Review of the Xiaomi Mi 11 5G

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Project

In my view, Xiaomi has killed everything in terms of design in recent years. Starting from Mi 9 to Mi 11, each device was exceptional in terms of overall appearance and, although the Mi 9’s shiny exterior was considered a mistake by many, I liked it. The new Mi 11 uses Gorilla Glass frosted in its construction, ensuring a smooth and silky feel that offers sufficient grip, without retaining virtually any fingerprint. The screen has a slight curve at the edges, which is not as abrupt as the Mi 10 series, but it still makes gesture-based navigation a little more enjoyable, especially when a case is involved. And let’s be honest, you would probably like to use a case with this big phone for extra protection.

I love the colors of the Mi 11. We had the Mi 11 blue, but what surprised me the first time I held the phone up to the light was the sparkling play of tones that followed: blue and yellow and even a dark violet at the interlaced edges in a captivating display of colors. I absolutely love it. I also love the exaggerated edge around the 108MP main camera, as well as the shiny two-tone camera island that creates an interesting design element that stands out. I also love the curved back of the phone, which fits perfectly in the hand and leaves the impression of a much more compact device.

In the typical Xiaomi style, the Mi 11 comes with an infrared blaster to control other devices, but if you’re looking for a headset connector or microSD card slot, unlucky. Fortunately, there are dual stereo speakers set by Harman Kardon, which sound great. Haptics are fast and accurate, which is definitely a noticeable improvement in quality of life.

Exhibition

The Mi 11 is equipped with a large 6.8-inch OLED display with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The screen has QHD + resolution, which is an elegant way of saying that it is 1440 by 3200 pixels. This is very accurate, but totally unnecessary, as anything other than FHD + is totally overkill in regular daily use. What would have been more impactful would be an FHD + screen that would have introduced more energy savings.

Still, the screen is really beautiful to look at, and although the standard screen mode is a little cooler than the ideal color temperature of 6500K, Xiaomi has introduced tons of settings that allow you to switch to a quieter sRGB, a P3 or an overly saturated color scheme or even adjust colors to your own taste. No matter what color option you choose, I don’t think the screen will disappoint you.

Performance

The Xiaomi Mi 11 was the first phone to be announced with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is one of the fastest available for Android devices at the moment. I will not continue with the usual chatter that you would not notice any delay or slowness, because you would not notice. In fact, the latest generations of smartphone chips have been so fast that the difference in perceived speed was, at best, incomprehensible. The Mi 11 performs admirably in every scenario you expect to find, although it doesn’t necessarily look faster than any other contemporary flagship phone. This is proof of how fast chipsets have become.

With 8 GB of RAM, the user has ample space to use multiple applications at the same time. I didn’t notice any aggressive RAM management behavior and the applications that were supposed to remain open did just that. Fortunately, there is also a 12 GB version of the phone present, which should be an even better combination for demanding users. The latter comes with 256 GB of native storage, which is more than enough, but keep in mind that there is no microSD card slot expansion possible on the Mi 11.

Software and functionality

MIUI remains one of the most functional Android skins, with tons of interesting features hidden throughout the interface. It also looks good, although it does borrow certain visuals from iOS. It is also one of the few custom interfaces that supports multiple users. The Second Space feature is very useful: it allows you to create two separate workspaces and access each one instantly by unlocking the phone with a different finger. There are many intriguing features in the camera app, too, but we’ll talk about that later.

The optical fingerprint reader built into the screen is very fast and accurate, but the most interesting part about it is that it works as a heart rate monitor. Keeping a finger on the scanner for a brief 15-second scan allows the Mi Health app to measure your current heart rate. The accuracy of the tool should probably not be completely reliable, but it is an interesting feature nonetheless.

There is also a very fast facial unlocking feature and, although it is totally photo-based and not as safe as 3D facial unlocking solutions, it is quite convenient as it unlocks the phone in an instant.

Camera

The camera app on the Xiaomi Mi 11 is rich in photography modes and several features, some of which are quite enigmatic, but there are also some useful ones. What’s more useful here is the camera’s enhanced AI feature, which now automatically switches to night mode when it detects that the light just isn’t enough.

Speaking of the camera on the Xiaomi Mi 11 uses the same 108MP that were found on the Mi 10 last year, although it has been downgraded in some ways. On the one hand, the new phone has an F1.9 main opening while last year’s flagship used an F1.7 opening. There is also an ultra-wide-angle camera and a macro sniper on the back, but without a telephoto. A pity, as a telephoto would have been times more useful than a macro lens, but what can you do. However, the lack of a dedicated camera does not prevent you from broadening your subject: you can reach up to 30X with the Mi 11, although anything over 10X is hardly usable. Xiaomi is probably saving its best new camera technology for the Mi 11 Ultra, which leaked profusely.

How is the image quality? Very good! The photos are realistic, with excellent details and dynamic range. The colors are a little conservative, focusing on realism instead of being very vivid. Automatic HDR does its job well, although it doesn’t bring details in the shadows as much as I would like, but it’s just me. Portraits end up with great separation of objects, although I would love a 2X magnified view in portrait mode, which would have provided a more favorable field of view. Selfies are very detailed thanks to the 20 MP camera and, with a light post-processing, they can become great additions to the social feed.

Here is a comparison between the three main zoom levels offered to the user immediately: 0.6X, 1X and 2X.

By default, the Mi 11 takes massive 27MP photos, which generally range between 10 and 20 MB of storage. A brief photographic trip in an afternoon used almost a gigabyte of internal memory, although I could have saved some space if I had used the HEIF format. However, it is not as widely supported in most third-party applications, so I opted for better compatibility. If you are a photography bug, definitely choose the larger storage version. That said, here is a full 108MP image.

Sample Xiaomi Mi 11 108MP

The portraits do not display many artifacts, despite the removal of the dedicated depth sensor.

Xiaomi Mi 11 potraits

Otherwise, as can be seen in the sample photo below, good lighting conditions will reward you with excellent photos.

Selfies are great, but only if you disable the strong embellishment effect that is enabled by default.

As I mentioned before, Night Mode is now activated automatically when the phone detects that the lights are too low. Make sure that the respective option is enabled in the camera settings menu, but it must be enabled by default. Regarding the quality of the camera in low light, everything is fine, nothing that catches the eye. The colors are slightly subdued and not as vivid as I would like, while the details in the darker areas of the scene are not brought out as much as I normally love.

The video can be shot at up to 8K @ 30fps, which appears to be the top standard in early 2021. The videos are great and perfectly usable for later editing. There are many useful and fun features here: VLOG allows you to make creative introductions to your vlogs, while Movie Effects allows you to capture interesting types of footage.

Drums

The Mi 11’s 4,600 mAh battery usually lasts a full day of moderate to heavy use. For the record, I set the FHD + resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz with all bells and whistles enabled. I expected the phone to last a little longer, but I think the high resolution display is consuming a lot of energy.

What is spectacular is the super-fast 55 W charging that recharges the phone. It does this in no time – 0% to 100% can be achieved in about 50 minutes, but in my experience, a quick 30-minute charge will yield about 75-80% of the charge, which is more than enough to a full charge day of use. Also, should we address the elephant in the room? Xiaomi is not yet fully filled with Apple or Samsung and has included a charging pad in the Mi 11 case. If that’s not good enough, the included charger is actually a GaN, which is generally more energy efficient and produces less heat and is a little more compact.