It was May 2021 when we first talked about the collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica. At that moment the well-known insider Digital Chat Station revealed that Lei Jun's company had an ace up its sleeve but unfortunately we were not told more than that. Subsequently, last April, the developer Kacper Skrzypek of MIUIPolska as well as former XDA Developers I find information in the MIUI code refer to the collaboration between the two brands. Today, a few months later, Lei Jun himself confirms that the collaboration is official and that the first Global smartphone will be out soon.
The collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica is finally official and Lei Jun himself confirms that there will be an Ultra smartphone. But when will it come out?
After a series of rumors, Xiaomi finally has confirmed its long-term strategic partnership with Leica. The two companies are jointly developing a flagship smartphone ahead of its launch in July 2022. This news comes like a bolt from the blue for several reasons. First of all, we expected that the collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica was exclusively about the photographic filters and not a smartphone; secondly, we believed that the smartphone created together only came in Chinese market and not in the Global one. But apparently this will not be the case.
It is fair to mention that other phone companies are also actively using the experience of well-known camera manufacturers. In late 2020, vivo followed in the footsteps of Sony and Nokia and has joined forces with Zeiss. More recently, Oppo and OnePlus have launched smartphones designed with Hasselblad, including the Oppo Find X5 series and OnePlus 10 Pro. Xiaomi hasn't revealed anything more about this upcoming product, but sources claim it will be based on the Qualcomm SoC Snapdragon 8+ Gen1. As for the name, it most likely will be Xiaomi 12Ultra.
In a press release, CEO Lei Jun said this collaboration will give a strong boost to Xiaomi's imaging strategy. In addition to this, it seems that the collaboration is destined for to last in time. Ergo, the company's next flagship will be just the first of a series of super camera phones.