Xiaomi 14 Ultra vs iPhone 15 Pro Max: A leap of faith

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is officially out and climbing on top of different camera lists as we type this. It’s a camera monster with little to no compromises, but at the same time, it’s more expensive than an iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is not a thing to be taken lightly.

As far as ultra-premium flagships go, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra lives up to its name, but can this phone from the Far East be a real competitor to the aforementioned iPhone 15 Pro Max? Especially, given the fact that it’s really hard to get a hold of one in the US.

In this article, we pit the Xiaomi 14 Ultra against the iPhone 15 Pro Max in order to give you the ultimate answer. Which one should you buy?

Xiaomi 14 Ultra vs iPhone 15 Pro Max differences explained:

Table of Contents:

If you glance at the specs, you’ll find that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max seem to be very similar. The screen size is almost the same on both devices, the weight is also within a couple of grams, both have titanium frames (the Xiaomi 14 Ultra has titanium as an option), and yet these are radically different in so many ways.

First, the feel in the hand is different. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra uses a curved design for its front and back, which makes it more compact and less wide compared to the extremely flat iPhone 15 Pro Max. This comes with pros and cons. On the one hand, it’s easier to hold the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, but on the other hand, using the iPhone 15 Pro Max is easier thanks to the flat display.

The design differences continue when you turn both phones and look at their backs. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra relies on a huge circular camera bump, which, coupled with the camera grip accessory, gives the look and feel of a point-and-shoot camera. The iPhone 15 Pro Max looks… well, like every other iPhone since the 12-series.

Design is subjective, so you have to make up your own mind which one you like better, the leathery and curved, camera-like Xiaomi 14 Ultra, or the minimalistic flat and squarish iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Moving to the display part, as we stated above, the screens of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max may seem similar on paper, but they are very different in reality. For one, the slightly curved display of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra feels radically different than the flat panel on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. And even though the curvature is very, very subtle, it’s still there.

The other difference lies in the resolution. The Xiaomi has a 1440p screen (1440 x 3200 pixels), translating into a pixel density of around 522 PPI, while the iPhone comes with a 1290 x 2796 resolution and 460 PPI. In reality, you won’t be able to tell the difference, as both screens are crisp and sharp.

Both screens can do 1-120Hz dynamically, and both feature very high brightness numbers, with the Xiaomi winning on paper with its 3,000 nits versus the 2,000 nits on the iPhone. Our lab tests showed that both panels are very close in terms of brightness and color accuracy. At the end of the day it all boils down to whether you like a curved or a flat screen.

Both the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max use top silicon as a beating heart. It’s Qualcomm’s top Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset inside the Xiaomi, and the A17 inside the iPhone. It’s hard to compare these two purely using synthetic benchmarks (although they are pretty close there too), mainly because both use different hardware and software (with different philosophy behind both of these things).
For example, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra can be bought with 16GB of RAM, twice as much as what the iPhone 15 Pro Max has, but in reality, you won’t notice much of a difference between the two. The real-life performance is stellar on both phones, and if you don’t like to spend your evening staring at synthetic benchmark scores, we can tell you that you will get top-notch performance out of either of these phones.

Performance Benchmarks:

When it comes to software, the most important thing to mention is support. We all know it’s Android versus iOS in this case, and both have pros and cons, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a longer support cycle with five years of software updates, while the Xiaomi 14 Ultra gives you four. It’s not a night and day difference, and many people won’t hold on to their phones for that long, but it’s a point worth mentioning.

Camera

More is more?

Video Quality

Here’s our video comparison between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra with some still images sprinkled here and there for good measure. What do you think? Which one takes the video crown?

Audio Quality and Haptics

Battery Life and Charging

Poweeeeeeeer!

There’s a theoretical advantage for the Xiaomi 14 Ultra in this category, as it sports a larger battery (5,000 mAh) compared to the iPhone (4,441 mAh). Theoretical doesn’t always translate to the same result in practice and this is the case with the iPhone and the Xiaomi. Even though the latter sports a larger battery, during our tests the iPhone was able to beat the Xiaomi in every category. The difference isn’t huge if we take a look at our streaming and gaming tests, but browsing at a dynamic refresh rate seems to be an issue for the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. 

 

PhoneArena Charging Test Results:

This is the ultimate question, isn’t it? And the answer is not always down to objective specs comparisons or even samples and benchmarks. There are a lot of bells and whistles on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, it’s a true camera phone with a gorgeous display and insanely fast charging.

But you have to part with a pile of cash to get one (over $1,600 equivalent), not to mention the troubles of buying one in the US. And at the end of the day, this leap of faith might not be justified. To be fair to Xiaomi, you won’t regret buying the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, and owning this phone in the US will make you stand out in the crowd.

Getting the iPhone 15 Pro Max is the safe choice, of course. You’re getting something tried and tested, something familiar, and something that will last longer and resell better. So these are some of the things to consider.