XIAOMI MI 11
Get your hands on a smartphone that has everything from style to speed
With a strong cam and specs, this flagship is taking aim at Samsung
How good is the Mi 11? Very good. Xiaomi’s newest flagship device is a contender to be one of the best phones of 2021.
It undoubtedly looks the part, coming in a range of contemporary colours – you can choose from Midnight Gray, Cloud White or Horizon Blue. Its 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.1mm dimensions make it lovely to hold while its Corning Gorilla Glass Victus gives it top-of-the-line drop protection should it ever escape your hand.
Weighing in at 194g, the Xiaomi is 12g lighter than its predecessor, the Xiaomi Mi 10. But that still makes it heavier than other recent flagships like the iPhone 12 (164g) and the Samsung S21 (171g). It has quite a top-heavy feel because of the thick two-layered camera module on the back.
The camera itself has a 108MP main sensor - which is huge. Alongside it, there’s a 13MP ultra-wide camera and a 5MP telemacro lens. On the front of the phone you will find a 20MP selfie camera. Sadly, there’s still no optical zoom.
The rear cameras, in particular, are impressive. Photos came out looking sharp with strong colours; it even copes well with dark and light spots. The telemacro lens is definitely something to shout about. To take a shot you don’t need to get right up close to the subject – being able to keep a distance means it lets in as much light as possible, which helps retain the detail. Low light photography from the rear camera is good as well. The night mode takes a fair few seconds to capture the image but when it does, it brightens up the subject well enough to prevent graininess and blur. Video quality is up to scratch, being able to film in resolutions up to 8K.
To view all this high-quality niceness there is a 6.8-inch, 3200x1440 pixel, HDR10+ supporting AMOLED screen that comes with an A+ rating from DisplayMate. The colours look vibrant and thanks to the 1,500 nits peak brightness, you won’t struggle to see it in daylight.
The phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, which is paired with 8GB of RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of storage. The 5nm chip is 5G enabled, and the device supports Wi-Fi 6 too, which means you’ll always have seriously fast downloads and streams.
There is a lot to power on the Mi 11. We streamed video on full brightness for over two hours. The battery dropped by 36%, suggesting that it’d last less than eight hours on a full charge.
Elsewhere, there is MIUI software on top of Android 11, which we aren’t entirely keen on. A fingerprint sensor in the display can be a little slow to unlock the phone. And there’s no headphone jack, but most people have a pair of Bluetooth headphones anyway.
Xiaomi is fast becoming a tech company you can’t ignore. If you haven’t been convinced by Xiaomi handsets before, the specifications on this one might win you over. It certainly did us. It does have some downsides, like the average battery life and lack of IP rating. But if you’re after a handset that looks and feels premium, with a strong camera and a CPU to be reckoned with, you won’t need to look much further.