Xiaomi has unveiled the Mi 11 with the Snapdragon 888, making it the first phone to have Qualcomm’s latest and greatest chipset.
While the company’s previous offerings had standard and Pro variants, the Mi 11 comes with one standard model, though with Pro-level of specs.
As said, you get the new Snapdragon 888 processor — the first on any smartphone, but not the last. To cool down the powerful chipset, the phone has a vapor chamber cooling system, while at the helm is 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
The brand-new silicon drives a 6.81-inch OLED panel with some perks. The screen has QHD+ resolution (3,200 x 1,440 pixel), making it the first Mi flagship phone since the Mi Note Pro which came back in 2015. There’s also a 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate up from Mi 10’s 90Hz refresh rate screens. Besides that, the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus and has a peak brightness of 1,500 nits.
If you look at the number, that’s a really bright screen. In fact, Xiaomi says that the Mi 11 screen shattered 13 records of DisplayMate, which includes peak brightness for OLED panels, screen reflectivity, contrast, and color accuracy.
What about the charger and fast charging?
The phone is really powerful — thanks to the new processor — there’s no doubt, but it doesn’t mean anything if there’s not enough juice to power it up. Xiaomi, though, has got you covered with a 4,600mAh battery, claiming it to last at least a full day of usage.
Even if the battery drains out, you’ll be able to charge the phone via Xiaomi’s Mi Charge Turbo system. It brings 55W wired charging to the table which charges the phone fully in 45 minutes, whilst the 50W wireless charging tops up the phone in 53 minutes. The phone also has 10W reverse wireless charging.
There had been reports that Xiaomi would remove the charger from the box, but the new solution is quite consumer-friendly — most probably to avoid the backlash.
There will be no in-box charger for the Mainland China market, but Xiaomi will ship two versions of the phones, one with just a smartphone, and the other with the smartphone as well as a 55W charger, for the same price.
Other notable features
Let’s get to the meat of the matter — the camera. The Xiaomi Mi 11 comes with 108MP primary camera with f/1.85 aperture, 1/1.33-inch sensor size, and OIS. Then there’s a 13MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.4 lens and 123-degree FoV, and finally a 5MP telephoto macro sensor with f/2.4 lens and 50mm equivalent. Although the phone lacks a punch in the telephoto camera, it brings 8K recordings, four-in-one pixel binned shots with a 108MP camera, and night video mode for low light video shots.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 offers MIUI 12.5 out of the box — the first phone to come with it, bringing in vast new features like super wallpaper options, nature-inspired system notification sounds, and other features. It also brings major privacy features, including sandboxed access for apps that need access to storage, web tracking protection, and more.
Aside from that, the phone brings Harman Kardon stereo speakers, heart rate detection through the in-display fingerprint sensor, IR blaster, NFC, WiFi 6E, and more.
The new Xiaomi Mi 11 starts at CNY 3,999 (~NPR 71,950) for the 8GB/128GB option, CNY 4299 (~NPR 77,348) for the 8GB/256GB variant, and CNY 4,699 (~NPR 84,500) for the 12GB/256GB model. The phone will go on sale in China via retailers including Mi.com, Tmall, and Suning on January 1.
