The Xiaomi 16 and Xiaomi’s 16 Pro flagship smartphones have been tipped to come with a huge camera upgrade, but perhaps not the one you might be expecting.

Prolific tipster Digital Chat Station has taken to Weibo with a fascinating claim about one of the first big flagship phones of the next generation.

According to the post, the Xiaomi 16 and the Xiaomi’s 16 Pro will feature a much improved selfie camera with a sharper 50Mp resolution, up from 32Mp in the Xiaomi 15.

This selfie camera should boast improved low-light performance as well as autofocus. The latter is a feature that invariably produces improved selfies in the phones that support it. It’ll be good to see Xiaomi’s basic flagship catching up with the Pixel 9, iPhone 16, and Galaxy S25 in this regard.

The tipster continues that this selfie camera will support a wide viewing angle, as well as 4K/60FPS video recording, much like the Xiaomi 15.

Xiaomi 16: other specs

While the selfie camera looks set to be the most noteworthy improvement here, the Xiaomi 16’s rear cameras are also due an upgrade.

It’s claimed that it’ll feature a new 50Mp 1/1.3″ main sensor, while the Pro model will have this and also gain an ultra high dynamic range function as well as a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor, which should improve autofocus and bokeh, among other things.

Previous rumours have suggested that the Xiaomi 16 will pack in a huge 7000mAh silicon-carbon battery, which would be 75% bigger than that of the Galaxy S25.

Leaked design renders point to a phone that looks much like the Xiaomi 15, but with a snazzy new two tone finish.

The phone is set to arrive in China in October followed by a global launch in early 2026. We’re fans of the previous models, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.