Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max launched with 2nm Snapdragon chip, up to 8,500mAh battery and 200MP periscope camera

Xiaomi has launched the Xiaomi 18 Pro and Xiaomi 18 Pro Max in China at its Autumn New Product Launch Event. The new flagship smartphones bring a new 2nm Snapdragon chipset, large silicon-carbon batteries, Leica-branded triple rear cameras and a secondary display on the back.

Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max specifications

The Xiaomi 18 Pro features a 6.4-inch OLED display, while the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max has a larger 6.9-inch panel. Both use Xiaomi’s SuperPixel 2.0 display technology with an M11 luminescent system, 12-bit colour depth and LTPO technology with a 1Hz to 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.

The displays can reach up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and support HDR10+, Dolby Vision, DC dimming and the BT.2020 wide colour gamut. Xiaomi has also reduced the bezels to 0.99mm on all four sides using its new screen packaging technology.

Both phones also have a secondary display on the rear. The Xiaomi 18 Pro has a 2.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED panel, while the Pro Max gets a slightly larger 2.9-inch 120Hz AMOLED display. The rear screen can show notifications and widgets, run dedicated application cards and display custom wallpapers.

Xiaomi has added hardware-level privacy protection to the main display. When enabled, the viewing angle becomes narrower to make the screen harder to view from the side. Users can also select specific apps for privacy protection, with notifications, floating windows and multitasking previews getting pixel-level obfuscation.

There is also a dedicated physical AI button that can be customised to quickly enable or disable the global privacy mode.

The secondary rear display is more than just a notification panel. Xiaomi says its rear-screen ecosystem currently has 3.97 million daily active users, 138 million monthly assistant interactions and 497 million monthly wallpaper installations.

The display supports more than 100 application cards, including widgets, notifications, games and AI-generated apps. Users can also create personalised wallpapers based on photos of pets, idols or other subjects.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro series is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, which is manufactured using a 2nm process. The chipset has a maximum clock speed of up to 5GHz and uses an Adreno 850 GPU.

Xiaomi says the new GPU delivers up to 35% higher performance while reducing power consumption by 40%. The NPU offers an 80% improvement in AI inference performance, while overall computing performance is claimed to be 15% higher.

The phones use a redesigned cooling system with an OFFSET PoP high thermal-conductivity chip package and a ring-shaped cold pump cooling system. Xiaomi says the setup is designed to maintain high performance during extended gaming sessions.

The phones come with 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.1 storage.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro series runs HyperOS 4 out of the box. The operating system integrates Super Xiao Ai 2.0, Xiaomi’s AI assistant powered by the company’s MiMo foundation model.

The assistant can remember information, plan tasks and handle multi-step actions. Xiaomi has also added cross-device features that allow connected tablets and PCs to access and process data from the smartphone under its security framework.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max share the same triple rear camera system developed in partnership with Leica.

The main camera uses a 200-megapixel Light Fusion 960 sensor with a large 1/1.31-inch sensor size, an f/1.67 aperture and Hyper OIS. It is paired with a 50-megapixel Leica ultra-wide camera with a 102-degree field of view and 5cm macro capability.

The third camera is a 200-megapixel 5X periscope telephoto camera with OIS. It supports telemacro photography from as close as 12cm.

The camera system supports 8K video recording and 4K video recording at up to 120fps. There is also a 50-megapixel front camera with support for 4K video recording at 60fps.

Xiaomi has introduced a new “Legendary Moment” imaging pipeline that combines on-device processing with cloud-based processing. The company says the system preserves raw sensor data and uses AI to reproduce the characteristics of traditional camera hardware.

The AI camera features can also recommend popular shooting locations, analyse composition, suggest filters and provide real-time posture guidance for portrait photography.

Battery capacity is another major upgrade in the Xiaomi 18 Pro series. The Xiaomi 18 Pro packs a 7,000mAh battery, while the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max comes with an 8,500mAh battery.

Both phones use Xiaomi’s new Jinshajiang silicon-carbon battery technology with 32% silicon content. They support 100W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging. The phones also support magnetic charging and 27W wired and wireless reverse charging.

The smartphones have IP66, IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. Other hardware features include an in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, an infrared sensor and UWB connectivity.

For audio, both models feature stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res audio and a four-microphone array. The Pro Max also gets a triple stereo speaker setup.

Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max pricing in China

The Xiaomi 18 Pro is available in Black, White, Purple and Green colour options. The transparent edition is also available with a red transparent rear panel.

The China pricing is as follows:

The Xiaomi 18 Pro and Xiaomi 18 Pro Max are currently available to order in China and will go on sale later this week. Xiaomi has confirmed that the global launch of the Xiaomi 18 Pro series will take place later this year. The company has not yet announced global pricing or specific launch dates for individual markets.