The Xiaomi 17T Pro has a triple camera system on the back: a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 50-megapixel telephoto lens with around 5x optical zoom. It’s a versatile setup on paper, and very capable in practice, even if it’s not quite on the level of the more expensive phones in Xiaomi’s range.
The main camera is the highlight. It captures truly sharp, detailed images in good lighting, with fine textures that pop cleanly – noticeably sharper than the standard Xiaomi 17 and sharper than the Pixel 10 Pro’s main camera in my side-by-side photos. Xiaomi leans towards a punchy and vibrant color profile here, which most people will love. Where it falls a bit short is dynamic range, which is pretty average, and stabilization, which isn’t as stable as some flagship phones when shooting handheld in difficult conditions. These are the areas where you can tell it’s not Ultra.
The ultra-wide is undoubtedly the weak link. It has a 12-megapixel sensor – a big step up from the 50-megapixel ultra-wide sensor on the standard Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Despite the spec sheet, it still captured attractive photos. Images are a bit softer than those captured by the main and telephoto cameras, but it’s barely noticeable unless you’re really nitpicking.
The telephoto camera was also impressive. The optical range of around 5x is much more useful than the standard Xiaomi 17’s 2.6x lens, and the 50-megapixel sensor holds up well, delivering detailed photos with pleasing colors and quite accurate with its native zoom. For framing distant subjects, this is by far the more flexible of the two telephoto options between this one and the base model. I will say, however, that the telephoto lens performed the weakest of the three in low light, even with the native zoom. The images weren’t unusable, but they were noticeably worse than the low-light photos captured by the main camera.
Once you start zooming in, you’ll notice the images soften quite quickly. They’re still usable at 10x, but at 20x you’ll get visible artifacts and detail will fall off quite dramatically. Of course, this isn’t the only phone camera where this is the case, but it’s still something to be aware of.
On the front, there is a 32-megapixel selfie camera. It’s solid – it captures accurate colors, but it’s not as sharp or detailed as the rear cameras. It takes selfies that are perfectly acceptable for social media, but don’t expect them to stand up to scrutiny.
Overall, the 17T Pro’s camera system is good, anchored by a powerful main sensor and a flexible telephoto lens. It’s not as consistent across lenses as a Pixel – and it can’t touch the 17 Ultra’s main 1-inch sensor and overall polish – but for the price, it covers most bases well.
