Xiaomi 14 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra: Heavy is the Ultra crown

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has an edge in synthetic benchmark, scoring higher in single and multicore tests. During 3DMark's Wildlife Extreme stress test the Galaxy S24 Ultra managed to score higher overall, but failed to sustain this score and the performance quickly dropped off, while the Xiaomi 14 Ultra was much more consistent and all in all managing the thermal dissipation better. In day-to-day tasks, both the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the Galaxy S24 Ultra performed smoothly, as expected.

When it comes to software, the situation is slightly in favor of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, we think. Galaxy AI works great, and it's well thought out, while the Xiaomi 14 Ultra still explores the possibilities in that area. What's more, the Galaxy now comes with a lengthy seven-year software support, while the Xiaomi offers only four years of major OS updates. If you plan to hold your phone for more than four years, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is probably the better choice here.

The camera systems of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and the Galaxy S24 Ultra are very similar in what they try to achieve. The philosophy behind the four cameras is the same. On both phones, we have one main camera with a similar focal length and two telephoto cameras. The fourth one is ultrawide, as expected.

However, there are differences in the approach. The Galaxy S24 Ultra uses a 200MP sensor under an f/1.7 lens and some aggressive pixel binning, while the Xiaomi 14 Ultra relies on a 50MP sensor under a lens with variable aperture (1.6–4.0). It's a 1-inch sensor in the Xiaomi versus a 1/1.3" one in the Galaxy.

The telephoto cameras on the Xiaomi both use 50MP sensors and support 3.2x and 5.0x optical zoom. The Galaxy S24 Ultra, on the other hand, has one 10MP 3.0x telephoto and one 50MP 5.0x periscope zoom camera. The ultrawide camera on the Xiaomi is again a 50MP sensor under a lens with a 122-degree field of view, while the Galaxy uses a 12MP, 120-degree ultrawide camera.

These are all just specs and numbers. Time for some real-world samples!

Daylight samples are pretty close between these two phones, one thing that stands out is the tonality of the samples. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra leans toward warmer colors, while the Galaxy S24 produces colder images. This is especially obvious when you put those side-by-side. Great detail and dynamic range in both samples.

The night shots are a bit different, though. Even though the tonal differences remain and the Xiaomi snaps warmer pictures, there's different level of HDR stacking applied on both phones. The result is brighter and more sharp images on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, as with such aggressive night mode, images tend to look unreal, but it's down to your personal preference.

Both phones have sophisticated zoom cameras, and they both handle different zoom levels pretty good. We noticed that the Galaxy S24 Ultra tends to oversharp the images, while the Xiaomi produces softer pictures altogether.  

What's really interesting is that the tonal differences remain even in the ultrawide samples, which goes to show how post-processing algorithms rule the smartphone photography world. Here the Xiaomi and it's 50MP ultrawide camera with an aperture of f/1.8 clearly produces more detailed pictures with better dynamic range (check out the shadow under the stone monument). 

Selfies look better (to us) on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. They're more detailed and sharp, while on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra selfies look a bit washed-out and soft. You can discern much more details such as wrinkles (Yeah, Vic is getting old), and other facial imperfections on the Galaxy S24 Ultra sample.