Xiaomi’s 17 Ultra Leica edition has a rotatable camera zoom

Xiaomi used the Christmas period to launch its top flagship phone for the year, the 17 Ultra. It drops the extra rear display that’s the key selling point of the 17 Pro, but instead adds in the option of a manual zoom ring, built directly into the phone’s camera island.

That rotating zoom is only included in the new Leica edition of the phone, which also packs touches like the Leica red dot logo and a textured finish on the phone’s sides. The ring can be reprogrammed for exposure or focus if you prefer, and the Leica version has a few custom software touches too, like unique film simulation effects, and physical accessories like a lens cap and branded cleaning cloth.

Otherwise, the 17 Ultra by Leica is identical to the regular 17 Ultra. It’s powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, with up to 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM. The OLED display is big, at 6.9 inches, and so is the silicon-carbon battery, at 6,800mAh.

Like all Xiaomi’s Ultra phones, its cameras are the real focus. The 50-megapixel main camera uses a 1-inch-type sensor and a wide f/1.7 aperture, with selfie and ultrawide cameras at the same resolution.

The bigger change is to the telephoto — instead of the two separate zoom lenses on the 15 Ultra, the new phone has a single 200-megapixel periscope camera that can range from 3.2x to 4.3x zoom. More impressively, it has continuous optical zoom throughout, a trick first employed in phones by the Sony Xperia 1 IV, with a variable aperture of f/2.4-3.0.

The 17 Ultra starts at ¥6,999 (about $1,000), with the Leica model at ¥7,999 (about $1,140). Xiaomi has confirmed plans for a global launch of the 17 Ultra in 2026, but we don’t know when exactly — or whether the Leica edition will be included. The Xiaomi 15 and 15 Ultra got an international rollout at MWC 2025 in March, so a repeat may be possible in the coming months.