Xiaomi has made some minor improvements to its line of “category B” flagships this year. The previous year’s 10T Pro had an IPS-TFT screen with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, but the new 11T Pro boasts an excellent quality AMOLED screen that can be refreshed up to 120 Hz. It also features the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 888 processor, stereo speakers and a powerful battery. However, it lacks inductive charging and full waterproofing at the IP68 level. The camera set is also at least one tier lower than that of other flagships, although the manufacturer emphasizes its photo and video capabilities in its marketing message.
The second most notable feature is the 120W charger, which charges the phone incredibly quickly. It can charge the battery from zero to 100 percent in just 20 minutes, and from 1 or 2 percent in only 17 minutes. After testing the phone, it is clear that this is a huge advantage, as other top smartphones often require up to an hour to charge. With this charging speed, just a few minutes of charging can give you a full day and a half of use.
But is this enough to justify the cost of the phone? Lets reed
The main advantages and disadvantages of Xiaomi 11T Pro
Advantages of Xiaomi 11T Pro :
- 120W lightning-fast charging
- Very good quality of workmanship
- Perfect, flat AMOLED screen
- Refreshing up to 120 Hz
- Top performance
- Infrared LED for controlling home devices
- Very good sound on external stereo speakers
- No software errors
Disadvantages of Xiaomi 11T Pro :
- Big and heavy
- Not fully waterproof at IP68 level
- No inductive charging
- Broke OIS
Design
The phone is quite large and heavy, weighing in at 204g, which can definitely be felt in your hand. The reason for the size is due to its large dimensions, measuring 164.1 x 76.9 x 8.8 mm, and its uncompromising build quality. The device features glass on the front and back, Gorilla Glass Victus, and an aluminum frame instead of plastic. The manufacturer also provides a transparent silicone case for protection, although the device will still wobble on an even surface due to the two-stage island with cameras that protrudes quite a bit.
The Meteorite Gray version has stylish brushed aluminum backs, but unfortunately, the texture is covered with a thin glass surface that is slippery, collects fingerprints and is susceptible to breaking.
At the bottom of the device, there is a slot for two SIM cards and a USB-C input, as well as one of two speakers. The second speaker is located on the top edge, but the sound also comes out through the speaker for calls. Both are signed with the Harman-Kardon brand and support Dolby Atmos. The speakers produce clean, deep sound without distortion even at the highest volume, making them perfect for watching movies, playing games, and listening to music. The phone also supports aptX HD and aptX Adaptive codecs for exemplary sound quality on headphones.
The fingerprint reader is located on the right side of the device and is flawless and fast. The phone can also be unlocked using facial recognition, and the screen lights up when lifted. A special widget can be used to fade out the button.
On the top edge, in addition to the speaker, there is an infrared diode, and in applications, we will find Mi Pilot. The device has an IP53 rating, which means it is resistant to splashes and dust, but not fully water-resistant like IP65 and 68 levels.
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Display
The Xiaomi 11T Pro boasts an excellent screen. The AMOLED display measures 6.67 inches diagonally, with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels and a 20:9 aspect ratio. It supports a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, has HDR10+ support, Dolby Vision certification, and a maximum brightness of 1000 nits (800 nits typical). The screen is easily visible in all lighting conditions, and viewing angles are great. Color saturation is strong and vibrant, and there are multiple settings to adjust the screen to your liking, including color scheme, adaptive colors, and temperature. More advanced settings allow for color gamut, hue, contrast, and gamma adjustments. The AI image engine comes with super resolution, image enhancement, HDR, and MEMC, and the automatic brightness control works very well. The selfie camera is centrally located in a medium-sized hole and has a good quality protective layer to prevent fingerprint smudging. The Xiaomi 11T Pro is highly customizable with five super wallpapers and plenty of themes to choose from after logging into your Xiaomi account. There’s also the Always on Display feature, which offers many styles and settings to show notifications from all applications. The proximity sensor that turns off the screen during calls works perfectly.
Specification, operating system
Xiaomi 11T Pro is equipped with Snapdragon 888 processor and Adreno 660 graphics chip, which includes 1×2.84 GHz Kryo 680, 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 680, and 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 680 cores. Our test version had 8GB RAM and 256GB of built-in memory with UFS 3.1 storage.
One of the main concerns is whether the Snapdragon 888 processor causes the phone to overheat and results in a quick drop in performance, which is a common issue for most phones that use this processor. In our tests, the Xiaomi 11T Pro performed quite poorly on AnTuTu V9 benchmark, which indicates that additional software optimization or processor throttling might be needed to prevent overheating.
After several 3DMark tests, the phone became noticeably warm around the camera area, but it still functioned perfectly. During gameplay (PUBG, The Witcher), there was a significant increase in temperature, but we did not notice any drop in performance.
Overall, the performance of the Xiaomi 11T Pro is outstanding, with instant app and program loading times. However, occasional slight animation frame drops can occur even with 120 Hz refresh rate enabled.
The phone supports LTE, 5G, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC for communication. For location services, it uses GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, and NAVIC. The set of sensors includes an accelerometer, proximity, light, magnetometer, gyroscope, gravity, Hall effect, and fingerprint reader.
Xiaomi 11T Pro runs on Android 11 with MIUI Global overlay. At the time of testing, the security update was from July.
I was particularly impressed by the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s lack of software errors. Unfortunately, the MIUI overlay has a reputation for being functional but messy. With such a large number of devices released by Xiaomi, programmers struggle to refine the overlay for each model, resulting in the occurrence of errors. However, I was pleasantly surprised as everything worked flawlessly. I had no delays in receiving notifications or problems with opening Messenger, which was an issue on my POCO F 3.
The overlay includes a host of improvements from other Xiaomi devices such as Mi Pilot, Control Panel (for granting permissions to applications), Game Turbo, a gaming zone, voice recorder, QR code scanner, screen recording, speaker cleaning, different gestures for selected activities, and even beautification for video calls. It also has a second space and a company mode. Furthermore, several pre-installed applications such as LinkedIn, eBay, and TikTok can be uninstalled if not needed.
Camera
The camera set in Xiaomi 11T Pro looks like this:
- main lens 108 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.52″, 0.7µm, PDAF;
- wide-angle 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚, 1/4″, 1.12µm;
- makro 5 MP, f/2.4, 50mm, 1/5.0″, 1.12µm, AF;
- selfie 16 MP, f/2.5, 1/3.06″, 1.0µm.
One noticeable aspect of Xiaomi’s Mi 11 Lite 5G is the absence of optical image stabilization (OIS), which is a module that the company uses sparingly and is also absent in the Mi 11i. Other smartphones available for around PLN 2,000 come equipped with OIS. The photo-taking app is similar to the one found on other Xiaomi devices. However, the super macro option (for both photos and videos) is not easily accessible on the top bar and cannot be added to the bottom bar. Nonetheless, the 5 MP camera can capture interesting photos with satisfactory details in good lighting. An AI feature assists in selecting the best settings, but it can be turned off. Additionally, there is an automatic HDR mode, numerous filters and beautification options, and film effects and cloning features for both photos and videos, which are highlighted in the company’s marketing message.
Xiaomi has significantly improved the quality of their pictures in recent years. The main matrix produces sharp and detailed photos with a great tonal range. The HDR in auto mode works exceptionally well. Colors are vibrant and slightly enhanced when AI is turned on, giving the photos a slightly “Samsung” style. However, there is no impression of artificiality. If you’re looking for detail, the 108 MP photos have much more to offer. The zoom is digital, but the 2x value is excellent, and the 5x is still acceptable. The wide-angle lens produces photos with a similar color scheme to the main lens, which is a plus. However, there is much less detail on the sides of the frames, which is a minus. Ideally, a phone in this class should have 16 MP instead of 8 MP.
Night photos look best with the main lens, which produces bright photos. However, the amount of detail in these photos leaves much to be desired. The wide-angle lens is weak, and even with night mode, the photos are dark with virtually no details. Shots with lighting come out better with both lenses. Unfortunately, there is a lack of optical image stabilization, which would undoubtedly help in this type of photography.
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The portrait mode works really well, accurately blurring the background, which can be adjusted after taking the photo. It’s possible to record videos in 8K, 4K 30 and 60 FPS, with HDR and additional video stabilization. However, if the first option is chosen, recordings are only available in 4K 30 FPS, and in the second option, they are limited to FHD 30 FPS. Audio zoom is also available.
The recording quality may vary depending on the resolution chosen. 8K videos have a lot of details but no stabilization, so it’s best to use a tripod when shooting in this resolution. Lower resolutions, such as FHD, are better stabilized and produce good-quality images. However, the 4K resolution can also be praised for its quality.
Sample pictures:
Battery
The phone’s battery has a large capacity of 5000 mAh. With the 120 Hz refresh rate turned on, it typically lasted me a day and a half, which is impressive. What’s more, the 120W charger is incredibly fast, meaning you don’t have to worry about running out of energy. Even if you only have access to a socket for a short while, just 15 minutes of charging will fully charge the 11T Pro. While the phone does get a bit warm during charging, it’s not as hot as I expected. However, the charger itself gets quite warm. According to Xiaomi, the battery won’t suffer from such fast charging, and its lifespan will be similar to other batteries. However, only time will tell if this is true. It’s worth noting that there is no inductive charging available.
Conclusion
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is an exceptional phone that boasts a large and sturdy structure with top-notch performance. It also features an excellent display, great multimedia, and very good photo quality. Moreover, the software has been refined, which is a welcome improvement. What makes this phone stand out is its ultra-fast charging capability. The charging speed is so impressive that I never had to worry about running out of battery for over two weeks. While other smartphones keep me tethered to the socket for an hour or longer, the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s charging speed is lightning-fast. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the qualitative change it brought. Kudos to Xiaomi for this great innovation provided that the phone can withstand the hardships of fast charging in the long run. Of course, it would have been great to have inductive charging, full waterproofness, and optical image stabilization. Nonetheless, I can confidently recommend the Xiaomi 11T Pro.
We love: ultra-fast charging
We don’t like: lack of waterproofness
Who is Xiaomi 11T Pro for :
- active
- in need of a versatile device
- who value great quality of workmanship
- AMOLED screen lovers
- People who play a lot of music and movies
Who is Xiaomi 11T Pro not for :
- People who don’t like large devices
- requiring the IP 68 standard
- requiring inductive charging
- Those who need the highest quality night photos
