Leica’s Leitzphone looks like the dream phone for photographers — and I’m particularly excited about this one feature
Leitzphone could set the bar for mobile photography
· TechRadarNews By Timothy Coleman published 28 February 2026
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- Leica unveils the Leitzphone, its first globally available phone
- The US is set to miss out, though
- The camera hardware is similar to Xiaomi's latest flagship
Leica makes phones, but you probably wouldn't know it because so far they have been exclusive to Japan. That situation just changed, however, with the new, globally available Leitzphone.
There's bad news if you're in the US, however, because that's the one market set to miss out on what looks like a fabulous flagship phone – especially for photographers.
Powered by Xiaomi and wrapped in a typically premium Leica shell, the Leitzphone shares much of the same hardware as the latest flagship Xiaomi phone — meaning an iPhone and Galaxy-beating triple camera unit.
The main camera is equipped with a large 50MP 1-inch sensor and LOFIC tech, for natural photo quality and less of a reliance on HDR and computational processing. For camera nerds, LOFIC stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor. In short, the capacitor sits at the pixel level and reduces clipping, thus increasing dynamic range. Leica hasn't provided me with the actual numbers.
What's unique to the Leitzphone model — besides its slick Leica design and UI / UX that's consistent with its actual cameras, and which is a first for phones as far as I know — is a mechanical ring around the camera unit. It's a real design centerpiece for photographers, providing a tactile way to manually control a setting of the camera.
By default the control ring is set to zoom, this avoiding screen tapping to switch between cameras and zoom settings. (The 200MP telephoto lens has a 3x to 4x optical zoom.) However, the ring can be reassigned to functions such as exposure compensation and white balance. Proper photographer's stuff.
The Leitzphone will also be compatible with the latest version of Xiaomi's camera grip, which comes in a photographer's kit, and which will go a long way in improving the phone's handling for photography. That was certainly my experience with the Xiaomi 15 Ultra.
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