‘Nothing in its class comes close’: the Xiaomi 17T Pro is being called ‘the telephoto master’, but how does its 5x zoom perform in reality? I took over 500 photos to find out | Tech Radar

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‘Nothing in its class comes close’: the Xiaomi 17T Pro is being called ‘the telephoto master’, but how does its 5x zoom perform in reality? I took over 500 photos to find out

The Xiaomi 17T Pro puts a Leica camera in your pocket... sort of

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Xiaomi isn’t being coy about the camera capabilities of its new 17T series.

Only really the Honor 600 Pro and One Plus 15 can rival the Xiaomi 17T Pro and its cheaper sibling for zoom hardware in the upper-mid-range price bracket — all four phones have 50MP telephoto sensors — but neither offer the 5x optical zoom range boasted by Xiaomi’s new devices (for reference, the Xiaomi 15T Pro already uses a 50MP 5x telephoto lens, but the Xiaomi 15T can only manage 2x optical zoom).

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The second reason for Xiaomi’s enthusiasm is its ongoing partnership with Leica. You get the same Leica image processing on the 17T series as you do 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 Telephoto Master”? I took the new phone to Vienna to answer that very question, but here’s an early spoiler: as a loud and proud i Phone Air user, I’ve never missed having a telephoto lens more.

The Xiaomi 17T Pro in Deep Blue (Image credit: Future)

When testing the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s telephoto lens, I used the phone in its out-of-the-box state; I didn’t toggle any advanced settings, nor the 50MP resolution option. I also stuck to the Leica Authentic preset, rather than the punchier Leica Vibrant style, which tends to skew too far towards the artificial for my liking.

The photos below were captured at the phone’s fixed 115mm-equivalent focal length (5x), and are my unedited favorites of around 500 snaps taken during my time in Vienna:

Theseus Defeats the Centaur at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Image credit: Future)

A hallway in the Kunsthistorisches Museum(Image credit: Future)

The Schönbrunn Palace gardens(Image credit: Future)

A flower in the Schönbrunn Palace gardens(Image credit: Future)

The front of the Schönbrunn Palace(Image credit: Future)

The Schönbrunn Palace gardens(Image credit: Future)

A man waits at a crosswalk in Vienna(Image credit: Future)

A hallway in the Kunsthistorisches Museum(Image credit: Future)

The front of the Neue Burg museum(Image credit: Future)

A stickered lamppost in Vienna(Image credit: Future)

A man drawing in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Image credit: Future)

A man photographs a model in Vienna(Image credit: Future)

Now, those photos were shot using Auto-HDR, so what you see may vary depending on your device’s display. But hopefully you can visualize just how well the Xiaomi 17T Pro reckons with the challenges of light and color in difficult scenarios.

In every example, the details are sharp, and the colors are vibrant; there’s definitely a Leica flavor to the latter element in each photo, but the colors don’t look outright unreal, as they might have done if captured using the alternative Leica Vibrant profile.

As you can see in the photos of the man at the crosswalk and the lamppost in front of the Schönbrunn Palace, the 17T Pro is also particularly adept at maintaining detail in instances where there isn’t one subject to focus on (i.e., there’s a deep depth of field).

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That’s not to say the details are universally perfect. If you zoom in on the photo of the Neue Burg museum, for instance, you’ll notice a strange smoothening effect that makes the building looks like it’s wrapped in a protective net; between the trees to the left of the garden picture (where the woman is sitting on the bench), there’s an unnatural, almost angelic glow, which obviously wasn’t present in reality; and in the photo of the museum hallway, the signpost text is a little garbled, which is a tell-tale sign of botched AI intervention.

It looks like Xiaomi's software is trying to make sense of this signpost text (Image credit: Future)

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 does result in some decent (and, crucially, subtle) detail enhancement most of the time. If you go looking for errors, though, you’re sure to find them.

For portraits, I switched from Leica Portrait to Master Portrait, as the former tends to overexpose images. Here are a few examples of the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s 5x portrait capabilities:

A man standing in front of the Schönbrunn Palace(Image credit: Future)

A street photographer in Vienna(Image credit: Future)

As has been the case for a few years now, Xiaomi’s edge detection is supremely accurate — if you zoom in on the street performer’s chin or the loose hairs in the second subject’s beard, for instance, you’ll see that edge detection working overtime.

The bokeh is great across the board, too; I particularly like the seamless transition from detail to blur in the photo of the man with the camera.

To nobody’s surprise, the Xiaomi 17T Pro’s 10x zoom skills aren’t as good as its 5x ones, but you can still get some decent snaps at this sensor-cropped range:

Theseus Defeats the Centaur at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Image credit: Future)

The front of the Schönbrunn Palace(Image credit: Future)

The roof of the Kunsthistorisches Museum(Image credit: Future)

A flower in the Schönbrunn Palace gardens(Image credit: Future)

Colors are handled just as well as they are at that fixed 5x optical distance, and while details are definitely softer at 10x, Xiaomi’s artificial smoothening isn’t all that noticeable unless you zoom in (see the tourists in the photo of the Schönbrunn Palace, for example).

All told, then, the Xiaomi 17T Pro is a capable and versatile shooter, and as we noted in our Xiaomi 17T Pro review, “the standout [feature of the phone] is the telephoto. The reach of the 5x lens sets it apart from the competition and provides some lovely compression when used for close-ups.”

For £799 (or £649 if you opt 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 user of the i Phone Air and i Phone 17, the Xiaomi 17T Pro has left me wishing for a dedicated telephoto lens on the rumored i Phone Air 2 and i Phone 18.

Does the Xiaomi 17T Pro earn its designation as “The Telephoto Master”? Considering the hardware offered by similarly priced competition, it's hard to argue against that claim. You'll get more pro-level features and better wide and ultra-wide performance from the very best camera phones on the market, but you'll pay more for the privilege of owning those phones. As a telephoto-first camera phone, the 17T Pro offers stellar value for money.

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Axel is Tech Radar's Phones Editor, reporting on everything from the latest Apple developments to newest AI breakthroughs as part of the site's Mobile Computing vertical. Having previously written for publications including Esquire and Four Four Two, Axel is well-versed in the applications of technology beyond the desktop, and his coverage extends from general reporting and analysis to in-depth interviews and opinion.

Axel studied for a degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick before joining Tech Radar in 2020, where he earned an NCTJ qualification as part of the company’s inaugural digital training scheme.

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