Xiaomi 17 Ultra Sells a Ring on a Short Zoom

Xiaomi unveiled the 17 Ultra in China on December 25, 2025, with a 200MP periscope and a Leica edition that adds a mechanical zoom ring.

That ring turns a 75mm to 100mm optical zoom. In February 2026, Leica put the same camera hardware on sale in Europe as the Leitzphone, priced at €1,999.

Xiaomi’s Camera Flagship Arrives With a Twistable Ring

The standard 17 Ultra is already a Leica-branded camera phone. Its rear module uses a 50MP Light Fusion 1050L image sensor in a 1-inch format at f/1.67 and 23mm, with LOFIC for highlight control, plus a 200MP Samsung HPE periscope at 1/1.4-inch and a 50MP ultrawide at f/2.2, 14mm, and a 115-degree field of view.

The Leica edition keeps those sensors and adds the bit you can twist. Xiaomi’s China launch copy said the ring adjusts focal length, exposure, and white balance, and the phone ships in a kit box with a lens cap, lanyard, magnetic case, and cleaning cloth. The back is a dual-tone panel inspired by Leica M cameras, with knurling on the frame and the red logo on the glass.

China sales opened on December 27, 2025, through Xiaomi’s own store. The standard phone came in Black, Cool Smoke Purple, Starry Green, and White. The Leica edition came in Black and Off-White only, and it started one memory step higher.

CHINA LAUNCH PRICES

The Leica sticker costs CNY 500 over the matching 16GB / 512GB Ultra. You are not buying a second telephoto for that money. You are buying the ring, the two-tone back, the 3:2 Leica Moment modes, and the box.

How Far That 200MP Periscope Zooms

Xiaomi’s own UK product page calls the telephoto a 75 to 100mm mechanical optical zoom built from three lens groups, and it says that range does not need a digital crop. Relative to the 23mm main camera, that is about 3.2x to 4.3x. The aperture closes from f/2.39 to f/2.96 as the groups move.

That is real glass moving inside every 17 Ultra, not only the Leica SKU. The twistable ring is a control surface on the Leica edition. The zoom mechanism sits in the periscope either way.

THE ZOOM STACK XIAOMI IS SELLING

• True optical: 75mm to 100mm on the 200MP HPE module, with OIS and a 30cm close focus.
• Optical-level claim: Xiaomi lists up to 17.2x as optical-level zoom, which is in-sensor crop on that 200MP chip, not more moving glass.
• Optical-quality claim: The same page talks up 400mm as optical-quality reach, again from the high-resolution sensor rather than a longer lens.
• Digital ceiling: The spec sheet caps digital zoom at 120x, the usual flagship long-shot mode.

Owners who have lived with the phone treat 100mm as the honest portrait and street length, and they treat anything past about 20x as a crop that falls apart. The 200MP file is there to feed those intermediate steps, which is why Xiaomi could retire a second telephoto and still print a zoom chart that runs to 400mm.

The Second Telephoto Did Not Come Back

Xiaomi’s previous Ultra used two telephoto cameras, a shorter 3x unit and a 200MP periscope. The 17 Ultra folds that job into one Samsung HPE sensor behind the 75-100mm groups. You gain a brighter, larger sensor at 75mm, where the old short tele was a much smaller chip. You lose a dedicated long lens.

TechInsights later pulled the HPE from a 17 Ultra periscope and described a 200MP stacked back-illuminated sensor with a 0.56μm pixel pitch. Samsung never published a normal ISOCELL product page for that code, so it reads as a custom cut of the 1/1.4-inch 200MP family that already sat in phones such as the vivo X200 Ultra, where the lens was a fixed 85mm.

Xiaomi’s bet is that one bright mid-tele plus in-sensor zoom beats two separate modules. The main camera still holds a 1-inch format when several rivals have shrunk theirs, and LOFIC is there to keep streetlights from blowing out. The ultrawide is the neglected sibling: a 50MP Samsung JN5 at 1/2.75-inch, the same class of sensor the previous Ultra already used.

Marques Brownlee said the phone had him nervous as a Leica branding exercise, then called the 17 Ultra “more camera than phone, and it’s excellent.” That tracks the sensors. It does not make 100mm into 200mm of glass.

A 1,999-Euro Leitzphone Grew Out of the Ring

Two months after the China event, Xiaomi and Leica walked into Barcelona on February 28, 2026, and gave the Leica edition a new passport. The global 17 Ultra lost 800mAh of battery, falling to 6,000mAh. The ring phone lost the two-tone China back, picked up a black fiberglass panel and a silver knurled frame, and went on sale as the Leica Leitzphone powered by Xiaomi.

FROM BEIJING TO A LEICA STORE

1. December 25, 2025: Xiaomi unveils the 17 Ultra and the 17 Ultra Leica edition in China.
2. December 27, 2025: China sales open on Xiaomi’s store, with the Leica edition at CNY 7,999 for 16GB / 512GB.
3. February 28, 2026: Leica Camera AG introduces the Leitzphone in Barcelona and lists it at €1,999, with the UK at £1,699.
4. March 5, 2026: Xiaomi Japan puts the regular 17 Ultra on sale, pitching the 75-100mm optical window and LOFIC on the main camera.

Leica’s German press note priced the Leitzphone at €1,999 and called it the first international Leica smartphone. Earlier Leitz phones were Japan-only Sharp devices. This one is a Xiaomi 17 Ultra with Leica’s name on the badge, sold through the Leica website, Leica Stores, and selected partners, in a 16GB / 1TB black kit only.

The pure feeling of a camera. Achieve precise control, assignable to lens selection, focal length, focus, or bokeh.

Leica Camera AG, Leitzphone product page

That list is not the China launch list. Leica’s global page puts a mechanical camera ring on the Leitzphone and lets it jump between lenses, zoom, focus, or bokeh. The China edition was described as focal length, exposure, and white balance. Same hardware idea, different software map.

The global 17 Ultra starts at €1,499. The Leitzphone is €1,999 for 16GB / 1TB, so the comparison is messy, but the intent is not. Leica also loads 13 Looks, five bokeh styles, Essential Mode that mimics an M9 color profile and an M3 Monopan look, and Content Authenticity Initiative metadata. Xiaomi Japan’s product planning chief later published ten reasons to skip the Leitzphone and buy the plain 17 Ultra, and one of them was that the ring is a taste people split on.

【3月5日発売開始！Xiaomi 17 Ultra】
白飛びを抑えるLOFIC技術搭載のメインカメラ。
75-100mm幅を光学で捉える可変ズーム。

卓越したスペックを基盤に、
ライカとの共同開発により生まれた
「撮る喜びと高揚感」を与える画作り。

まさに、「 #その写りライカ 」です。https://t.co/papdVLXYnM pic.twitter.com/1Nxzgpn1VP

— Xiaomi Japan (@XiaomiJapan) March 2, 2026

The ring did its actual job. It gave Leica a phone it could sell next to M bodies, at a price Xiaomi’s own name does not always clear in Europe.

The 6,800mAh Battery Carries the Workday

China’s 17 Ultra hides the least glamorous advantage in the chassis: a 6,800mAh silicon-carbon pack with 90W wired charging, 50W wireless charging, and 22.5W reverse wired charging. The global 17 Ultra and the Leitzphone both drop to 6,000mAh and keep the 90W / 50W pair.

THE REST OF THE FLAGSHIP

• Display: A flat 6.9-inch HyperRGB OLED at 2608 x 1200, 1-120Hz LTPO, 12-bit color, and 3,500 nits peak, under Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0.
• Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on 3nm, with two prime cores up to 4.6GHz and six performance cores up to 3.62GHz, plus LPDDR5X and UFS 4.1.
• Body: 162.9 x 77.6 x 8.29mm and 218.4g on Xiaomi’s global sheet, with an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader and IP68.
• Video: 8K at 30fps, 4K Dolby Vision at 30, 60, and 120fps, and Log up to 4K at 120fps from the rear cameras.

The front camera is a 50MP autofocus unit at f/2.2 and 21mm, a step up from the 32MP modules Xiaomi had been repeating. HyperOS 3 ships on top, with HyperAI features that vary by region. The complaints that stick after months of use are software polish and social-app tuning, not the 1-inch main or the 100mm files.

By September 2026, people were still posting moon frames and night street work from the 200MP module, including shots they said an iPhone 18 Pro would not match at that reach. The phone that launched as a December event piece had become a working camera with a chat app attached.

Huawei Still Reaches 212mm of Optical Zoom

If the 17 Ultra is a mid-tele specialist, Huawei’s Pura 80 Ultra is the long-glass reply that was already on sale. Its official sheet lists a 50MP 1-inch main with a variable f/1.6 to f/4.0 aperture, then a switchable tele pair that shares one 1/1.28-inch sensor: 50MP at 3.7x (83mm, f/2.4) and 12.5MP at 9.4x optical zoom at 212mm (f/3.6), plus a 40MP ultrawide.

Huawei puts a motor and a dual-prism path inside the body so two physical lenses take turns on that large tele sensor. Xiaomi puts a ring on the outside and three moving groups behind one 200MP chip that stops at 100mm of true focal length. One system changes glass. The other changes how you tell the phone to crop and to slide a short zoom.

CAMERA AND BATTERY, SIDE BY SIDE

Xiaomi wins the workday on capacity, with 1,630mAh more than Huawei’s rated global pack, and it wins the 75mm file on megapixels. Huawei still owns the length past 100mm, and it does that with a smaller 12.5MP readout at 212mm, which wants daylight. The 17 Ultra’s answer at those distances is the 200MP crop, which is why Xiaomi’s marketing talks about 17.2x and 400mm in the same breath as 75-100mm.

The ring is a lovely object. It is also how Xiaomi priced a Leica SKU, then handed Leica a store phone, without putting a 200mm lens in the module.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Every Xiaomi 17 Ultra Include the Twistable Leica Ring?

No. Only the China Leica edition and the global Leitzphone put a knurled ring on the camera island. Every 17 Ultra still has the three moving lens groups for 75-100mm inside the periscope, so the optical zoom exists without the extra control. The ring is the Leica tax, not the zoom mechanism.

What Does LOFIC Do on the Light Fusion 1050L?

LOFIC stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor, a structure that dumps extra charge from bright parts of a scene so highlights clip later. Leica’s own Leitzphone copy names that expansion as the reason the 1-inch main holds both neon signs and shadow detail in one frame. It is a sensor trick, not a second exposure stacked in software.

Is the Leica Leitzphone Sold in the United States?

Leica’s product page lists Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The United States is not on that list, even though Leica hosts an English US page for the phone.

How Does the Samsung HPE Differ From Older 200MP Sensors?

The HPE is a 200MP, 0.56μm stacked back-illuminated chip in a 1/1.4-inch format, the same size class as the ISOCELL HP9 that vivo used at a fixed 85mm. Samsung did not post a public HPE datasheet. A teardown lab identified it from a 17 Ultra periscope, which is why Xiaomi’s spec sheet can print the HPE name while Samsung’s own sensor catalog still points at HP9, HP5, and HPC.

What Video Modes Does the Xiaomi 17 Ultra Record?

The rear cameras record 8K at 30fps, 4K Dolby Vision at 30, 60, and 120fps, and Log up to 4K at 120fps, plus Academy Color Encoding System tagging. Slow motion reaches 1080p at 1920fps, which is a spec-sheet stunt more than a daily mode, and ShootSteady video is listed up to 2.8K at 60fps. The front camera tops out at 4K Dolby Vision at 60fps.

What Battery Does the Global 17 Ultra Use Compared With China?

China’s phone ships a 6,800mAh silicon-carbon cell. The global 17 Ultra and the Leitzphone use a 6,000mAh pack, 800mAh less, while keeping 90W wired and 50W wireless charging. Xiaomi’s India sheet labels that cell 6,000mAh typical and does not repeat the silicon-carbon claim on the public spec page.

The 17 Ultra is a strong 75-100mm camera with a 1-inch main and, in China, a 6,800mAh pack. The twistable ring is how that camera got a Leica price, then a Leica store shelf, without ever reaching 212mm of glass.