I'm a fan of Xiaomi's new 15 and 15 Ultra flagship phones'even if they only bring incremental improvements over their predecessors. The Xiaomi 15 is a classy, compact competitor to the iPhone 16 or Pixel 9, but the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is a photographer's dream. Both are extremely well-rounded smartphones with exceptional hardware, and Xiaomi has polished its HyperOS software and infused it with AI'just like everyone else in the market. But there's still room for improvement. Unwelcome bloatware feels cheeky on smartphones this expensive, the design of the 15 is downright dull and identical to last year's Xiaomi 14, and there's no Qi2 support, which is sad because we're craving magnetic accessories for our Android phones. Neither phone is officially sold in the US. It's by no means unusual for the latest version of a phone to be indistinguishable from the one before. (Samsung and Apple, I'm looking at you.) But the Xiaomi 15 is identical. Even the colors are the same; I got a black...
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