Xiaomi 14 Ultra vs Apple iPhone 15 Pro: Leica colour science, 1-inch sensor make photography champ with night video shortcomings

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is turning out to be a rather popular smartphone among the photography-inclined — and for good reason. It has all the trappings of an ultra-high-end smartphone, but specs and reality are often two different things entirely.

Daniel Sin on YouTube recently pitted the Xiaomi 14 Ultra (curr. $1,528.61 from TradingShenzen) against the Apple iPhone 15 Pro (from $899.99 at Best Buy) in a side-by-side camera comparison (which you can watch below the article text), revealing that the two smartphones have very different approaches to rendering a scene. While the Xiaomi manages to edge out the iPhone in all of the photography tests, rendering finer colours more accurately and with less aggressive post-processing, the video performance leaves a lot to be desired — particularly in poor lighting. 

In the various scenes Sin photographed with the iPhone 15 Pro and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, the Xiaomi clearly comes out on top, especially when lighting isn't ideal. Colours are usually more true-to-life, as remarked by Sin himself, and details are more clearly defined without being over-sharpened.

Daylight video samples with both the wide and ultra-wide lenses bear similar results, with the Xiaomi producing crisp clips, with even image stabilisation coming out head and shoulders above the iPhone 15 Pro — an area where Android phones generally lag Apple's iPhones.

In both photos and videos, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra produces very pleasing natural background blur thanks to the 1-inch sensor, but that also has a trade-off when it comes to how much of the image can be in focus.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though Sin tested the Xioami 14 Ultra's variable aperture, which has been upgraded to be stepless for 2024. Theoretically, variable aperture could help the phone produce smoother, more natural videos by keeping the shutter speed constant instead of varying it with different lighting conditions.

The biggest failing of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra shows itself near the end of the video comparison, where Sin is testing the low-light video capabilities. While the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's image is clearly sharper than the iPhone 15 Pro's, the Xiaomi's image stabilisation fails to smooth out the walking motion appropriately. While the iPhone is quite smooth, with only minor jitters creeping in rather infrequently, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's image regularly suffers from jitters, where it fails to smooth out a step or a sudden hand motion.