Xiaomi Mi 11 review: A 2021 flagship phone in an affordable package

Turning affordable flagship phones up to 11

Xiaomi’s taking on 2021 with its latest flagship model for Singapore, the Xiaomi Mi 11.

Actually, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is one of the flagship variants of its entire Mi 11 range. Other alternatives are Mi 11 Ultra, Mi 11i, and Mi 11 Lite, with the Lite version packing a mid-range chipset instead. 

Mi 11 has all the core features of what Xiaomi wants to offer in its flagship, without some of its over-the-top features from the Mi 11 Ultra. For instance, Mi 11 doesn’t have the secondary AMOLED display for date/time notifications, nor does it have a multi-point direct ToF laser focusing system for its camera’s autofocusing needs. 

Also, the Mi 11 Ultra comes with a slightly bigger battery capacity (4,600mAh on Mi 11 versus 5,000mAh) and slightly higher fast-charging wattage profiles (50W wired and 55W wireless, versus 67W wired and wireless). 

Outside of the bell and whistles, the Mi 11 does offer everything one would expect from a 5G-capable, flagship-grade phone. We’re looking at a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset underneath its HDR10+, 6.81-inch, 1440p resolution, 120Hz refresh rate AMOLED display. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor and dual Hi-Res Audio-certified speakers tuned by Harman Kardon. The triple rear camera has a 108MP primary sensor. It supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless profiles and even NFC (oddly not mentioned in its official specs list). It even takes two physical Nano-SIM cards with its dual SIM configuration.

Together with its battery features and the latest Android 11 operating system lurking beneath MIUI 12, the value of the Mi 11 poses a threat even against its very own Ultra variant, even if the specs seem like ‘regular’ specs of flagship phones from 2020.

But, will the Xiaomi Mi 11 be able to stand out against its closest Android rivals? Let’s find out.

Design & Handling

Xiaomi’s choice of a frosted-looking plastic back isn’t a new design for flagship smartphones - it’s awfully simlar to recent OnePlus models. Still, we can’t deny it looks decent. They’ve also put in considerable effort to ensure that the metal frame comes in a matching shade, which shows a little more attention to design details.

The rear camera housing also saw extra design effort, but we’re on the fence about how nice it looks. Two of the lens cutouts have an additional raised housing around it, while the entire rear camera array sits on yet another raised platform, which in turn sits on the rear of the phone. This brings multiple protrusions to an otherwise well-made phone. Fewer bumps should’ve been the way to go, not more. For instance, Oppo Find X3 Pro used a sloped contour design to hide rear camera bumps. All that doesn’t yet touch Xiaomi’s jarring colour choices and discontinuity between materials for the Mi 11’s rear camera housing.

We’re nitpicking, but the phone’s design would’ve been even better and more premium-looking if not for the regulatory logos on the rear - Xiaomi already has its logotype emblazoned there, so the additional “Designed by Xiaomi” and all the text and symbols around it felt unnecessary. 

Over at the front, the Mi 11’s quad-curved display actually looks and feels more like a flat display. This is a nice compromise between having a premium appearance (curved look) while retaining the practicality of a flat panel (fewer instances of unintended touch input). 

While it doesn’t have ultra-thin bezels like the Galaxy S21 series, it’s only visible on the corners, top, and bottom rungs. All other inputs and physical features (SIM card slot, speaker grilles, USB-C port) are blended into the sides, with no extra protrusions beyond its physical power/lock button and volume rocker.

There are no major issues with the phone’s handling since it’s sized similarly to most other flagship Android smartphones with a large screen. However, it can be tricky manipulating its physical buttons because they are super thin to the touch.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Mi 11 is not IP-rated for water resistance. If you want IP-rated water resistance, that’s available on the Mi 11 Ultra, though it's not yet available locally.

Display & Audio

The Xiaomi Mi 11 sports a 6.81-inch, curved AMOLED DotDisplay (which just refers to the cutout for the front camera) rated at 3,200 x 1,440 pixels resolution (WQHD+) and 120Hz refresh rate. Certainly respectable specs, but the display packs even many features that make it worthy of its flagship-tier status. 

Specifically for the Mi 11 is its HDR10+ certification, 100% DCI-P3, and a 480Hz touch sampling rate. In a nutshell, it’s capable of playing back HDR10+ content from Netflix and Disney+, has insane colour accuracy, and is extremely responsive to inputs which should satisfy phone gamers.

(Note: HDR10+ support on Xiaomi Mi 11 is not yet listed as supported on Netflix’s website, but its past Mi phones have always supported the format. Disney+ supports it as long as your device can do so.)

If you have neither streaming services, fret not - Mi 11 also comes with built-in 2x upscaling for videos. That means video content at 360p is automatically played back at 720p, and 720p plays back at 1440p, and so on. Subsequent OTA updates from Xiaomi will also make the Mi 11 support 3x upscaling for specific resolutions. 

Other interesting features are its anti-flicker toggle that reduces screen flickering in low-light conditions, along with Reading Mode. Both options are made with eye comfort in mind, so not everything about the Mi 11’s display leans towards power and delivery. Oh, and if you really want a 120Hz refresh rate, don’t forget to head into the Settings app to turn it on, since it’s set to 60Hz by default.

All in all, the viewing experience on Xiaomi’s higher-end devices have come a long way since its initial maximum-value-for-minimum-money approach, where it simply used to be a high-resolution screen on an affordable device. You’re getting an accurate-looking display at a 120Hz refresh rate with decent audio quality to match. It’s a tired pun, but we’re happy to say Xiaomi took its display customisations and performance up to 11, this time around.

In the audio department lies dual speakers tuned with the help of Harman Kardon. Xiaomi placed the speakers slightly askew on both long sides of the phone. Thankfully, that did not negatively impact its soundstage. The audio itself is serviceable, even if a little bloated in fast-paced dance tracks and string-heavy pieces.

Hi-Res Audio certification comes with the Mi 11, so you’re also not limited to Sony Xperia phones if you want higher-than-CD bitrate playback from your music collection for supported file types.

UI & Features

As an Android 11 smartphone out of the box, Xiaomi has packed on its very own skin, MIUI 12. MIUI is similar to most Chinese-made interfaces save for its squarish app icons. Differences from stock Android 11 are mostly aesthetic, like the plain white notifications in the pulldown menu and its Settings app priorities. Swiping right from the Home Screen gives you the Google News fullscreen widget, which is arguably better than iffy third-party widgets that aren’t as practical as news at your fingertips. 

Many MIUI 12 features are either built upon existing Android 11 tools, or are already a part of the featureset in its specific use areas (display, camera, sound, etc.). That left us with the in-display fingerprint sensor and NFC to try, and both work snappily and consistently as intended. If anything, the Mi 11’s NFC feature even lets you set a default payments app and even have a ‘second default’ app if the first doesn’t fire. 

Imaging Performance 

The triple rear camera setup on the Xiaomi Mi 11 packs a 108MP primary lens with a 1/1.33-inch sensor size, 0.8μm pixel size,f/1.85 aperture, and OIS. 4-in-1 Super Pixel is a pixel-binning technique that helps the main camera utilise and combine pixel and light data from neighbouring pixels.

Its accompanying shooters are a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a generous 123° FOV and a 5MP telemacro camera with an autofocus distance of 3 to 10cm. As the name implies, the telemacro lens is responsible for both long-distance shots and extreme close-ups. Other perks on the Mi 11 include Night Mode 2.0 shooting via both its main and ultra-wide cameras.

The phone provides video recording of up to 8k@30fps, but it also has conventional 4K@60fps if you like your fast framerates. Slow-motion recording goes up to 240fps on both 720p and 1080p resolutions. 

Before we go through the sample images, let’s take a closer look at AI Erase 2.0, something that Xiaomi has been talking up for its new phones.

 

AI Erase 2.0

AI Erase 2.0 is a removal tool that lets users take out undesired objects in shots during post-production. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it is - Huawei already has Golden Snap, where one of its imaging sub-features offer a similar result. 

Naturally, we’d be curious about how effective AI Erase can be; below is a sample comparison we’ve done with and without the feature used. Spot any differences?

Frankly, we think that the Mi 11’s AI Erase did a good job in ease of use, but it’s not as complete as Huawei’s AI Remove Passerby feature. We deliberately chose a shot with a challenging background (so many items on sale!) to see the extent of patching up AI Erase could pull off. However, Huawei clearly does a cleaner job, although Xiaomi’s version is simpler and faster to use.

Sample images

Here's where we look at the general capabilities of Mi 11's rear cameras.

Generally speaking, the Xiaomi Mi 11’s cameras offer well-rounded imaging capabilities, but the quality greatly varies depending on the lenses used. The photos from the ultra-wide lens and main camera don’t quite match up - either it’s too noisy even in bright daylight, or it’s softer on the edges, or it has trouble handling detail and vibrant colours. Macro shots are decent, but the lack of OIS in its telemacro camera really hurts close-ups or long-distance shooting. Still, you'd have a decent main camera, so stick to that as much as possible if you're shooting on a Mi 11.

Benchmark Performance

With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset powering the Mi 11, it’s literally one of the fastest and most powerful smartphones you can get in Singapore for now. The only other mainstream option officially available here is the Oppo Find X3 Pro, since it shares the same mobile platform. Snapdragon 888 also lends its 5G support to the device; hence it’s also responsible for your 5G connectivity (assuming you have a 5G data plan).

Besides the Oppo flagship, other worthy competitors of the Mi 11 would be Samsung’s Galaxy S21 series phones. Looking at Xiaomi’s lineup, we’ve decided to pit it against the Galaxy S21+, since it would make more sense to put the Mi 11 Ultra against Samsung flagship alternative, the S21 Ultra.

Other phones we have listed here are flagships from previous years, mostly for reference and comparison purposes. We chose the Mi 10T Pro since it’s the most recent last-gen Xiaomi flagship that was officially released here.

Note: the variant we have on hand has 8G RAM + 128GB storage. Xiaomi sells both 128GB and 256GB variants in Singapore, but the 128GB version is available online only.

JetStream 2.0

JetStream 2 is a combination of a variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, including benchmarks that came before like SunSpider and Octane. It primarily tests for a system’s and browser’s ability in delivering a good web experience. It runs a total of 64 subtests, each weighted equally, with multiple iterations, and takes the geometric mean to compute the overall score.

AnTuTu 

Note: As of 9th March 2020, all AnTuTu benchmarks were removed from the Google Play Store. This move likely arose from Google's attempts to relieve the Play Store of apps that violate their policies. AnTuTu is working with Google to restore their app listing. For this review, we used the APK file that was available on AnTuTu's website.

AnTuTu is an all-in-one benchmark that tests CPU, GPU, memory, and storage. The CPU benchmark evaluates both integer and floating-point performance, and the GPU tests assess 2D and 3D performance, the memory test measures available memory bandwidth and latency, and the storage tests gauge the read and write speeds of a device's flash memory.

The Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro review did not have an AnTuTu benchmark score. 

Our in-house tests saw over-inflated benchmark numbers by Mi 11 (an average of 801,530).  It’s likely that the Mi 11 has been configured to fudge with benchmark results on AnTuTu, seeing how the Oppo Find X3 Pro with the same chipset didn’t report such numbers. As such, we’ve decided to feature the numbers published on AnTuTu’s own benchmark rankings instead, although we aren’t that confident with the public numbers either.

Other benchmark scores in our tests are much more in line with our expectations.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100.

Note: The Geekbench 5 benchmark could not run on Huawei Mate 40 Pro.

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark that tests the full range of OpenGL ES 3.1 and ES 3.0 API features including multiple render targets, instanced rendering, uniform buffers and transform feedback. The test also includes impressive volumetric lighting and post-processing effects. The test's Unlimited mode ignores screen resolutions.

We’re also collecting scores with 3DMark’s new benchmark, Wild Life. Below are the test’s Unlimited Mode scores.

Performance Benchmark Remarks

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset had a strong performance in our previous brush with it (via the Find X3 Pro) - and it was able to repeat that through the Xiaomi Mi 11. For Xiaomi fans who look towards the brand for bang-for-buck performance, you’re still guaranteed flagship-tier processing from this device. In real-world use, the phone is fluid and smooth when browsing generally, and it has no major issues running more demanding stuff like games and photo editing apps. That’s to be expected, and it’s also more apparent why the Mi 11 was able to milk slightly higher performance numbers once we take a look at battery performance below.

Battery life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

The Xiaomi Mi 11 has a 4,600mAh battery that provides 55W wired fast-charging, 50W wireless fast charging, and 10W reverse charging (where you use the phone to charge other devices).

It appears that Xiaomi improved its battery drain, clocking in 641 minutes on the same test that gave the Mi 10T Pro’s lower score. However, the improvements aren’t competitive since the Oppo Find X3 Pro was able to clock in several extra minutes on a smaller battery capacity. This is still good news for fans of Xiaomi’s flagship since they can have a device with a somewhat decent battery life, even if it’s not the longest-lasting flagship Android smartphone in 2021. In return, Mi 11 offers a slight performance edge over similar devices.

The default charging adapter and cable in the box was able to offer 0% to 100% charge in a span of 70 minutes, which is plenty fast. Since a wireless charger wasn’t provided for this review, we’ve not measured its wireless charging speeds. We can verify that wireless charging does work when using third party chargers.

Conclusion

For just S$999 (8GB RAM + 128GB storage) or S$1,099 (8GB RAM + 256GB storage), the Xiaomi Mi 11 seems to do plenty of things right by folks who want to focus on a handful of flagship smartphone perks.

Sure, Xiaomi’s flagship phones are getting more expensive as the years go by, but the brand has gotten a little smarter at picking and choosing what to include and leave out, helping phone users get the most out of their money beyond having a powerful chipset.

In the Mi 11’s case, Xiaomi packed the phone with display features to help it stand toe-to-toe against more expensive alternatives, like the Oppo Find X3 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S21 series. That’s further ensured with decent main camera performance where casual shooters can get high-quality shots without much hassle, and a semi-functional AI Erase tool. The cherry on top is fast-charging, which offers a full charge if you have roughly an hour to do so. Other flagship perks are its NFC support, in-display fingerprint sensor, and of course, wireless charging.

That’s not to say the Mi 11 did everything perfectly. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing or thoughtful as Oppo’s or Samsung’s flagships. Mi 11 also favours power over battery life, which makes little sense for the phone to offer 10W reverse wireless charging. Imaging performance outside of the main camera could use a little more love. Audio, while serviceable, isn’t going to turn heads. Finally, it’s also a flagship that doesn’t have IP-rated water resistance, which is a bit of a letdown for thousand-dollar product. Also, there's no expandable storage option, so you've to choose wisely from the get-go and live with it.

On the contrary, Samsung's Galaxy S20 FE offers almost everything the Mi 11 missed out such as a water and just resistance build, a more pleasantly designed phone with far more colour options, expandable storage and a more polished Samsung's UI and camera functionality for almost the same price point. Sure, the Mi 11 technically has a better screen, but the Galaxy S20 FE doesn't fall far while providing more features to boot. However there's one aspect the Galaxy S20 FE can't match and that's in raw performance by virtue of the newer Snapdragon processor on the Mi 11.

So, if you want a fast, affordable device that’s also great for watching shows, the Xiaomi Mi 11 seems like a no-brainer choice if that’s all you’re willing to fork out for. We’d suggest running about with a power bank, too, to get the most out of the phone’s overwhelming speeds. It’s also currently one of the most affordable phones with Snapdragon 888 now, so that’s one more reason to consider getting a Mi 11 over other better polished Android flagship alternatives.

If you're convinced of the phone's proposition, you can buy the Xiaomi Mi 11 here.