Xiaomi 17 review: A great Samsung S26 competitor?

The compact flagship phone sometimes feels like a category under attack. With most of the attention lavished on the biggest and best phones, the options for those wanting something smaller – without sacrificing power – feels a little limited.

The Xiaomi 17 looks to address that, offering flagship specs in a phone that's lighter and more compact than what's become typical.

That comes with greater affordability, sacrificing some of the screen real-estate for a smaller footprint, easier one-handed use, and the benefit of taking up less space in your pocket.

For the Xiaomi 17, however, it certainly doesn't sacrifice battery life, with this model exceeding many of the latest mainstream flagship phones. Indeed, with Samsung's Galaxy S26 just launched, is the Xiaomi 17 its most natural competitor – or even superior?

Price & Availability

The Xiaomi 17 launched globally on 28 February, excluding North America, following an earlier launch in China in September 2025.

The Xiaomi 17 comes in two capacities, with the 256GB model priced at £899 in the UK (click for Xiaomi's direct Mi Store for purchase) / €899 / AU$1399, or the 512GB model (at £999 / €999 / AU$1599).

Xiaomi 17 vs Xiaomi 15: What's new?

• Latest processor
• Brighter display
• Larger battery
• New cameras

The Xiaomi 17 steps into replace the Xiaomi 15 from 2025, tweaking the design to make the lenses more obvious, while updating a couple of key areas.

That sees the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 under the hood, but the biggest internal change is the move to a 6330mAh battery over the 5240mAh battery its predecessor offered. There's faster charging as well.

The display remains a similar size, but bumps the peak brightness, while there are a couple of changes to the cameras too, including updated main and ultrawide sensors, and a new front camera.

Design & Display

• 6.3-inch AMOLED display
  • 2656 x 1220 pixels (460ppi)
  • 3500 nits peak brightness
  • 120Hz refresh rate

The Xiaomi 17 has a flat edges with an aluminium frame and a flat front and back, with really small bezels around the display. There's a change to the design of the camera on the back compared to the Xiaomi 15, with the lenses now individually separated on the raised pad.

On first glance it looks a bit like the iPhone 16 Pro, albeit with an additional camera, and that's a bit of a shift from the previous design that covered the whole camera array under a sheet of glass.

I like the new looks, I think it looks easier on the eye, while it also comes in an interesting array of colours, including the Alpine Pink of my review model. Alternatively, black, green and blue options are available.

The phone measures 8.06mm thick, so it's not competing in the skinny phone stakes, while it weighs 191g – which is lighter than the Xiaomi 15, despite the increase in battery capacity that it offers. That feels like progress.

There's a 6.3-inch display on the front (and no rear display, unlike the Xiaomi 17 Pro), and I've found it to be a great-performing display. It's not the technically the very brightest available – at 3500 nits peak brightness, whereas the Motorola Signature claims a 6,200 – but it's nicely saturated and supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+ for high dynamic range.

Refresh rates up to 120Hz and a stack of certifications for eye-care and flicker-free performance are in tow, while there are options to tweak the display's colour range to your preference. I stuck with Vivid for that saturated pop, while enjoying the Ultra HDR presentation of images through Google Photos.

I found that Netflix was flagged up with Dolby Vision support and watching it compared to the Pixel 10 Pro, I found the Xiaomi to look brighter, without losing the contrast, just making it better to watch.

So far, then, so good for the Xiaomi 17.

Performance & Battery

• Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
  • 12GB RAM; 256/512GB storage
• 6330mAh battery
  • 100W wired charging; 50W wireless

The positive story continues with the hardware, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 powering this compact phone, plus 12GB RAM. This is flagship hardware, found in devices like the OnePlus 15 and the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and here it puts in a great showing for itself too.

The Xiaomi 17 is fast and fluid and – once you get round some of the software quirks – the experience is great.

Dual SIM and eSIM is also offered. I found the connectivity to be good, with nice and fast installation of apps and speedy downloads of big files – like all the data for Call of Duty Mobile.

Speaking of which, once you get into more intensive tasks, there's a familiar problem that crops up. When I reviewed the Xiaomi 15, I found that the phone got a little warm during long gaming sessions –and that once again happens on the Xiaomi 17.

I found that during long downloads, long periods of using the hotspot, or long gaming sessions, resulting in noticeable heat in the frame of the phone. That can take the shine off things, because in longer sessions it can cause performance to drop through throttling as the phone tries to keep itself cool.

I just mentioned a long period using the hotspot and that wasn't by accident: while testing the phone, I spent a day in Germany, where I used it as a hotspot for my laptop and other devices for an extended period of time. This is something that puts a lot of pressure on a device and while the phone did get warm, it let me really test the battery life.

That's the 6330mAh cell, which is frankly colossal for the size of this phone. The Samsung Galaxy S26 only has a 4,300mAh battery (although it's thinner and lighter), but the result is real endurance from the Xiaomi. On that really long day, I managed to use the hotspot for hours – while other colleagues went looking for a charger.

Yet, at the end of the day – I'd been on the go for well over 12 hours by this point – I was on 35% remaining, so took advantage of another great feature, the 100W charging. That saw the phone recharged and ready for the evening out while I took a well-needed shower.

The Xiaomi 17 will last over a day in normal use and well into the next, which is a credit to it. For those who have a compatible charger there's also support for 50W wireless charging. That rounds out the great performance, save for the overheating aspect.

Software & AI

• Android 16 with HyperOS 3
  • 5 years of Android updates; 6 years of security updates

Xiaomi phones are not known for their clean software, as I've repeatedly pointed out in previous reviews.

The Xiaomi 17 launches on HyperOS 3, based on Android 16. The good news is that this platform delivers better experience than cheaper phones in the family – i.e. Poco and Redmi – because there's less bloatware and it doesn't try to get you to install lots of extra apps all the time.

HyperOS is still a complete reworking of Android, however, and it's not as slick and clean as a Google Pixel phone, nor is it as mature and considered as Samsung's One UI. The user experience can't compete with those devices, in my view.

Xiaomi's reworking of how Android looks and feels adds complication alongside all the additional customisation that comes with it. And some features, such as Bedtime Mode (a Google feature), just don't reliably work.

Some features behave slightly differently to other Android devices, but if you're a seasoned Xiaomi user, you probably know how to tame it. It's possible to uninstall much of the bloat, to switch to Google apps by default, as well as switch off many of the notifications that Xiaomi tries to push your way.

There's still duplication of apps and services, there are still two app stores, as well as a layering of AI features. Google Gemini is offered, along with integration of Google AI into Google's apps, while HyperAI has been added from Xiaomi.

HyperAI consists of a wide range of app assistance functions, basically grouped into writing, image enhancement (in the camera or gallery), translation and subtitles, and search. None of it is groundbreaking and you can also toggle it off if you're not interested. But it doesn't feel like Xiaomi is stuffing AI down your throat, which is something I welcome.

The final word on the software experience goes to updates: Xiaomi is offering 5 Android OS updates and 6 years of security updates. Both are shorter than what Google, Samsung, Honor or Motorola offer on this level of device, so although that might match the duration that you have this phone, it's not up there with the best.

Cameras

• Triple rear camera
  • Main (23mm): 50-megapixel, Light Fusion 950, 1/1.32in sensor, f/1.67 aperture, Autofocus (AF), Optical image stabilisation (OIS)
  • Telephoto (2.6x; 60mm): 50MP, Samsung JN5, 1/2.76in sensor, f/2.0, AF, OIS
  • Ultrawide (17mm): 50MP, OV50M, 1/2.88in sensor, f/2.4
• Single front selfie camera
  • Selfie (21mm): 50MP, f/2.2

Xiaomi still pushes the Leica partnership on this phone. While it's not as pronounced as on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, it's still part of the package.

It's most noticeable through Leica filters in the camera, as well as the option to toggle between Leica vibrant (default) and Leica authentic, which darkens towards the edges with a noticeable vignette. I'd stick to Leica vibrant, unless you're sure you want that additional character on the shot you're taking.

It's a three-camera system, with 50-megapixel sensors for each, but all the sensors are different. The main camera and the ultrawide are updated from the Xiaomi 15.

I found good colour consistency between lenses, so you can switch knowing that, for the most part, things will have the same hue. In lower lighting conditions there is a bit of a colour shift when moving to the telephoto, but it's not too concerning.

Image 1 of 5

The performance of the camera is strong: the main puts in a good showing for itself with nice colour balance and detail. It's easy to take a good shot using the Leica 17 in pretty much all situations. The ultrawide looks solid, avoiding the pronounced blurring around the edges that some cameras suffer from.

In low-light conditions things get a little softer, with dim indoor conditions seeing a bump in ISO sensitivity that can make things look a little flat. Outdoors there's a familiar lightening of dusky scenes that takes place without the introduction of too much noise, so the results are good if not realistic of the actual scene.

The telephoto lens has an f/2.0 aperture, which means it still lets in a lot of light. However, it's a 2.6x optical zoom, so isn't as far-reaching as some competitors. That's likely the trade-off needed with the lens to get the wider aperture. There's a tap option to get 5x zoom (using cropping), while digital zoom runs out to 60x.

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From 20x onwards there's the option for "ultra zoom", which uses AI to clean things up. There are three settings here – auto, on or off – so you get to choose. This type of zoom AI is similar to other smartphones and it will pull out (or create) detail in zoom photos that the camera doesn’t capture well.

For example, it will sharpen backgrounds, bolden text and bring sharpness and resolution to long-distance shots, but in some cases it's easy to see the effect that generative AI is having, leaving it looking unrealistic. In reality, it's about deciding what you're happy to live with, because it can range from being a nice boost in detail, to a brutal imagining of what might have been there.

In the two images below, the AI zoom enhancer has been used, changing surface textures. They look cleaner, but slightly artificial.

Image 1 of 2

I tested it alongside the Pixel 10 Pro at 30x zoom and found it much faster than Google's Pro Res Zoom, but it looks more like an AI image at the end, because textural detail is lost and specular highlights are just a little too bright. However, there's something to be said for the wider aperture, as compared to the Pixel's f/2.8 zoom, it fares better with colours in lower light.

Xiaomi's front camera makes for great selfies, with accurate edge detection for portraits. The portrait mode has a range of filters and an adjustable bokeh effect that's easy to use.

Xiaomi 17 review: Verdict

The Xiaomi 17 is a great compact flagship phone, offering good design, a lovely display, plenty of power and considerable battery life.

It's the stamina of this phone that makes it stand out compared to big-name rivals like Samsung's Galaxy S26, while the fast charging is also to its credit.

The camera experience is good, with a comprehensive set of lenses and good performance in most shooting conditions.

The downside of this phone comes from the software experience, which takes plenty of work to wrestle it away from Xiaomi and start feeling like it's working for you.

There's clear competition from Samsung and Google in this 6.3-inch flagship space, but the Xiaomi isn't as leftfield as you might think – and on account of all the positives above, plus a competitve price point, it's well worth considering.

Also consider

The Xiaomi 17 sits in the compact flagship space where the most obvious rival would be the Samsung Galaxy S26, which the US, China and Japan has the same core hardware, but in the UK and Europe is powered by Exynos 2600. It retails for almost the same price, but has a much smaller battery capacity and slower charging.

Alternatively, the Google Pixel 10 Pro is just about the same size, but isn't as powerful and, again, can't match the battery performance of the Xiaomi 17. But it does have much cleaner software with longer support, even if it's a little more expensive.