The Xiaomi 15T and Xiaomi 15T Pro smartphones will be announced on 24 September, it’s been confirmed, and it might just have a Pixel 10-rivalling camera feature.

The company has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the Xiaomi 15T Series launch on 24 September. It’s to take place in Munich, right in the middle of Oktoberfest.

The theme for the event is ‘Far closer’, which hints at possible camera enhancements for Xiaomi’s new almost-flagship phone. I’d hazard a guess that the Xiaomi 15T Pro, at least, is set for a significant boost to its telephoto provision.

Given that the Pixel 10‘s big new feature this year is its dedicated telephoto camera, Xiaomi’s new Pro phone could prove to be a (much cheaper) direct rival.

Whether that boosted zoom comes through a heavily processed AI-boosted technique or a stronger Leica-branded optical zoom lens remains to be seen. Considering last year’s Xiaomi 14T Pro only had a 2.6x optical zoom camera, the latter should be quite achievable.

What does the ’T’ stand for?

We still have no idea what the ’T’ stands for in Xiaomi’s T-series of phones. All we know is that every year around this time, Xiaomi launches a new phone (or two) that smartly cuts back on some of the little flagship flourishes of the preceding non-T series, with an accompanying drop in price.

I reviewed the Xiaomi 14T Pro last year, praising its “significant improvements over the 13T Pro”, its outstanding performance, and its speedy charging.

As for the Xiaomi 14T, Luke Baker found it to be “an affordable handset that could easily be mistaken for a flagship device. It performs well, takes great photos, has a stunning display and charges quickly.“

The Xiaomi 14T Pro came with a very reasonable £649 price tag, while the Xiaomi 14T set you back a mere £549 at launch. We’re looking forward to seeing Xiaomi’s latest pitch for mid-range(ish) supremacy.