 has been available since June. When buying a new phone, I'd prefer to have the latest version of the underlying OS beneath, but it just wasn't meant to be on this one.

Oh, and also annoyingly, Xiaomi still packs its phones with pre-installed third-party apps. For example, I don't know what WPS Office is, and I'd rather chose my own office suite instead of having this thing already installed on a brand new phone.

Xiaomi 15T Pro: Cameras

Xiaomi's Leica branded camera system is the best when you use the main, 50-megapixel camera. The photos are crisp and detailed in daylight; come dusk, and they get a little fuzzy but they're still surprisingly colorful. If you go wide, however, the quality decreases significantly.

I was able to use the Xiaomi 15T Pro unit at the same time as Apple's new iPhones, and it was interesting to see whether the more affordable Xiaomi can hang in there with the most powerful Apple phone, the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The answer is: Sometimes yes, mostly no. The iPhone had better wide shots, sharper night shots, less artificial-looking macro shots. The Xiaomi's telephoto camera hangs in there pretty well, though, especially at 2x magnification.

Selfies are pretty great. The 32-megapixel front camera produces detailed, crisp shots, but you'll get the best results in well lit conditions.

Xiaomi 15T Pro: Battery life

On paper, the Xiaomi 15T Pro has a roughly 10 percent bigger battery than the last year’s model. I’ve given it a few very intense days, taking photos, gaming, and streaming videos for hours on end, and it held up amazingly well. This phone will easily last two days between charges.

Charging, both wired and wireless, is pretty fast; I was able to charge the Xiaomi 15T Pro from near-zero to full charge in about 45 minutes, though you'll need a fast charger for that.

Is the Xiaomi 15T Pro worth it?

Xiaomi’s 15T Pro strikes me as a no-nonsense purchase. It’s affordable while hitting the sweet spots in almost every way that matters, be it battery life, display quality, or camera performance. In Mocha Gold it actually looks fancy, too. You do have to get used to Xiaomi’s UI and settings (something I haven’t had too many problems with for years now), and it probably isn’t the best choice for hardcore gamers.

Xiaomi's biggest problem here is the fact that the company is also launching an entirely new lineup of Xiaomi 17 phones, making Xiaomi 15T sound obsolete right from the get go. A different launch timing would benefit this model more.

The Xiaomi 15T Pro starts at €799 ($938) in Europe. There's also a cheaper variant, the Xiaomi 15T, that has a less powerful chip, slower charging, and lacks 5x zoom; that one starts at €649 ($762). You can get them at Xiaomi's online store.