Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Snapdragon 888 chipset, 120Hz OLED screen, 108MP camera, all at a good price Review

At the superior stop of its range, Xiaomi gives smartphones with a excellent, if not comprehensive, selection of highly developed characteristics at a aggressive value. Final year’s Mi 10T Professional 5G is a excellent case in point. Now, the Chinese enterprise is initially to market place with a globally readily available handset powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 5G Cell System, in the condition of its new flagship Mi 11, which sells for a value that implies an additional exceptional price-for-dollars option: €749 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of inner storage, or €799 with 8GB/256GB.  

As Huawei’s inventory falls thanks to the US ban on Google Cell Services, so Xiaomi’s is soaring, to the place wherever the enterprise took third position guiding Apple and Samsung in the Q4 2020 worldwide smartphone market place. But does the Mi 11 reside up to anticipations? 

Xiaomi’s newest flagship telephone definitely appears the aspect. My evaluation device had a backplate whose official colour is Horizon Blue, even though based on the mild it’s reflecting, the colour shades properly from gray by means of blue to lavender. The rear digicam setup is significant and unmissable, with the major lens sitting down extremely happy. The a few-layered riser is probably made to disguise very how significantly the lens juts out from the foundation, but when the handset is resting on a desk the digicam bump generates a large protrusion, and tapping the display everywhere on its still left side will cause a wobble. 

The Mi 11 would not have an IP rating for dust and drinking water resistance, which might be a stumbling block for some probable purchasers. The absence of a three.5mm headset jack is a lot less of an concern, even though once again it might irritate some individuals. There is an IR blaster in the top rated edge, and amongst the pre-mounted applications Mi Distant allows you use this to manage all way of IR-equipped equipment. 

The Mi 11 is large and reasonably weighty at 74.six mm huge by 164.3mm deep by 8.06mm thick and 196g. The sizing is down to the big six.81cm display, which has minimal top rated and base bezels and curves into the extended edges. Corning’s toughest Gorilla Glass Victus provides security. There’s a tiny front digicam slash-out in the top rated still left corner that’s scarcely apparent. The AMOLED screen has a resolution of three,200 by 1,440 pixels (515ppi), and it’s basically superb, even though it’s truly worth noting that I found it difficult to get to throughout it just one-handed. 

The display has a utmost refresh amount of 120Hz, and an computerized selection facility that decides irrespective of whether to deploy the complete 120Hz or fall to 60Hz. I would have liked to be ready to set this at the upper amount forever, but that would not appear to be an possibility — probably mainly because Xiaomi is cautious of compromising battery daily life. Oddly, 120Hz is termed ‘medium’ rather than ‘high’. What is actually heading on there, I question? 

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Handset makers like to speak up the contact sampling amount these days — that’s the speed at which the display responds to finger faucets, which is 480Hz for the Mi 11. It is fair to say that I hardly ever had to wait around for this telephone to do anything I questioned of it — but that’s not generally an concern for increased-stop handsets. Avid gamers are most possible to understand a real profit from a superior contact sampling amount, alongside with buyers of the in-display fingerprint sensor.  

My only real display-related grumble concerns Looking through manner, which pops the display into diverse colour saturations, and can also implement a paper-like ‘texture’. There’s a whole lot to engage in with below, and you can set a timed plan for Looking through Manner to come on and off — but what you can’t do is have it kick in when a distinct application is released. As significantly as I’m mindful only OnePlus handsets can be configured to transform display manner when an application is released. Come on everyone else, do catch up! 

Xiaomi rightly highlights the new Snapdragon 888 chipset with its built-in 5G manner (the Mi 11 supports two SIMs, by the way). The 5nm processor is supported by 8G of RAM and is quick. Not incredibly it knocked every single other handset I’ve reviewed out of the drinking water, offering average Geekbench 5 scores of 1129 (single main) and 3704 (multi main). 

But do the powerful processor and the demands of that significant superior-resolution display effect battery daily life? Indeed, they do — and as observed before that’s probably just one explanation the display refresh amount can’t be cranked up to 120Hz as standard. The Mi 11’s 4600mAh battery lasted for just thirteen hours 29 minutes underneath the PC Mark Perform two. for Android battery rundown take a look at, which is a extended way off the tempo. Reasonably fundamental YouTube viewing for a few hours depleted a fully billed battery by 19{36a394957233d72e39ae9c6059652940c987f134ee85c6741bc5f1e7246491e6}, suggesting battery daily life of just underneath sixteen hours. 

Battery daily life shouldn’t be an concern nevertheless, and all-working day procedure must be broadly achievable. There is 55W ‘turbo’ charging for a rapid energy raise if desired, as effectively as help for 50W wireless charging. And if you are inclined to demand other handsets from the Mi 11 10W reverse wireless charging is also readily available. 

SEE: 5G smartphones: A cheat sheet (absolutely free PDF) (TechRepublic)

My Xiaomi Mi 11 evaluation device came with 128GB of inner storage, of which 20GB was applied out of the box, leaving 108GB absolutely free. That 20GB is applied by Android 11, Xiaomi’s MIUI 12 overlay, and a fair range of pre-mounted applications, just one of which — Mi Distant — I’ve now observed. The applications are primarily filed away in folders termed Tools, Online games and More Applications, with the latter made up of staples like Amazon Browsing, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and eBay, alongside with the travel reserving application Agoda and WPS Business. In other places you’ll uncover points like the Opera web browser, a notes application, file supervisor and a Themes application for personalising the handset’s glance as effectively as ringtones. You can delete a whole lot of this if it’s surplus to needs. 

The digicam setup is highlighted front and centre on Xiaomi’s site, and the emphasis is on high quality rather than amount. The in-display front digicam is a 20MP f/two.two device that’s able of 1080p online video at 30fps and 720p slow-motion online video at 120fps. It also will take a excellent selfie, which is the major point, seriously. 

The rear digicam array comprises a few cameras, the major just one currently being a superior-resolution 108MP sensor with an f/1.85 huge-angle lens and optical graphic stabilisation (OIS). This is joined by a 13MP f/two.4 ultra-huge-angle (123°) digicam and a 5MP f/two.4 telemacro (three-10cm) digicam. The autofocus telemacro lens is notably gratifying to use, even though I would have liked OIS too.  

You can shoot 8K online video at 30fps and 24fps, or 4K online video at 60fps and 30fps. 

The major digicam shipped flawlessly excellent place-and-shoot visuals, with a lot of depth and excellent colour, and utilizing the complete display to frame visuals can produce some satisfying compositions. But never be fooled by the 30x (electronic) zoom readily available for nevertheless visuals. As you can see from my woodpecker photograph, it’s not seriously truly worth the hassle — and excellent luck keeping the digicam continuous to choose a shot of even my sample’s high quality. A telephoto digicam would strengthen matters, but would also come at a charge. 

Conclusions

The Xiaomi Mi 11 showcases the new Snapdragon 888 chipset, with superior-stop characteristics – notably the 120Hz AMOLED display — that enhance it effectively. The digicam array is effectively assumed-out (even though optical zoom would be welcome), and whilst battery daily life just isn’t stellar, many thanks to the superior-stop chipset and screen, fitting in a much larger battery would have been very a problem. 

Xiaomi has carried out effectively to strike this kind of a aggressive value place for the Mi 11, and proper now it sets the bar for other mid-priced flagship-class handsets to aim at.

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