Xiaomi 15T Pro review: new high-end is cheaper and even better

Xiaomi 15T Pro tested!

The necessary smartphones pass by our editors. All our reviews are made with love, passion and attention. Adding to the list of reviews now is the Xiaomi 15T Pro. We have tested the smartphone extensively over the past month, and so it is time to take stock. Is it time to run to the shop?

Unboxing

The Xiaomi 15T Pro comes in a rectangular package, where you immediately encounter the device itself. The brand also supplies a fine, but not exciting, silicone case right away, as well as a SIM needle, some paperwork and a USB-C cable. A screen protector is already glued to the screen from the factory. So you can enjoy your new smartphone right away.

Design and interface

Xiaomi provides the 15T Pro with a pretty hefty jacket. In terms of size, the device is as big as Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra. The device measures 162.7 x 77.9 x 8.0 millimetres and weighs 210 grams. On the front, of course, the 6.83-inch AMOLED screen immediately stands out, offering a resolution of 2772 x 1080 pixels. Naturally, a high refresh rate is present, coming out at 144Hz.

Xiaomi's phone can handle a maximum brightness of 3,200 nits. The screen is perfectly readable on sunny days. Even in the Swiss mountains, we do not experience any problem on days with a lot of sunshine. The device is made of aluminium, which feels good. In addition, due to the slight rounding on the back, the 15T Pro is also comfortable to hold. We got the smartphone in the silver colour and it has a premium appearance.

On the back of the Xiaomi, we find three cameras. We will come back to this in detail later in the Xiaomi 15T Pro review. The phone's buttons are on the right side, while the SIM card input is on the bottom of the smartphone.

Interface

If you are familiar with Xiaomi devices, then the interface on the Xiaomi 15T Pro will look familiar to you at this point. Right now, because we are expecting the update to Android 16 with HyperOS 3 at the end of this month. In Munich, we were present at the phone's announcement. Then the expectation was raised, that the device would run on Android 16 out of the box, but so it is not. So at the moment, we find Android 15 with HyperOS 2 on the smartphone. However, HyperOS 3 will add several new features, mainly in terms of AI and interface changes.

If you come from a different smartphone brand, the interface design might take some getting used to. This is because HyperOS is a little different from Samsung or other brands' skins. It is easy to work with. The menu can divide your apps into categories and you also have an option to group app icons by colour. From the top of the screen, you can of course access quick settings and notifications. You can also choose the Always On Display for the lock screen, which you can style to your liking with texts, clocks and backgrounds.

Communication and multimedia

When it comes to communication, you have little reason to complain with the 15T Pro. The smartphone delivers fine call quality and also handles different networks well. Even on holiday in Germany, Italy, Switzerland and France, we didn't experience any problems with this. You can insert two SIM cards into the phone. If you want to use an eSIM, this will eliminate the possibility of inserting a second physical SIM card.

The Xiaomi 15T Pro obviously offers support for the 5G network. In addition, you can connect the phone to a WiFi 7 network or lower and there is Bluetooth, GPS and NFC. Calls and SMS are made via the Google apps and typing with Gboard.

In terms of multimedia, the Xiaomi 15T Pro also has plenty to offer. Besides a nice display that can be bright enough on sunny days, there is a set of stereo speakers. Listening to our favourite music, we notice that the 15T Pro produces fine sound. The sound can be soft enough, but also just right loud, both of these without annoying distortion. This can make music lovers happy!

Camera

If you want to get everything out of the camera, then Xiaomi is the right place to go. The 15 series has taken this up a notch, as we wrote in the Xiaomi 15 Ultra review. Also in the Xiaomi 15 review, we were very pleased with the camera, and in a comparative test, we pitted these two models against each other. The smartphone manufacturer partners with Leica for photography, and does the same with the Xiaomi 15T Pro. When launching the camera app, you can choose which style you want to shoot with. Here, you can choose Vibrant with more saturation, or an authentic style with more realistic colours. What you prefer is personal, but you can always change your style afterwards.

On the back, three cameras are placed. These are a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel periscope telephoto lens and a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens. Things like optical image stabilisation (OIS), PDAF autofocus, a manual mode and an LED flash are all present.

So packed with features, but how does the camera perform? Looking at the pictures the Xiaomi shoots, it is noticeable that photo quality is high, as we are actually used to from Xiaomi devices in this segment. Images are colourful and offer a good balance between dark and light elements in an image. Photos are full of detail and sharp. It is noticeable that the camera is very consistent, so it is not a question of what comes out of every picture. This applies not only to photos taken with the main camera, but also with the zoom lens and wide-angle lens. Although slight colour difference can be seen with the latter, this is generally not distracting.

At night, the Xiaomi 15T Pro's camera won't disappoint you either. Sharp, detail-rich images are the result. Even the wide-angle lens delivers neat pictures, and zooming in at 5x is no problem. Having taken hundreds of photos with the phone, we can say that the Xiaomi 15T Pro shows one of its major strengths here.

We have filled the digital photo album with many photos we shot with the Xiaomi. Here you will find photos straight from the device, taken in different countries, under different conditions.

Comparison with Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

We compared the Xiaomi to the camera of the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, which we previously discussed in detail in the Pixel 10 Pro XL review. We see when we compare, there are some differences.

Below is a picture taken with the main camera. The Pixel, which has the same camera as the Pixel 10 Pro (i.e. without the XL), shows much more detail in the building on the right of the image. We also find the photos just a bit duller, as you can see back in the water. However, this is mainly only noticeable when you put the two smartphones side by side. We also see these differences with the 2x and 5x zoom. At night, Xiaomi's photos look warmer, although the Pixel shows less noise.

Video camera

So, the Xiaomi 15T Pro lets you take great photos, but the manufacturer has also thought of moviegoers. The phone allows you to film in up to 8K resolution. This is then done at a frame rate of 30fps. If you want to film at a higher frame rate, opt for 4K or lower, as you can even film at 120fps. The video quality here is also fine, and even zoomed in, you still get surprisingly good detail. You can watch the video we shot with the device below.

Performance and battery life

No high-end Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm, but the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ processor we find in the Xiaomi 15T Pro. Is that a drawback? Certainly not. In the past few weeks we've been running with the device, we haven't discovered any drawbacks to it. Tasks are completed quickly and we don't notice any annoying features or things. The phone is assisted by 12GB of working memory.

In terms of storage space, things are also pretty good. The Xiaomi 15T Pro is available with 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.

Battery

If you're used to DroidApp's reviews, we pay a lot of attention to smartphone endurance. We don't use a benchmark or that kind of simulated testing. We really look at real-world usage in practice, and that's where the Xiaomi throws very high marks. If you enjoy a holiday and go out for a day, you can safely leave the powerbank at home. The 5500 mAh battery does an incredibly good job.

If you use the Xiaomi on mainly 5G network, then two days is achievable. We noted a screen-on-time of 6- 6.5 hours. And you really don't need to do any crazy tricks for that. If you use the device on WiFi, then the phone will last much longer. With this, the battery capacity is many times better than the Xiaomi 15 and the Xiaomi 15 Ultra which wears out its hours much more inefficiently. Charging can be done with up to 90W or 50W wirelessly. This will make you happy as a user!

Energy label

Energy label is mandatory since the European Union's new legislation. So that means Xiaomi's new device also comes with an energy label. In the case of the 15T Pro, we see energy label A, a battery life of 57 hours and 43 minutes according to the test method and a drop protection A. There is repair score C and a promised battery cycles of 1600 times.

Update policy

Then the update policy. You are guaranteed six years of security updates. With that, the device gets five Android upgrades. Actually, four more remain, since that means it is still being marketed with Android 15.

Review

Xiaomi manages to release devices with good ratings time and again. This is also the case with the Xiaomi 15T Pro. The smartphone delivers perfect photos, offers great battery life and looks good. There's a nice screen and the processor doesn't let up either. Hence, we have not come across any major drawbacks in the past three weeks. One point of attention is the update policy, which is better at Samsung and Google, for example, especially since the phone does not come with Android 16 on the market right away, which for an amount of 799 euros is just a shame. The downside of this price is that many high-end smartphones with similar performance are priced significantly higher. So with that, you have with the Xiaomi 15T Pro a very fine, comprehensive and still relatively 'not too expensive' phone. However, HyperOS is a really different skin than you might be used to. Although it works fine, it can take quite a bit of getting used to for some.

Getting started with the Xiaomi yourself? You can buy the device at Mobiel, Belsimpel (with 200 euros cash discount until the end of October) and MediaMarkt.