Here we have the new Xiaomi 17. Well, technically is not that new since the China version was released late last year – but we have the global version with us. There are some differences here and there, so let’s talk about all of them in today’s review of the Xiaomi 17.
Design
It actually looks and feels more or less the same as the previous generation Xiaomi 15. Yeah, the camera bump has a different design now, but other than that is pretty much the same.
It is also available in a few different color options, and we have it in this blue color. It’s very calming to look at, honestly. It also has a very fine matte finish, and it also feels amazing to touch.
Screen
Now, the Xiaomi 17 is still continuing the small flagship tradition. It’s equipped with a 6.3-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2656×1220 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate.
When we did our tests, the Xiaomi 17’s screen can reach around a maximum of 1100 nits and a minimum of around 1 nit.
As for the color profiles, the Xiaomi 17 has a pretty simple two-choice option. It defaults to the Original Color PRO and it can cover virtually 100% of sRGB and around 72.5% of DCI-P3. That means the Original Color PRO is just not that vivid. The ΔE numbers are impressively low, actually.
If we want more vivid colors, then just use the vivid color profile. This cranks up to the DCI-P3 color gamut coverage to around 80% only, which is not that high – and that means it’s also not that vivid compared to many other devices in the market today.
Performance
Alright, let’s talk about the performance. The Xiaomi 17 is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – yes, super long name for a chipset, and it has amazing performance! Right?
Playing Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings, it cannot even hit 60fps while we’re running around. When we’re in combat, the frame rate drops even more and we’re getting constant stutters. I’m not sure why that’s the case since the power consumption isn’t that high anyway. Probably due to Joyose, but we’re not disabling that as that will be a disaster. We have talked about it briefly in another video – watch it here.
Moving on to Wuthering Waves, it can actually hit 60fps but the power consumption is upwards of 10W. Taking in that much power means the Xiaomi 17 will hit the thermal limit really fast, and the battery will get drained really quickly too.
Doing the nest area, the frame rate is fluctuating wildly while consuming 10W as well, and it just increases like 8°C in less than 90 seconds.
Where Winds Meet is a very well-optimized game but it actually just doesn’t load a lot of things to save on resources. There will be a lot of object pop-ins and that might be distracting, but this trick works really well on mobile devices.
Now, let’s talk about Zenless Zone Zero. It has a weird issue where when chain attacks initiate, the game just goes into dubstep mode. This is most probably a game issue as it happens on both ROG Phone 9 Pro and the Xiaomi 17. It doesn’t have any issues on the Xiaomi Pad Mini or the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro.
When the issue happens, the CPU goes all the way to the max and the phone lags so badly that Vtools Scene gets culled out, and eventually everything just crashes.
If you want to check out the full gaming test video, then watch it down below as we talk more about other games and dive deeper into the frame rate, the temperature, and also the power consumption.
Battery life
Now, let’s talk about the battery life. Contrary to the China version, the global version only has a 6,330mAh. Not sure what’s the Wh value, but that’s okay. Now, using out standardized battery life test, the Xiaomi 17 can last for around 22 hours and 30 minutes. I personally expected longer battery life, but it’s still okay, to be honest.
Charging speed
As for the charging speed, thisi s where we’ll have to talk about the box a bit. When I first held this box… it felt weird. It’s a little thinner, and my suspicion was correct – there is no charger inside. Yeah, despite having such a thick box, there is no charger inside! It’s a disaster if I want to fast-charge the device since Xiaomi uses their own proprietary charging standard.
Luckily though, we have a new Anker 100W 3-port Smart Display charger that actually supports Xiaomi’s proprietary charging standard. I’m surprised, actually. This is the first time I’m seeing such a thing.
Now, using the Anker charger, we can charge the Xiaomi 17 from 15% to 100% in just around 55 minutes, but the temperature just keep rising as the charging goes.
We can then go into the settings menu and turn up the charging speed to the max, and this will definitely make the phone hot. It’s no joke, actually. It maintains the battery temperature at around 40°C – kinda high, but it can charge from 15% to completion in around 43 minutes.
Switching to our USB-PD PPS charger then, the Xiaomi 17 can actually take in 79W but only for a split second. It eventually drops back down to 42W, and it charges from 15% to completion in less than 40 minutes, while also dropping the temperature halfway through the charging cycle. Much healthier than the proprietary charging standard.
Software
The software is something that we’ll just breeze though. It comes with HyperOS 3 on top of Android 16 and it’s super smooth to navigate, has some fancy animations, all of that stuff. It’s basically the same as what we’ve experienced before.
If you want to see more stuff about HyperOS 3, then watch our other reviews from before.
Camera
Now, let’s talk about the cameras. The Xiaomi 17 comes with the same sensors as the Xiaomi 15, but the camera lens got a bit of a change. So, does it take good pictures?
To have a look at all the pictures and videos taken with the Xiaomi 17, then watch our video at the top of this review.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention. The Xiaomi 17 has a USB 3 port at the bottom, has screen mirroring via that USB-C port as well, and also dual SIM card support.
At the top, we have nothing! But, the IR blaster is located at the back. It’s using the camera’s laser autofocus system as the IR blaster – and that’s about it.
Should you buy the Xiaomi 17?
So, should you buy the Xiaomi 17? Is this a good phone? Well, it’s one of those rare small flagship phones. I personally love this type of small flagships.
The price, in itself, is quite good. There is a tiny price hike over the previous generation but it’s not as egregious as other brands. Plus, we’re in the middle of a DRAM crisis now and for it to only increase a tiny bit is already a boon.
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