Mi Fit Android 4.4 Ios 9.0

Tom's Guide Verdict

The best deal in Android flagships correct now, the Xiaomi Mi 11 offers an amazing platform for streaming video and running demanding apps and games, tied together with an enjoyable software feel. But you lose out on camera power — bold you can get it in the offset place.

Pros

+
Practiced macro photography
+
Higher up-average specs for cost
+
Crawly curved QHD display with variable refresh rate
+
Powerful chipset

Cons

-
Not available in U.S.
-
Underwhelming general camera performance

Xiaomi Mi 11: Specs

Starting price: £749
Display: 6.81-inch QHD AMOLED (3200 x 1440)
Refresh charge per unit: xxx - 120Hz
Rear cameras: 108MP main (f1.8), 13MP ultrawide (f2.four), 5MP telemacro (f2.4)
Front camera: 20MP (f2.2)
Chipset: Snapdragon 888
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 128GB/256GB
microSD: Not bachelor
Operating organisation: Android 11 with MUI 12
Battery: four,600 mAh
Charging: 55W wired, 50W wireless, 10W opposite wireless
Colors: Midnight Grayness (pictured), White, Horizon Bluish
Size: 6.5 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches (164.3 x 74.six 10 8.1mm)
Weight: six.ix ounces (196g)
IP rating: n/a

With a price lower than the Samsung Galaxy S21 and the offer of superior specs in several areas, the Mi eleven volition please anyone who fancies picking ane upward with just how much it packs into the phone.

In fact, the Mi xi is ane of my favorite phones I've tested.

Throughout this Xiaomi Mi 11 review, you'll see that this phone isn't lacking when it comes to hardware. Its brandish and operation specs together make this a great phone for gaming, streaming or using CPU-intensive apps.

Its user feel is as well enjoyable, the software adding smart enhancements to the basic Android feel and its battery offering an effective mix of long life and speedy charging. Plus information technology'due south a pretty handsome piece of glass and circuitry to kicking.

Only while U.K. shoppers can find the Xiaomi Mi 11, U.S users won't exist able to. And when information technology comes to cameras, the Mi 11 starts to stumble a bit.

Xiaomi Mi xi review: Toll and availability

Xiaomi brought the Mi xi to the U.1000. on March 16, where it retails for either £749 for the 128GB storage version, or £799 for 256GB.

Every bit a comparison, a Galaxy S21 with 128GB storage sells for £769, while a 128GB iPhone 12 goes for £849. It's not every bit big a price departure every bit we were hoping before the announcement, but the Mi 11, particularly the 256GB version, is quite the bargain compared to its rivals.

There'due south no U.South. availability for Xiaomi, with the company currently in dispute with the U.S. government. (Not that Xiaomi phones were readily bachelor in the U.S. before that.) Y'all'll probably exist able to find it available for import if y'all've got your mind attack a Mi 11, but given the additional cost and potential trouble with 4G/5G band compatibility, you're probably meliorate off ownership a phone that'south already sold in your land. Our guide to the best Android phones is a adept place to outset if you lot need alternative ideas.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Blueprint

From the front, the Xiaomi Mi 11 resembles many other Android flagships, but it's still a looker. Information technology'southward set apart by its quad-curve display, which gives the telephone a fashionable profile that catches the light attractively.

I can't brand up my mind on the await of the Mi 11'south dorsum though. The camera crash-land in the peak-left corner throws me off, since its three-office structure looks muddled, even if the rounded foursquare shape and silver ring around the main lens look the concern from a distance.

Information technology doesn't assistance that the rest of the back is plain aside from logos and regulatory text toward the lesser, which only makes it easier for your eye to settle on the cameras.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 screen'southward made of Gorilla Glass Victus, the aforementioned glass plant on the Galaxy S21, and then you shouldn't accept to worry besides much about small scratches appearing by accident. You'll demand to exist more conscientious nearly exposing the Mi 11 to water and grit though; while Xiaomi says the phone is water-resistant, it doesn't accept an official IP rating.

U.K. shoppers have a choice of iii basic colors: a plain white, Midnight Gray and Horizon Blueish. The gray of my review unit of measurement looks classy with its satin-way stop (aside from all the fingerprints it picks up), although I like how the blue and white add a little more than visual interest to the phone.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Brandish

With a six.viii inch-AMOLED panel, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is on the larger side of this twelvemonth'south Android flagship phones. Withal a QHD resolution, 1,500-nit maximum effulgence and a variable 120Hz refresh charge per unit mean this isn't simply another large screen phone.

Those impressive features don't cause battery life to endure excessively, either. The Mi 11 offers both a variable resolution and variable refresh charge per unit, then nether sure weather condition, the phone will scale downward to FHD, while opting for a 90Hz, 60Hz or 30Hz refresh speed to save you power. The approach isn't as versatile as the LTPO brandish on the identically-sized Galaxy S21 Ultra, which can vary anywhere between 10Hz and 120Hz. Just Xiaomi'south approach with the Mi 10 is nevertheless effective.

I loved watching video on the Mi xi. Poring over the trailer for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, the bright colors, exist it the green of the 4 testudine protagonists or the purple of their enemies' jumpsuits, were positively glowing. Ironically, the high-resolution display let me actually appreciate the grainy, retro animation mode that the game's cinematic uses to phone call back to the original cartoon.

Technically the Mi 11 brandish curves effectually the side of the phone on all four edges, simply this is only noticeable on the left and right, and even and so the curved portion is generally bezel. The summit and bottom curves are very subtle, with a particularly obvious bottom bezel. However the phone does feel nice to hold horizontally as a result.

Xiaomi's added a "hardware-level mistouch sensor" to avoid y'all accidentally swiping the screen just by property the curved edges. I didn't detect the phone beingness specially sensitive to accidental touches, so this system seems to do its job. If you desire, you lot tin can alter the settings so the dead zone around the edges is larger or smaller if the automated system isn't to your liking.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Audio

Plain quite proud of its Harman/Kardon- tuned stereo speakers, Xiaomi emblazons the speaker visitor's name on the pinnacle edge of the Mi 11.

Listening to British rap artist Dave'due south "Location", I was impressed with the phone's depiction of his vocals and the mid-range instrumentation behind him. But equally is frequently the case with phone speakers, the bass frequencies were lacking power.

Still, listening to the aforementioned song on an iPhone 12 Pro, information technology became clear that percussion is a lot more prominent on the Mi 11, which if annihilation fabricated the listening feel a scrap worse. However, I besides noticed an impressive sense of width from the Xiaomi'south speakers also. Whether or non the speakers deserve the Harman/Kardon badge for quality, they deserve them for the mini soundstage effect they conjure.

Xiaomi Mi eleven review: Cameras

Although not the virtually powerful or diverse camera assortment available, the Xiaomi Mi eleven covers the basics. The back three cameras consist of a 108MP main camera, a 13MP ultrawide camera and a 5MP macro camera, plus a flash. On the forepart, you have a single 20MP selfie cam.

While you tin can set the main camera to accept 108MP photos via the Pro fashion in the Mi 11's camera app, the phone takes 27MP photos by default. The Mi xi manages this by combining sensor data from iv pixels into one virtual pixel, a process called pixel binning. This saves you space in your phone'south storage, plus it's platonic for low-calorie-free shots, at least in theory.

That doesn't seem to accept helped the Mi 11 capture this view over an inner London park. Information technology's much darker than the iPhone 12 Pro'southward paradigm I'm using for comparing, which makes it hard to notice any additional detail the 27MP shot gets over the 12MP iPhone photo.

Switching to 108MP mode on the Xiaomi Mi 11 goes some way to addressing this problem. The straight lines and bright colors of the playground appliance stand up out much more, and makes it a far ameliorate rival for the iPhone shot. That's fine, except 108MP images can take up to nine times as much storage space as 12MP shots. That will fill up any telephone's onboard storage pretty quick.

The ultrawide camera on the Mi 11 has a magnification of 0.6x — common for Android phones but less extreme than the 0.5x camera on the iPhone 12 Pro, hence the different look of these ii images of Archway. Either way, this round belongs to the iPhone thanks to its much richer colors.

The merely matter missing from a typical flagship photographic camera set-up on the Mi eleven is a telephoto sensor, only these tend to appear on more expensive models of flagships, such as the expected Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro. What you get instead with the Mi 11 is a "telemacro" camera. A lot of cheaper Android phones include macro cameras, but the Mi 11's version offers variable magnification to meliorate reach expert close-upwards shots.

The result is the all-time macro shot I've taken with a defended macro lens on a smartphone. I tried taking the same shot of this daffodil with the chief photographic camera too, and while I was able to go a better focus on the stigma in the middle, I couldn't focus on the petals at the same time, and the colors are far less vivid. It's convincing plenty proof of the camera's inclusion is worth your time, rather than it beingness a contemptuous attempt by the telephone maker to bump up the lens count.

It's still very difficult to take these macro photos without any stabilization. The one you see here was from a option of 17 attempts. Unremarkably, it takes me 5 at most to observe a shot I'grand happy with.

I have to hand it to Xiaomi when it comes to the selfie cam. Ordinarily I enjoy the more brilliant colors you run into in an iPhone 12 Pro selfie, just here I but look sunburnt. The Xiaomi has supplied a much more natural-looking selfie, plus does a slightly meliorate chore of cutting my head out from the trees in the background. The tradeoff is a much smoother epitome, which looks more artificial despite the colors better reflecting those I saw in the viewfinder.

Xiaomi Mi eleven review: Operation

Under the hood, the Xiaomi Mi 11 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. While you lot get the latest chipset Qualcomm has to offer, you merely have 8GB RAM, which pales in comparison to the 12GB you lot tin can now observe on top performing Androids similar the Galaxy S21 Ultra or Milky way Notation 20 Ultra.

It'south still enough for the Xiaomi to really print. On the Geekbench 5 general benchmark, the Mi 11 scored one,112 on the single core section and iii,379 on the multi-core section. The basic Galaxy S21 only manages 1,048 and iii,302 respectively.

The Galaxy S21 Plus, which uses the aforementioned bit and RAM capacity, beat the Mi 11's single core score with one,116, but the Mi 11 edged out the S21 Plus' multicore score of iii,300. The S21 Ultra easily beats the Mi xi on both tests, merely has an like shooting fish in a barrel reward thanks to 12GB of RAM.

In 3D Mark's Wild Life graphics exam, the Mi 11 accomplished a score of v,676, which averages to 34 frames per second. That tops the Milky way S21's v,504 betoken/33 FPS upshot while finishing in line with the Galaxy S21 Plus (5,650/34 FPS).

Trying out Marvel Contest of Champions proved that these scores are reflected by real-globe performance. Watching Spider-Homo beat upwardly rival superheroes looked great and displayed smoothly on the Xiaomi Mi 11. The Mi 11's 480Hz touch sampling charge per unit allows the display to react faster to taps than the average phone'southward.

In that location's also a vapor cooling sleeping room built into the Mi xi, which is likely why I didn't find the telephone heat upward even after trying out all the games I downloaded, or during the benchmark tests. Even charging up the phone didn't noticeably increase the temperature of the casing.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: 5G

The badge on the back of the Mi 11 tells you information technology'due south a 5G-ready phone. However making certain you'll really be able to use it on a faster network is a little more than complicated.

5G networks work on ane or more signal bands, which some phones tin can pick up and others tin can't. This is why if you're determined to bring a Mi 11 over to the U.S., it'due south crucial you check which bands your mobile carrier offers and which the Mi 11 will piece of work with.

U.Chiliad. customers shouldn't have to worry though. At that place'south much greater unity betwixt the 5G carriers over here, and all of them should offering 5G back up with the Mi eleven according to Xiaomi's specs.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Battery life and charging

The 4,500 mAh battery in the Xiaomi Mi 11 is smaller than boilerplate for a telephone of this size. The Samsung Milky way S21 Ultra has a 6.8-inch screen like the Mi 11, just gets a 5,000 mAh jail cell.

Nonetheless, the Mi 11's bombardment does a good task at keeping the telephone powered up. Later watching an hour of YouTube in total screen mode (the principal bombardment-intensive activeness I use my phones for), the Mi 11 lost viii% of its total charge. That equates to a full day of rampage-watching the remakes of Hamilton songs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which means the Mi xi volition probably handle a day of actual work capably without needing an emergency trip to a charging plug.

The Mi xi as well gets points by non merely including a charger in the box, merely past offering yous a 55W cake to match the phone's maximum charging speed.

There are a few faster charging standards out there, for example, the 65W one used by the OnePlus 8T. But filling your phone to 45% in xv minutes, 80% in 30 and 100% in 48 minutes as you lot can with the Xiaomi Mi eleven is nonetheless respectably fast. It certainly beats the 25W charging offered by the Milky way S21, which doesn't come with an included charger in the box.

The 50W wireless charging on the Mi 11 means y'all should reach almost identical speeds to those higher up without cables. However you lot'll demand one of Xiaomi'due south ain charging pads to hitting that speed and since we don't take one we couldn't check the speed for ourselves.

Finally, the Mi 11 offers opposite wireless charging up to 10W to give a friend's phone a boost of power or to keep your wearables and wireless earbuds topped upwards.

Xiaomi Mi 11 review: Software

The typical Android eleven features come up wrapped in Xiaomi's MIUI 12 on the Mi 11. It balances the super make clean await of stock Android seen on phones like the Google Pixel 5 with the more than modified feature set of something similar the Galaxy S21'south One UI, which is an overall positive.

Among the unique enhancements in MIUI 12 are floating windows, which permit you open a fully functional resizable window of one app over another, either from a notification or via the recent apps screen. All modern Android phones can open two apps in carve up screen, but this gives you more freedom to look at the areas of the apps that you want, apace taking notes from a browser window or even copy and pasting between them just equally one example.

Other handy but less notable features include an always-on display, an optional app drawer, and security offerings like blurring app previews and removing location data from shared photos. MIUI also offers an iOS-style option to divide the notification shade and quick settings card into ii, accessed separately by swiping down from either the left or right side of the summit edge of the screen.

The phone ships with a fair number of bundled-in Xiaomi and tertiary-political party apps. But the Mi 11 is thoughtful enough to pack these away into a scattering of folders for a less messy home screen, assuming you don't want to just delete them all.

Xiaomi Mi eleven review: Verdict

Our Xiaomi Mi eleven review finds an impressive phone, with very few omissions. It would have been nice to have a telephoto camera on the dorsum instead of the telemacro lens, and a bigger battery would have been welcome, also. But fifty-fifty without those features, this phone still comes with premium capabilities comparable to more than expensive phones.

We take little hesitation in recommending this to an Android fan looking for an alternative to Samsung, particularly if you prioritize streaming videos or playing games over capturing photos. Still photography addicts, and specially U.S. shoppers, should wait elsewhere for the time beingness.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff author based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, tablets, gaming, and whatsoever else people need communication on. Following on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he'south likewise written for WIRED U.K., The Register and Artistic Bloq. When non at piece of work, he's probable thinking most how to brew the perfect loving cup of specialty java.