Xiaomi 17 Pro challenges the iPhone 17 Pro with a rear display, Leica cameras, Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, and HyperOS 3. Here’s why it’s worth the hype.
The iPhone 17 series might have triggered the first wave of excitement in the 2025 flagship cycle, but Xiaomi is coming in hot, maybe even hotter, with the Xiaomi 17 Pro.
And this time, it’s not playing catch-up. It’s throwing punches straight at Apple’s most prized Pro models, with a striking new design, cutting-edge silicon, and a secondary display that could finally make the rear screen trend a thing.
Let’s break down why the Xiaomi 17 Pro feels like a genuine moment in smartphone design evolution, not just a spec bump.Matching Apple Head On
There’s a reason Xiaomi skipped the 16 series entirely. It wants to shadow Apple step for step. Xiaomi 17 Pro. iPhone 17 Pro. It’s not subtle. It’s deliberate. This is marketing warfare, and Xiaomi’s going all in.
What’s powering that ambition is Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, an absolute powerhouse featuring two performance cores clocked at 4.61 GHz and six high-efficiency cores at 3.63 GHz.
In early Geekbench tests, the Xiaomi 17 Pro scored a healthy 3,096 (single-core) and 9,382 (multi-core), trailing only slightly behind Apple’s A19 Pro in single-core but promising real-world parity in overall responsiveness and gaming muscle. It’s backed by 16GB of RAM and runs Android 16-based HyperOS 3 out of the box.
