Xiaomi 16 Ultra could arrive sooner this year with continuous zoom lenses

Xiaomi has officially confirmed that its next camera-oriented flagship, the Xiaomi 16 Ultra, is real. And strong industry mumblings suggest it could launch months ahead of schedule, possibly before the end of this year. The previous Xiaomi 15 Ultra only debuted globally in March of this year, long after its Xiaomi 15 and 15 Pro siblings hit the Chinese market in late 2024.

A strategic move to pull ahead of competition?

Now, reliable tipster Digital Chat Station claims the entire Xiaomi 16 lineup, Ultra included, will drop simultaneously. This would let Xiaomi get its top-tier model on shelves well before competitors like Samsung can launch their own “Ultra” contenders. The phone’s existence was confirmed by Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing himself, who teased it on Weibo as a “new height of mobile imaging.”

Those are bold words, but the rumoured hardware sounds like it could back them up. The centrepiece of this new Leica-branded camera system is apparently a continuous optical zoom lens. This will reportedly be paired with a 200-megapixel sensor.

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The point of a single optical zoom lens is that it will do away with the need of two separate zoom lenses, which should provide smooth zooming between focal lengths. This would also be a step-up from the Xiaomi 15 Ultra’s dual 3x and 4.3x telephoto lens setup.

The rest of the rumoured triple-camera setup includes a huge 1-inch 50-megapixel main camera and a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor, which appears unchanged from the current model.

The camera is far from being the only impressive piece of tech on the 16 Ultra. For one, the phone will likely run on Qualcomm’s unannounced Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chipset. Everything will be viewed on a 6.8-inch LTPO display with a 120Hz refresh rate.

Powering all this tech could be a truly gigantic battery, with a rumoured capacity between 7,000mAh and 7,500mAh (take it with a pinch of salt), which will be supported by 100W wired and 50W wireless charging. This will obviously come thanks to an ongoing shift towards silicon-carbon batteries.

That said, while these whispers make it clear the phone will arrive in China sooner, an Indian launch will likely trail by a few months if we go by the usual launch pattern.