Xiaomi isn’t shy about the camera capabilities of its new 17T series.
“Nothing in its class comes close,” reads the latest ad for the Xiaomi 17T and Xiaomi 17T Pro, both described by the Chinese tech giant as nothing less than “The Master of the Telephoto Lens.” That’s a lot of talk for a pair of devices positioned directly below the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but when it comes to sub-flagship smartphones, Xiaomi might actually be right.
Only the Honor 600 Pro and OnePlus 15 can really compete with the Xiaomi 17T Pro and its cheaper sibling for zoom hardware in the upper-mid price bracket – all four phones have 50 MP telephoto lenses – but none offer the 5x optical zoom range touted by Xiaomi’s new devices (for reference, the Xiaomi 15T Pro already uses a 50 MP telephoto lens, but the Xiaomi 15T can only manage the 2x optical zoom).
The second reason for Xiaomi’s enthusiasm is its continued partnership with Leica. You get the same Leica image processing on the 17T series as on the flagship Xiaomi 17 series, and the German brand’s signature color science – which is particularly suited to street and portrait photography, as you’ll see below – can be applied to all lenses and focal lengths.
So, is the Xiaomi 17T Pro really “The Master of the Telephoto Lens”? I took the new phone to Vienna to answer that question, but here’s an early spoiler: As a loud and proud iPhone Air user, I’ve never missed having a telephoto lens so much.
Take to the streets
When testing the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s telephoto lens, I used the phone as it came out of the box; I haven’t changed any advanced settings, nor the 50MP resolution option. I also stuck with the Leica Authentic preset, rather than the punchier Leica Vibrant style, which tends to lean too much toward the artificial for my tastes.
The photos below were taken at the phone’s fixed 115mm equivalent focal length (5x) and are my unpublished favorites from around 500 shots taken during my stay in Vienna:
Now, these photos were taken using Auto-HDR, so what you see may vary depending on your device’s screen. But I hope you can visualize how well the Xiaomi 17T Pro meets the challenges of light and color in difficult scenarios.
In each example, details are sharp and colors are vibrant; There’s definitely a Leica flavor to the latter element in every photo, but the colors don’t look downright unreal, as they might have if captured using the Leica Vibrant alternate profile.
As you can see in the photos of the man at the pedestrian crossing and the lamp post in front of Schönbrunn Palace, the 17T Pro is also particularly adept at retaining detail in cases where there is no subject to focus on (i.e. there is a large depth of field).
This is not to say that the details are universally perfect. If you zoom in on the photo of the Neue Burg Museum, for example, you’ll notice a strange smoothing effect that makes the building look like it’s wrapped in a protective net; between the trees to the left of the photo of the garden (where the woman is sitting on the bench), there is an unnatural, almost angelic glow, which was obviously not present in reality; and in the photo of the museum hallway, the sign text is a bit garbled, which is a telltale sign of botched AI intervention.
This post-processing trickery has become a feature of Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo phones in recent years, and while it’s certainly different from the approach taken by, say, Apple, it results in decent (and, importantly, subtle) detail enhancement most of the time. However, if you look for errors, you are sure to find them.
For portraits, I switched from the Leica Portrait to the Master Portrait, as the former tends to overexpose images. Here are some examples of the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s 5x portrait capabilities:
As has been the case for a few years now, Xiaomi’s edge detection is extremely precise: if you zoom in on the street artist’s chin or the loose hairs of the second subject’s beard, for example, you’ll see that the edge detection is working overtime.
Bokeh is also excellent across the board; I especially like the smooth transition between detail and blur in the photo of the man on camera.
Unsurprisingly, the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s 10x zoom capabilities aren’t as good as the 5x ones, but you can still get decent shots at this sensor-cropped range:
Colors are handled as well as at that fixed optical distance of 5x, and while details are noticeably softer at 10x, Xiaomi’s artificial smoothing isn’t that noticeable unless you zoom in (see the tourists in the Schönbrunn Palace photo, for example).
All things considered, the Xiaomi 17T Pro is a capable and versatile shooter, and as we noted in our Xiaomi 17T Pro review, “the remarkable [feature of the phone] is the telephoto lens. The 5x lens reach sets it apart from the competition and provides nice compression when used for close-ups.
For £799 (or £649 if you go for the cheaper but identically equipped Xiaomi 17T), I can’t think of a phone with better zoom capabilities (neither phone is available in the US or Australia), and as a regular iPhone Air and iPhone 17 user, the Xiaomi 17T Pro left me wishing for a dedicated telephoto lens over the rumored iPhone Air 2 and iPhone 18.
Does the Xiaomi 17T Pro deserve its “Telephoto Master” designation? Given the hardware offered by similarly priced competitors, it’s hard to dispute this claim. You’ll get more pro-level features and better wide and ultra-wide performance from the best camera phones on the market, but you’ll pay more for the privilege of owning these phones. As a camera phone with a telephoto lens, the 17T Pro offers excellent value for money.
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