If you hate the big camera bump of today's smartphones, you'll love the detachable lens of Xiaomi’s Modular Optical System.

In addition to announcing global Xiaomi 15 and Xiaomi 15 Ultra flagships at MWC 2025, Xiaomi showed off another rather interesting phone. A custom Xiaomi 15 phone with a magnetic clip-on camera lens has been shown.

With the 15 Ultra, Xiaomi took the best and made it better with a new 200-megapixel periscope lens to complement the other (largely unchanged) cameras.

I have made no secret about the fact camera bumps are getting too big. Some phones have been able to incorporate those bumps into quite smart designs, like the Xiaomi 15 Ultra but what if we could eliminate the bump altogether?

On paper, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra offers a lot of great specs. Powerful Leica-tuned cameras, including an absurd 200MP telephoto lens, a large battery, and all the performance of the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. However, like all Xiaomi phones, there’s a big emphasis on the own-brand software, rather than a cleaner variation of Android.

With uncompromising camera hardware that puts every rival in the shade, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is as good as it gets for phone photography

The annual mobile trade show in Barcelona kicks off today, but just ahead of the event Xiaomi has shown off a prototype camera lens. I am, apparently, one of only two media members to get hands on the kit.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra leads with its Leica-backed camera array, made all the more prominent by the existing 1-inch 50MP main sensor being joined by a new, larger 1/1.4-inch 200MP telephoto sensor. As with the Xiaomi 14 Ultra,