From my hotel in SF I was able to shoot ships off in a distance. Zoom in on a person standing on the rocks and suddenly the wave behind them feels massive. The telephoto doesn't just get you closer — it changes the story.

— Michael Josh, GadgetMatch — Xiaomi 17 Ultra camera review

What the DxOMark Score Actually Means

DxOMark scored the Xiaomi 17 Ultra at 166 overall, placing it 6th globally in the ultra-premium smartphone category. The photo subscore is 170, which puts it ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra on a number of specific metrics — tele zoom quality, low-light detail, texture, and color accuracy. The video subscore is 157, which is where the picture gets more complicated: the iPhone 17 Pro scores 172 in video, and a handful of Huawei and Vivo flagships also outpace it in that category [3]. This is the honest version of the "best camera phone ever" claim that a few YouTube channels have been running with: it's the best still photography phone by a number of measures. On photo quality specifically, the 1-inch sensor plus Leica processing is producing results that reviewers and benchmark labs alike are calling best-in-class for things like portrait background separation, low-light detail retention, and telephoto sharpness. The video side is a different story, and that matters [3].

Leica — Not Just a Label

Leica branding on smartphones has a mixed history. Some manufacturers use it as a marketing sticker on otherwise ordinary camera tuning. Xiaomi's partnership runs deeper than that, and the 17 Ultra is being described by both the company and reviewers as the first phone built from the ground up using a new collaborative framework with Leica — not just a licensed aesthetic [2]. In practice, it gives you two color profiles inside the camera app. Leica Vibrant boosts saturation and contrast — punchy, high-impact shots that pop on Instagram. Leica Authentic takes the opposite approach: flatter, more neutral tones with a film-like quality that photographers describe as closer to how the scene actually looked. Both reviewers specifically praised the Authentic mode for portraits and travel photography — the Golden Gate Bridge tower in fog, cathedral stained glass, street scenes in Barcelona. These don't look like phone photos. They look like medium-format digital output, processed through software that actually understands what neutral looks like [1][2]. The UK reviewer noted that there's also a full range of Leica film simulations — black-and-white high-contrast, sepia equivalents — baked in. He spent time shooting the same door three ways across modes. Whether this matters to you depends on how much you care about color science. If you're the kind of photographer who used to shoot film specifically for its tonal characteristics, the Leica modes are the first time a phone has come close to that feeling in any meaningful way [2].

The Samsung Comparison Nobody's Soft-Pedaling

Michael Josh had access to both phones on the same trip — he'd just been in San Francisco for the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra launch. He shot comparison sets across multiple scenarios and posted them. The results are genuinely instructive. At 1x, the Xiaomi's main camera captures noticeably more of the scene — slightly wider field of view without switching to ultrawide. In low light, the 1-inch sensor advantage shows clearly: the 17 Ultra gives you shallower depth of field, more background blur, and better light separation. In a dimmed airplane cabin, shooting a meal, the Xiaomi separated the depth of the scene better while Samsung kept more of the frame in focus — neither wrong, but a meaningful stylistic difference [1]. At telephoto zoom, the 200MP sensor gives Xiaomi a structural advantage for deep digital zoom: Samsung's telephoto tops out at 50MP, so when both phones are in digital territory (beyond their optical stops), Xiaomi is starting with four times the pixel data. The result is more detail and less of the AI-smoothed plastic look that kicks in on Samsung when you push past optical range [1]. Where Samsung wins: video stabilization, software polish, and ecosystem depth. One UI is simply more refined than HyperOS 3. If you live in the Samsung ecosystem — Galaxy Watch, Samsung Pay, DeX, SmartThings — that matters. And for video, it's not a close comparison [1][3]. The UK reviewer put it plainly: Xiaomi says "pick me because of this one feature" — the camera system — and then delivers on that promise. Samsung says "pick me because we're the complete package" and also delivers on that. Knowing which argument matters to you is the whole decision [2].

Who Should Actually Care About This Phone

If you're a travel photographer who used to carry a mirrorless camera for serious shots and a phone for the rest: this changes the calculation. The combination of the 1-inch sensor, continuous optical zoom, macro telephoto, and Leica color processing means there are shots you can take with this phone that a Pixel 9 or iPhone 17 simply cannot match. The PetaPixel review — done by photographers who spend their time on actual cameras — had the reviewer shooting China's interior on the 17 Ultra for the whole trip and being genuinely impressed [4]. If you're a developer or content creator trying to decide between this and the S26 Ultra: the honest answer is Samsung is the safer, more complete choice if video is in your workflow. The Xiaomi wins on stills and loses on video, and the margin on video is wider than the margin on stills. If you're a photography enthusiast who genuinely doesn't care about video: this is probably the most interesting camera phone released in years. The continuous optical zoom is real. The DxOMark photo score of 170 is real. The Leica authentic mode producing frame-worthy shots of architectural details and low-light scenes is real [3]. And if you're just tracking where the smartphone camera industry is going: the message from two independent reviewers shooting across three continents is that the gap between Chinese flagship cameras and the established Western hierarchy is closed. That's the story that matters beyond whether you're buying this specific phone.