Xiaomi 18 Pro: dual 200MP Leica cameras & Privacy Display

Xiaomi has officially unveiled the Xiaomi 18 Pro in China, and while it looks very similar to last year’s Xiaomi 17 Pro, there are some serious upgrades inside. These include Qualcomm’s latest flagship processor, two 200-megapixel Leica cameras and a surprisingly large 7,000mAh battery for a phone with a relatively compact 6.4-inch display.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro was announced alongside the larger Xiaomi 18 Pro Max but I thought the regular Pro that may be more interesting to anyone who prefers a regular-size flagship smartphone. The front display sports a 6.4-inch (2436×1120) LTPO RGB OLED panel with a refresh rate of up to, up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and slim 0.99mm bezels. Xiaomi is also using its Dragon Crystal Glass 3.0 for protection against scratches and wears.

A Smart Privacy Display

One noteworthy addition is Xiaomi’s new hardware-level Smart Privacy Display. It works on broadly the same principle as Samsung’s Privacy Display on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, keeping the screen clearly visible when viewed straight on while making it much harder to see from the sides. The difference is in how Xiaomi achieves this: its OLED panel alternates standard wide-angle pixels with dedicated narrow-angle privacy pixels that use microscopic physical baffles to restrict their viewing angle. When privacy mode is activated, the standard pixels switch off and only the privacy pixels remain illuminated, with Xiaomi claiming that brightness drops to around just 1% when viewed from beyond 60 degrees. Like Samsung’s implementation, it can also be activated automatically for selected apps and sensitive content, rather than having to keep the entire screen in privacy mode all the time.

A more customisable rear OLED display

Around the back, Xiaomi has retained one of the Xiaomi 17 Pro’s more distinctive features: the secondary OLED display built into the camera’s plateau. And like its predecessor, the new 2.86-inch, 120Hz rear screen can still act as a viewfinder when taking selfies with the main cameras, but Xiaomi has expanded what it can do with AI-generated application cards, notifications, timers and other small widgets. Users can even create customised cards using AI rather than relying entirely on Xiaomi’s presets.

Personally, this makes a little more sense to me than simply putting a second display on the back for wallpapers and notifications. It’s hard to say whether I would actually use it frequently, but at least Xiaomi seems to be finding more practical uses for the extra screen.

A bigger camera sensor

What is a new flagship smartphone without camera upgrades? Xiaomi’s long-standing partnership with Leica continues with the Xiaomi 18 Pro, and like the Xiaomi 17 Pro, the Leica-branded setup still consists of three rear cameras, but the biggest change is that two of them now use 200-megapixel sensors. The main camera uses a 1/1.28-inch Light Fusion 960 sensor with optical image stabilisation, while the 200-megapixel periscope telephoto has a 75mm equivalent focal length, 3.2x optical zoom and can focus from 12cm for telephoto macro shots. Completing the system is a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera with a 102-degree field of view. There is also a 50-megapixel camera at the front for selfies and video calls.

More power and battery

Powering everything is the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, manufactured on a 2nm process, and Xiaomi’s new HyperOS 4. The base model for both the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, going up all the way to 16GB and 1TB of storage for the top-end version. Interestingly, there is also a customisable AI button (not too different from Apple’s Camera Control button on the iPhone 17 Pro and 18 Pro series), an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor and UWB connectivity. And despite the relatively compact size, Xiaomi has managed to squeeze in a 7,0000mAh and 8,500mAh silicon-carbon battery for the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max respectively.

For China, the Xiaomi 18 Pro series comes in Galaxy Blue, Ice Peach Pink, White and Black. Surprisingly, Xiaomi will also launch a separate Transparent Special Edition, bringing back a transparent-style glass back that the company has not used since 2018 on a flagship model. This edition will come with colour-coordinated 100W wall charger and USB-C cable, as well as a transparent case.

Availability and pricing

The Xiaomi 18 Pro is already available for order in China following its 23 September launch. More importantly for us, Xiaomi says the 18 Pro series will also be released globally later this year, although it has not confirmed which markets will receive it, whether the Transparent Special Edition will be included in the rollout, and how much the phones will cost outside China. But as usual, we’ll update this story as soon as Xiaomi confirms details on the global (including Singapore) launch. So do stay tuned.