Xiaomi 17 Ultra (Global) review

HyperOS 3 and Android 16

This is among the first globally available Xiaomi phones to launch with the latest HyperOS 3 (Android 16). Xiaomi promises 5 major OS upgrades in the future and 6 years of security patches from Google.

The first thing we noticed is that there isn't much difference between the Chinese and the global version of the OS. We are used to seeing a lot more discrepancies. Still, aside from the less granular control over privacy and less precise control over apps' permissions, the global software seems somewhat identical to the Chinese one. Also, kudos to Xiaomi for finally adding the double-tap-to-lock function to its global ROM.

If you've used the last two versions of HyperOS, you will feel right at home, as the visual changes are very subtle and negligible. However, Xiaomi does say the developers' team worked on improving the animations, making the user experience snappier and smoother, although we haven't had any issues in this regard in the past.

Home screen • Quick toggles • Notification shade

The most notable UI-related change is the Super Island, mimicking Apple's Dynamic Island in iOS. It provides contextual information and quick access to active background apps that support the feature. For instance, it will display current calendar events, an active timer, an incoming call or what's currently playing on Spotify.

Dynamic Island

System icons are also slightly redesigned - they appear flatter and simpler by default.

The main focus of HyperOS 3.0 is connectivity and AI. When talking about AI improvements, Xiaomi primarily refers to its homegrown XiaoAI assistant, which replaced Gemini in China. The rest of the AI features are the same as before - wallpaper generation, live subtitles, transcription, translator, writing, AI search, etc.

Settings menu

Most of the AI-related functionalities are tucked away under the Xiaomi Hyper AI sub-menu. You will also find settings on how to summon Gemini AI - Google's AI assistant.

As far as connectivity goes, Xiaomi is expanding its support for its Interconnectivity features. Previously, you could only share Wi-Fi passwords, files, screens, calls, and notifications with other Xiaomi devices that were logged in to the same Xiaomi Account. With HyperOS 3.0, it's now possible to share some of that data with other non-Xiaomi Android devices, as well as Apple devices such as iPads and iPhones. Pairing is possible even with Windows and Mac computers.

Connectivity options

Interestingly, Xiaomi says it's possible to read notifications and answer calls directly from your iPad, Mac or iPhone, but we have not tried that.

Since the phone uses an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, it lost the ability to measure heart rate. Xiaomi came up with a way to keep the functionality, but this time it uses the LED flash on the back along with one of the camera sensors.

Heart rate measurements

However, the implementation isn't ideal, and it's quite finicky to stretch your finger and cover both the flash and the camera.

Benchmark performance

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra runs on the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a successor to the highly-regarded Snapdragon 8 Elite chip from last year. At launch, the 17 Pro Max was the first phone to feature Qualcomm's new silicon, which comes with significant performance and efficiency improvements.

The SoC is based on the 3nm manufacturing process and features third-generation Oryon CPU cores, promising 20% performance and 30% efficiency boost. The octa-core CPU configuration is 2+6 with 2x high-performance Oryon V3 Phoenix L cores ticking at 4.6 GHz and 6x Oryon V3 Phoenix M cores running at 3.62 GHz.

The GPU on board is Adreno 840 and also promises 23% improvement in performance and 20% in power efficiency. It should also be 25% better at ray-tracing than its predecessor.

Other notable features include Unreal Engine 5 engine support for console-level gaming and a Hexagon NPU with Qualcomm Sensing Hub, enable 37% faster AI number crunching and agentic AI assistants.

When it comes to memory, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra offers a 12GB/512GB configuration as a standard, but can also be found in 16GB/512GB and 16GB/1TB flavors. All configurations make use of UFS 4.1 memory chips. We reviewed the 16GB/512GB version.

The benchmarks above show that the Xiaomi 17 Ultra utilizes the chipset's capabilities to the fullest and even outpaces many of its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-powered rivals. Still, the difference is negligible, so there's nothing out of the ordinary.

Sustained performance

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra has the uneasy task of maintaining high performance during long and heavy workloads, as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC is quite demanding. And according to our stress tests, the device did fairly well. The CPU throttled down to around 60% and maintained fairly stable clock speeds 10 minutes after the stress test had started. We count this as a minor win, as many other handsets go between high and low clock speeds, which could potentially result in great frame rate variation during gaming. Instead, the 17 Ultra tends to maintain lower clock speeds, but without significant variation.

CPU and GPU stress tests

The GPU stress test was also generally okay too as the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test results returned 67% GPU stability.