Xiaomi 18 Pro Max and 18 Pro · A privacy screen, a rear screen and two 200 MP cameras

All figures come from Xiaomi's own spec pages for both generations.

The 18 Pro moved the same way. The main camera goes from 50 MP to 200 MP, the telephoto from a 50 MP f/3.0 lens at 5× to the Pro Max's 200 MP periscope at 3.2×, and the battery from 6,300 to 7,000 mAh. The screen grows from 6.3 to 6.4 inches but drops from 2656 × 1220 to 2436 × 1120 pixels, because the new full-RGB layout gives every pixel all three colour subpixels. The body goes from 8.0 mm and 192 g to 8.46 mm and 203 g.

Is it worth the upgrade? For photos in poor light and the privacy screen, yes. If you bought the 17 Pro Max for its 5× zoom, the new telephoto is a larger sensor at a shorter reach, and that is a trade rather than a gain.

The small screen beside the cameras is what sets Xiaomi's Pro line apart, and this year Xiaomi has given it a job beyond showing the time. It is a 2.9-inch AMOLED on the Pro Max and 2.7-inch on the 18 Pro, refreshing at up to 120 Hz and as bright as the front panel at 4,000 nits.

Xiaomi's store lists more than a hundred app cards designed for it, from timers and to-do lists to small games, and you can describe a card you want to the AI and it generates one. A voice companion lives on the rear screen too: it answers questions, remembers what you told it and switches Xiaomi smart-home devices on and off.

The rest is play. The rear screen shows pets, idols or characters generated from a photo you upload, and it can stage a joint picture of you with a pet or a character from two photos. Photograph your case and it makes a wallpaper in the same style; tap an NFC figure (sold separately) to the back and a new character appears. The practical part is still there: the rear screen works as a viewfinder, so the main camera takes your selfies.

The two phones share the camera lenses, the memory tiers, the charging and the software, and each tier of the Pro Max costs exactly ¥1,000 more. What the money buys:

• A bigger phone. 6.9 inches against 6.4, and a 2.9-inch rear screen against 2.7. The 18 Pro is 72 mm wide, a size few current flagships still come in.
• More battery. 8,500 mAh against 7,000.
• A higher-grade chip. The Pro Max runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the 18 Pro the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6; both are built on TSMC's 2 nm process and reach 5 GHz.
• A main sensor with LOFIC, a pixel design that holds more highlight detail in contrasty light, in some resolutions and modes.
• Three speakers instead of two, and IP68 tested to 6 m, where the 18 Pro gives no depth.

The price is weight: 235 to 240 g against 203 to 208 g. On both, the fibreglass versions (Black, White, Ice Peach Pink) are lighter and thinner than the glass-backed Star River Blue.

Both phones use the same three Leica rear cameras. The main camera is 200 MP behind a Summilux lens at 23 mm and f/1.67, stabilised to CIPA 7.0, which means sharp handheld shots at slow shutter speeds after dark. Sixteen pixels merge into one 2.44 µm pixel for low light, and a dedicated 200 MP mode keeps the full resolution for cropping later, though early accounts say it swaps the Leica colour profile for Xiaomi's own.

The periscope telephoto is 200 MP on a 1/1.56-inch sensor at f/2.4, with 3.2× optical zoom and what Xiaomi calls 12.8× lossless zoom from cropping the sensor. It focuses from 12 cm, so it doubles as a macro lens, and Xiaomi pitches its 75 mm view for portraits. The ultrawide is 50 MP at 17 mm and 102°, and focuses from 5 cm. Both phones record 8K at 30 fps and 4K at up to 120 fps; the 50 MP selfie camera records 4K at 60 fps.

The new idea is Legendary Moment (传奇一瞬), Xiaomi's first end-to-end imaging model, trained on millions of photos taken with dedicated cameras. It simulates 35 mm and 75 mm lens blur, tells a reflection on glass apart from what is behind it, and adds three camera looks, among them a CCD-style one. The heavier processing happens in the cloud: the phone uploads the sensor's raw data, which is worth knowing before you point it at anything private.

The front panel's headline feature is a hardware privacy mode. Xiaomi controls the direction light leaves each pixel, so with the mode on the screen stays readable straight ahead and turns dark from the side, without a filter film. Early accounts say it guards the left and right rather than above and below, and that indoors a faint image still shows at an angle, while in bright, busy light the screen reads as close to black. One tap covers the whole screen, or you set it per app, in which case that app's notifications, floating windows and split-screen half stay covered too. Banking, payment and password pages can switch it on by themselves, the phone can warn you when someone within about a metre looks over your shoulder, and the AI assistant sets rules from a sentence, including rules tied to places.

The panels themselves are flat AMOLED screens at 1 to 120 Hz, with a new full-RGB pixel layout and a 4,000-nit peak. They dim down to 1 nit for reading in the dark, and every brightness level uses single-pulse DC dimming instead of PWM flicker, which is easier on eyes sensitive to it. Bezels are 0.99 mm on both, and the cover is Xiaomi's Dragon Crystal Glass 3.0.

The batteries are 7,000 mAh in the 18 Pro and 8,500 mAh in the Pro Max, silicon-carbon cells with 32% silicon reaching 936 and 946 Wh/L. That is a lot of capacity for bodies 8.46 mm and 8.39 mm thick, and Xiaomi rates the Pro Max cell at 80% or more after 2,000 cycles.

Charging is 100 W wired and 50 W wireless, and the 100 W also works with any PPS charger, not only Xiaomi's own. Both phones charge other devices wirelessly, and over a cable at 27 W. In China the box holds a charger, a cable, a case and a fitted screen protector.

Both chips are built on TSMC's 2 nm process with Qualcomm's fourth-generation Oryon cores and a 5 GHz peak. Xiaomi pairs the Pro Max with a new ring-shaped cold-pump cooler, and in its own test the phone held an average of 59 fps in an hour of a demanding game at top settings, peaking at 43.6 °C. UWB opens compatible cars as you walk up, and Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 are standard.

Both phones launch Xiaomi HyperOS 4 and the Super XiaoAi 2.0 assistant, whose expert mode plans trips, sets up the phone and smart home from one sentence and carries a conversation over to a Windows PC or a Mac. That mode runs on credits, and when they run out Xiaomi sells more by subscription. Xiaomi publishes no software update commitment for either phone.

The most practical addition is for people with Apple devices: the phones unlock and message across to them, sync a cloud photo album, share files with an iPhone by touching the two together, and pair with an Apple Watch for calls, notifications and health data.

Both phones are on sale in Xiaomi's own store now, in stock, in four configurations each.

Xiaomi 18 Pro Max

• 12 GB + 256 GB – ¥6,999, roughly €910 or $1,045
• 12 GB + 512 GB – ¥7,999, roughly €1,040
• 16 GB + 512 GB – ¥8,999, roughly €1,170
• 16 GB + 1 TB – ¥9,999, roughly €1,300

Xiaomi 18 Pro

• 12 GB + 256 GB – ¥5,999, roughly €780 or $895
• 12 GB + 512 GB – ¥6,999, roughly €910
• 16 GB + 512 GB – ¥7,999, roughly €1,040
• 16 GB + 1 TB – ¥8,999, roughly €1,170

Both come in Black, White, Ice Peach Pink and Star River Blue. A red Transparent Special Edition with see-through wallpapers and a matching red charger and cable comes only as 16 GB + 1 TB, at ¥10,999 for the Pro Max and ¥9,999 for the 18 Pro.

For now this is a China-only launch, and Xiaomi does not sell phones in the US. Imported into a market where Xiaomi does not officially sell it, the price gains customs duty and local VAT on top, so the real cost outside China is noticeably higher than the conversions above.