Product detailsA few small
but meaningful upgrades to the camera system, tweaks to the build and display,
and the mandatory chipset refresh? when last year’s model was already one of the best camera
phones in existence.Indeed, the 14 Ultra doesn’t
stray too far from its predecessor. The main camera had a 1-inch sensor and
dual-aperture lens on the 2023 model, the 2024 one uses a newer 1-inch sensor
and makes that a truly variable aperture (with intermediate steps). The zoom
cameras (two of them, as seemingly required to be called an Ultra), meanwhile,
bring close focusing to the table and the longer of them also gets a slightly
brighter lens.On
the outside, Xiaomi has replaced the Corning-branded glass of the old model
with an in-house concoction that should be more durable (asterisks, of course),
and the?non-leather?leather has
also been improved. There’s a new aluminium alloy used for the frame in the
International version. Improvements in the display
section are hard to spot, but there’s a promise for slightly more brightness
(hardly a game changer), while the new Snapdragon is better than the old one.Xiaomi
has chosen not to mess around with battery capacity or charging speed on the
global variant and we think we could have used a bump in longevity

The contents
include a 90W charger (same as last year’s) and a proprietary USB-A-to-C cable
to go with it. Xiaomi has also bundled a translucent plastic snap-on back cover
to protect the Ultra out of the box. It’s on the cheap side, but something is
better than nothing, plus the phone itself is supposedly more durable than the
previous iteration.