Xiaomi’s Leica Leitzphone mostly earns the name

Xiaomi and Leica’s long-running telephone business conscionable sewage a small closer. Alongside the caller world merchandise of its 17 Ultra flagship, Xiaomi has been entrusted pinch manufacturing a abstracted type that is the first Leica Leitzphone to merchandise extracurricular of Japan, pursuing 3 Sharp-made models exclusive to the country.

In truth, the Leitzphone is simply a 17 Ultra pinch Leica branding and a rotatable camera ring, and isolated from a fewer creation tweaks, it’s mostly the aforesaid arsenic the Leica Edition of that telephone already disposable successful China. But the branding is simply a large deal: Leica hasn’t fto Xiaomi usage its reddish dot logo connected hardware until now, moreover though the companies person collaborated connected Xiaomi’s flagship cameras since 2022. The jump to a afloat Leica-branded telephone is simply a ballot of assurance from the camera company.

After 2 weeks utilizing the Leitzphone type of the 17 Ultra, it’s clear that assurance was good placed. This is my favourite telephone of 2026 truthful far, Leica logo aliases not, though astir buyers would beryllium amended disconnected redeeming money pinch the modular 17 Ultra.

The 17 Ultra and its original Leica Edition launched successful China connected December 25th, 2025. The world type and the Leitzphone were launched astatine Xiaomi’s pre-MWC property convention successful Barcelona connected February 28th, alongside the regular Xiaomi 17. The 17 Ultra starts from £1,299 / €1,499 (about $1,750) pinch 512GB storage, rising by £400 / €700 for the Leica version. That’s a hefty premium, but location are a fewer differences from the regular 17 Ultra.

Let’s commencement pinch the Leica of it all. It’s evident first and foremost successful the design: an ever-so-slightly glossy achromatic decorativeness connected the back, an business touch successful the knurled aluminum-alloy edges, and Leica’s reddish dot logo successful 1 corner. It’s a somewhat different creation to the 17 Ultra Leica Edition that released successful China astatine the extremity of December, which has a two-tone decorativeness and orients the Leica logo the different way. It besides ships pinch branded accessories, including a faux leather lawsuit pinch a Leica lens cap, a microfiber cleaning cloth, and a agleam reddish wrist strap.

Other changes tally done the software. While some versions of the 17 Ultra tally Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3, based connected Android 16, the Leitzphone’s interface has been customized. There are dedicated Leica widgets, including photograph galleries and a golden-hour timer, and civilization monochrome app icons for the astir celebrated apps from Xiaomi and 3rd parties — which look awesome erstwhile you first move the telephone on, but little truthful erstwhile they’re mixed successful pinch each the non-monochromatic apps you’ll inevitably download from elsewhere.

Most of the customization is successful the camera. There’s an expanded array of Leica filters, and the interface uses Leica fonts and reddish arsenic its accent color, alternatively of Xiaomi’s accustomed yellow. A caller Leica Essential shooting mode lets you prime betwixt 2 camera simulations: a colour re-creation of the M9 and a monochromatic return connected the M3. The Leitzphone besides adds the action to alteration C2PA contented credentials connected each changeable you take.

None of this is arsenic caller arsenic the Leitzphone’s unsocial hardware feature: a rotatable camera ring. The separator of the camera land tin beryllium twisted round, pinch a satisfying haptic buzz to emulate the consciousness of gears clicking. It makes for an fantabulous fidget spinner, though its existent intent is to power zoom successful the camera app, aliases rhythm done vulnerability settings aliases filters if you prefer.

This sounds for illustration a awesome idea, and it’s thing I’ve wanted to spot connected much phones since spotting it connected Nubia’s Focus 2 Ultra. In practice, it’s not that useful. The camera land whitethorn beryllium tremendous by telephone standards, but it would beryllium mini connected a existent camera, and it’s excessively flush against the assemblage to clasp comfortably. I’ve had to force myself to usage the camera ringing to zoom, uncovering the onscreen controls quicker and much earthy each time. Perhaps pinch persistence I could drill it successful my musculus memory; for now, I mostly rotate it by mishap and get irritated erstwhile I do.

The summation of the zoom ringing makes consciousness fixed the 17 Ultra’s header photography feature: a telephoto pinch continuous optical zoom. While Xiaomi’s 15 Ultra featured 2 telephoto cameras, the 17 Ultra combines them into one. (The institution skipped 16 to drawback up pinch Apple.) A azygous 1/1.4-inch type 200-megapixel sensor is paired pinch a Leica APO zoom lens that covers 3.2-4.3x magnification — the balanced of 75-100mm — adjusting the aperture from f/2.39-2.96 arsenic it goes.

The evident disapproval is the aforesaid we levied astatine Sony’s Xperia 1 IV, which boasted continuous 3.5-5.2x zoom: This is excessively short a dispersed to make overmuch difference. It’s uncommon that the framing of a photograph changes drastically arsenic you move done the range, and extracurricular those limits you’re backmost to the aforesaid integer zoom and sensor cropping that each different telephone offers.

Photos are excellent. The ample sensor delivers earthy bokeh, on pinch macro support astatine a minimum region of 30cm. It tin grip challenging lighting conditions, pinch bully results successful dim ray — though it did erstwhile struggle pinch the inverse, blowing retired highlights connected an particularly agleam day. Mostly I’ve changeable exclusively connected the Leica Authentic mode — the different action being Leica Vibrant — which I for illustration for its filmic qualities, preserving much of the highlights and shadows than astir phones and avoiding the flattened sheen of excessive HDR.

The different lenses are conscionable arsenic impressive, though I do find myself defaulting to the telephoto. The main camera has a ample 1-inch-type sensor, and the aforesaid 50-megapixel solution arsenic the ultrawide and selfie camera. It’s 1 of the first phones to see a LOFIC (lateral overflow integration capacitor) sensor, which expands the move scope for highlights, helping maine return immoderate of the astir melodramatic skyline shots I’ve managed connected a phone, and contributing to fantabulous capacity successful nighttime shots pinch agleam lights.

Despite the Leica logo, this isn’t just a camera. The Leitzphone has each of the flagship specs you’d expect: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, 16GB of RAM (in this economy?!) and 1TB of retention (with an action for 512GB connected the regular 17 Ultra), a 6.9-inch 1-120Hz LTPO OLED display, and IP68 protection.

The artillery is different standout feature. The 6,000mAh silicon-carbon compartment isn’t the biggest around, and is smaller than the phone’s Chinese edition, but it’s still impressive. Even powering a demanding telephone pinch a large display, I’ve usually been capable to conscionable astir get 2 days of usage from it betwixt charges, though pinch very small near successful the vessel afterwards. 90W PPS wired charging and 50W wireless apical it backmost up fast, though you’ll beryllium constricted to slow Qi speeds complete third-party wireless chargers, and there’s nary support for the magnetic Qi2 standard.

The biggest problem the Leitzphone has is that it’s mostly a much costly type of the 17 Ultra, which shares astir of its champion features. I for illustration the look of the Leitzphone, and for illustration a fewer of the Leica-specific shooting styles and the included case. But those aren’t worthy £200, and the rotatable camera ringing isn’t either. Unless that small reddish dot is very beloved to your heart, there’s not rather capable logic to ammunition retired other for it — but mostly because the 17 Ultra is specified a bully telephone successful its ain right.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge