A critic might accuse Xiaomi of copying Apple a little too closely in its launch event for the Xiaomi 17 phones, while a fan might say the company is trying to beat Apple at its own game. Either way, it’s pretty clear that the Chinese giant had Cupertino in mind when announcing its new flagship line, even if the phones themselves are more unique, helped by a second screen found on the back of its two new Pro models.
Let’s start with the names. Xiaomi’s last flagships were the 15 series, completed by yesterday’s 15T phones, these are the 17. We’re used to Chinese companies skipping generations with the unlucky number four in the name (OnePlus is jumping from 13 to 15 in its flagships this year, for example), but this is a little different: Xiaomi has been open that it’s going straight to 17 solely in the name of keeping up with Apple’s numbering.
Factor in the introduction of a second size of Pro phone, and you have a suspiciously familiar-sounding lineup: the Xiaomi 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max. Just in case you missed the point, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun repeatedly brought Apple’s new iPhones up as direct points of comparison as he personally ran through the phones’ specs at the Beijing launch event, highlighting again and again how its 17 series supposedly wins on battery, performance, photography, and more.
In Xiaomi’s defense, its actual hardware doesn’t take too many pointers from Apple, and the phones have the specs to justify those confident comparisons. The Pro and Pro Max stand out most obviously for the additional display on the back, filling the space where you find the camera “plateau” on the equivalent Pro iPhones. This looks to be used a lot like the cover display on recent flip phones, wrapping around the camera lenses in a similar fashion, with the ability to deliver a viewfinder for selfies, controls for music playback, interactive widgets, and more.
Xiaomi is far from the first company to slap an extra screen on the back of an Android phone, and we’ve seen this form factor attempted numerous times over the past five years or so. Still, those interface improvements delivered by the flip phones may help make this more practical than most. And if all else fails, there’s always the official Game Boy-inspired case that includes functional buttons, turning the back of the phone into a portable console in its own right.
Otherwise, the two Pro phones are mostly similar apart from their sizes. The regular Pro has a 6.3-inch display, and weighs just 192g. The Pro Max has a larger 6.9-inch display, and is heavier at 231g — though Xiaomi was at pains to point out that it’s both thinner and lighter than Apple’s 17 Pro Max. Its display is supposedly tougher too, which the company demonstrated in a promo video showing a figure skater glide right across the phone’s face — probably one to file under “don’t try this at home.”
Both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, announced yesterday by Qualcomm. They feature enormous batteries too — 6,300mAh in the Pro and 7,500mAh in the Pro Max — with support for 100W wired charging over the universal PPS standard, and 50W wireless.
Cameras are obviously a priority, with three 50-megapixel shooters on the back of each phone. They share their f/1.67 main camera and f/2.4 ultrawide, but differ a little in the telephotos. Both have the same 5x zoom distance, but the Pro Max uses a larger sensor and a faster aperture (f/2.6 compared to f/3.0), which should mean significantly better performance in low light.
The regular Xiaomi 17 may be a little less eye-catching, since it lacks the secondary screen on the back, but that might make it a more appealing phone to most. It’s the same 6.3-inch size as the Pro model, has a similar 50-megapixel triple rear camera, and shares the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset too.
The biggest surprise to the 17 is that it features a bigger battery than the Pro, at 7,000mAh. Xiaomi broke out yet another iPhone comparison to drill this home, stacking it up against an iPhone 17 in a continuous video playback test — then, in a moment of triumph, slapping a 5,000mAh MagSafe battery on the back of the iPhone just to show the Xiaomi phone still outlasting it. Will that reflect real-world battery performance? Who knows, but it was certainly fun to watch.
All three Xiaomi 17 phones are available for Chinese customers to preorder now, with a full release on September 27th. The 17 starts from ¥4,499 (around $630), the Pro for ¥4,999 (around $700), and the Pro Max for ¥5,999 (around $840). Xiaomi hasn’t yet announced global release plans, but a European launch for at least some of the models is likely in the spring, potentially around the MWC trade show in late February, when it may also reveal an even more powerful Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
