Often major phone manufacturers are accused of copying one another leading to a series of smart phones that essentially lookalike. Phone makers like to pretend they don't, but the Chinese company Xiaomi has no such qualms.
With the just announced Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max, the company is going right at Apple with its latest flagship handsets. However, the new Xiaomi 17 phones are a bit more unique with a secondary screen on the back and a massive battery.
If the design of the phones weren't an obvious nod to the iPhone 17 series, CEO Lei Jun made it very clear with multiple references to Apple's latest phones with direct comparisons during the Xiaomi launch event in Beijing. It was repeatedly claimed that the Xiaomi 17 series wins on battery, performance, photography and more.
Earlier this month Xiaomi President Lu Weibing posted on Weibo that the new naming convention is meant to directly compete with Apple.
"We are directly competing with the iPhone in the same generation and at the same level," they wrote (machine-translated).
The Xiaomi 15 series just wrapped with the 15T, also revealed this week, but the company skipped straight to 17 to align against Apple.
Xiaomi 17 Pro vs iPhone 17 Pro
On paper, the Apple and Xiaomi devices aren't going straight head-to-head as the new phones feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and run on Xiaomi's Android-based HyperOS 3 arriving in October.
It's more in the design like the camera plateau that Apple introduced in the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models this year. Xiaomi is filling that area with a display that looks very similar to the cover displays that you might see on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7.
It appears to act as a viewfinder for selfies, as well as a display for gaming, interactive widgets and media playback. There's even an official Gameboy-esque case for gaming on the tiny display.
Xiaomi's 17 Pro features a 6.3-inch display and the Pro Max goes up to 6.9-inch, the same as Apple's, though Xiaomi's phones weigh slightly less.
Humongous batteries
One of the other differences will be the enormous batteries crammed into the Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max featuring 6,300mAh and 7,500mAh batteries, respectively. Plus, these phones support 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
Apple doesn't release technical information on how large its batteries are in any iPhone. However, a leaked Chinese regulatory form suggests the iPhone 17 Pro features a 4,252mAh battery while the Pro Max has a 5,088mAh one.
In the Tom's Guide battery test, the iPhone 17 Pro Max lasted 17 hours and 54 minutes, three and a half hours longer than the Galaxy S25 Ultra and 20 minutes more than the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Xiaomi 17, 6.3 inches, equipped with 7000mAh battery, has a longer battery life than all iPhone17 series. pic.twitter.com/99rmj4gpLtSeptember 25, 2025
Xiaomi claims just over 22 hours on the base model Xiaomi 17, which features a 7,000 mAh battery.
In a pretty wild move, Xiaomi showed off an iPhone 17 comparison in a video playback test with the Xiaomi 17 and then slapped on a 5,000mAh MagSafe battery on the iPhone to show that Xiaomi's handset still beats Apple's device.
Chinese manufacturers have leaned heavily on silicon-carbide batteries in the last couple of years, which enables them to put larger capacity batteries in the same space as a lithium-ion one. Where in the US we see numbers around 5,000mAh, in China they're flirting with nearly 10,000mAh on some handsets.
Rumors and leaks claim Samsung and Apple might start using this technology in future phones, but for now, both firms have stuck with lithium-ion.
...but not for you and me.
The three Xiaomi 17 phones are available for preorder for Chinese customers with a release on September 27. At this time, Xiaomi has not announced any global plans.
It's possible the company could launch one or all three in Europe next year around Mobile World Congress which typically takes place in February. The company could also reveal its Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
As for the United States, the ongoing ban on Chinese phones means we likely won't see either of these phones here. The Xiaomi US website doesn't even list smartphones anywhere.
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More from Tom's Guide
- Xiaomi 15 Ultra review: One of the best designed phones I’ve ever seen
- This could be the 2025's greatest camera phone, and it’s not from Apple or Samsung
- Qualcomm announces Xiaomi will have the first phone featuring the next Snapdragon 8 Elite
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