Xiaomi 17 Ultra Official: The First Smartphone with a Mechanical Zoom Ring

Thursday, 25 December 2025 at 17:54

It’s Christmas Day, and while most of the tech world is taking a breather, Xiaomi just dropped a nuclear bomb on the smartphone market. The Xiaomi 17 Ultra isn't just another flagship; it feels like the point where phones finally stop pretending to be cameras and just... become them.

I’ve been digging through the launch details from the event in China, and I have to say, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra Leica Edition is the one that’s going to live in my head rent-free. It features a physical, mechanical zoom ring on the frame. Let that sink in. You can rotate it to dial in your focal length or exposure. It’s tactile, it’s probably a bit overkill, but for anyone who misses the feeling of a real lens, it’s a stroke of genius.

Key Points

Continuous Optical Zoom: The 200MP periscope lens offers true optical quality throughout the 75mm to 100mm range.

Leica Master Ring: The exclusive Leica Edition features a mechanical rotating ring for physical control over exposure and focal length.

Giant Silicon-Carbon Battery: A 6,800mAh cell provides industry-best endurance while keeping the device slim.

HyperOS 3.0 & AI: Launches with Android 16 and a new AI suite that allows seamless mirroring with Apple ecosystem devices.

Ultimate Display: The 6.9-inch M10 AMOLED reaches a record 3,500 nits of peak brightness for perfect outdoor visibility.

The 200MP Continuous Zoom "Cheat Code"

The standard 17 Ultra is no slouch either. Most phones give you a "3x" and a "5x" lens, and everything in between is just digital mush. Xiaomi changed the game here with a 200MP Samsung HPE periscope that offers continuous optical zoom.

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Whether you’re at 3.5x or 4.2x, the glass actually moves inside the housing to maintain a true optical image. When you pair that with the massive 1-inch Light Fusion 1050L main sensor, you’re looking at a device that should, on paper, absolutely dominate low-light and portrait photography. I’m genuinely curious to see how the LOFIC technology handles those impossible shots, like a dark room with a single bright candle.

A Battery That Defies Physics

The other "how did they do that?" moment is the battery. We’re looking at a 6,800mAh silicon-carbon cell. For a phone that's only about 8.3mm thick, that is an insane amount of energy density.

Xiaomi is clearly leaning into the fact that high-res photography and 5G gaming eat batteries for breakfast. Even with that massive 6.9-inch display pushing 3,500 nits of brightness, this thing should easily be a two-day phone for most people. I noticed they "only" went with 90W wired charging—down from the 120W we’ve seen before—but honestly, with a battery this big, I’d rather have the longevity than an extra five minutes of charging speed.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5: The New Era

Inside, it’s the first time we’re seeing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. It’s running HyperOS 3.0, which is Xiaomi’s latest take on Android 16. The most interesting software tweak? They’ve added a feature that lets you mirror Apple devices directly onto the phone screen. It’s a bold move to try and pull over the "walled garden" crowd, and combined with the Leica branding, it might actually work.

Pricing and Availability

If you're looking to import one of these beasts, you'll need to know the damage to your wallet. The standard Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at CNY 6,999 (~$995) for the 12GB/512GB model, while the top-tier 16GB/1TB version hits CNY 8,499 (~$1,210). If you want that mechanical zoom ring, the Leica Edition commands a premium, starting at CNY 7,999 (~$1,140) for 512GB of storage and topping out at CNY 8,999 (~$1,280) for the 1TB "Collector's" configuration. Sales officially kick off in China on December 27, though we expect global versions to land in early 2026.