Two-minute evaluate

If somebody advised us the Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely was a parody of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely and iPhone 12 Professional Max-style superphones, we might most likely consider them. Its characteristic set and design evoke these luxurious telephones, but it surely turns it as much as 11 with one further characteristic that appears virtually sarcastic.

This ‘further’ is the rear digicam bump, a fabric memo from Xiaomi that appears to say “You need extra? You have received extra.” It is completely enormous, and it does not simply home three highly effective cameras with big lenses – it features a 1.1-inch secondary show too.

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely (256GB Black) at Newegg for $999 (opens in new tab)

Why does this cellphone have a second display? Who is aware of. Mobiles have thus far received by with out rear shows (no offense, Nubia Z20). It is simply certainly one of a number of pointless additions that the Mi 11 Extremely has – however then once more, it might be argued that lots of the further options any such superphone has are equally gratuitous.

This characteristic is our greatest challenge with the Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely, as its heft actively detracts from the person expertise in plenty of methods. You may’t put the cellphone flat on some wi-fi charging mats, it barely matches in pockets, and instances don’t actually defend the cellphone with a bump that dimension. As well as, the second-screen features vary from ineffective (an always-on show that hardly works) to essentially annoying (music controls typically pop up on it, in a spot that’s very easy to by chance contact).

It’s very seemingly that this massive rear digicam bump can be responsible for the Mi 11 Extremely’s enormous worth, although the all-around prime specs most likely don’t assist. Given how the mound detracted from our enjoyment of the cellphone we will’t assist however image a model of the cellphone with a smaller digicam bump and improved design, and certainly such a cellphone exists – it’s referred to as the Mi 11.

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely may be very, similar to the Mi 11 – the Extremely has that larger digicam bump, higher cameras, sooner charging and a better worth, however the telephones have much more in widespread than they don’t. The screens are similar, with 2K decision and 120Hz refresh charges, and the chipsets, rear materials, entrance digicam, fingerprint scanner, reverse wi-fi cost velocity and audio capabilities are all the identical too – and given the value and options, the ‘customary’ cellphone is a significantly better purchase.

Saying that, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely remains to be an ideal gadget – should you can someway look previous its eye-catching flaw, which is less complicated mentioned than carried out.

You’ll discover three rear cameras on the Mi 11 Extremely: a ‘customary’, ultra-wide and periscope zoom, with resolutions of 50MP, 48MP and 48MP respectively. They’re all top-of-the-line snappers, with the latter digicam hitting 10x hybrid or 120x digital zoom.

Due to the {hardware} on show right here, we took some completely beautiful footage with the cellphone – though there are one or two points with sure modes (and one of many lenses).

Trending: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra Price in USA – Mobile57

The Snapdragon 888 processor makes the Mi 11 Extremely snappy to make use of, which is particularly helpful for gaming, but it surely’s additionally nice for once you’re modifying images and movies. An overheating challenge with the gadget can typically mitigate the highly effective processor, although.

We’ve additionally received to commend the show, with its 2K decision and 120Hz refresh charge, because it makes content material look nice, whether or not you’re streaming Netflix or scrolling by way of social media. The charging speeds are one other characteristic we discovered super-useful, because the 67W wired powering boosts the cellphone up in (virtually) no time in any respect.

Studying this evaluate, you’ll most likely have the identical thought course of we did on opening the cellphone – we marveled at its design, its spec record, its digicam samples, and had been prepared to offer it full marks.

However over a month of truly utilizing the factor as our customary cellphone, cracks began forming (not literal ones, however simply as troubling), which is why we’ve received a way more combined opinion of the cellphone. We nonetheless prefer it – actually on the time of writing it simply squeezes onto our record of the very best Xiaomi telephones, but it surely’s nowhere close to the highest of that record.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely worth and availability

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely has a super-high worth – it prices £1,199 / AU$1,799 (that’s roughly $1,600, although Xiaomi doesn’t promote its telephones within the US). In case you’re fast along with your worth conversions, you’ll see the handset prices deal extra within the UK than in Australia, so it’s a greater deal within the latter nation.

At that worth, the cellphone is competing with rivals just like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely at $1,199 / £1,149 / AU$1,849, and the iPhone 12 Professional Max, which prices $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,849. In contrast to Samsung and Apple, although, Xiaomi hasn’t had a globally-released cellphone come out at this ultra-high worth level, so that is uncharted territory for the corporate.

Design

• Big physique which is difficult to slot in pockets
• Large digicam bump with rear show
• Corning Gorilla Glass Victus

This can be a monster of a cellphone. The Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely could be massive for a handset even when it didn’t have that large rear bump; with it, the factor is a blunt weapon.

The cellphone has dimensions of 164.3 x 74.6 x 8.4mm – the digicam bump isn’t included there, however we’d estimate that it pushes the thickness over 10mm. It weighs 234g, so that you’ll solely discover heavier handsets within the realm of big gaming telephones.

On the proper fringe of the cellphone are the facility button, which we discovered pretty straightforward to achieve, and quantity rocker. On the underside edge there’s a USB-C port, however no 3.5mm headphone jack – sorry, wired audio followers. The cellphone has a dual-SIM slot, however no microSD card slot, so there’s no expandable storage.

On paper, it sounds just like the cellphone is properly protected. Its glass again is fabricated from Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, which is a toughened kind of glass – although ‘robust… for glass’, doesn’t communicate volumes on the fabric’s hardiness. The cellphone can be IP68 protected in opposition to water and mud.

Trending: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra – CECT-SHOP.com

Now onto the elephant within the room – or the elephant on the cellphone. The rear digicam bump is eye-catchingly enormous, as a result of it homes three big lenses and a secondary show, and its presence on the gadget may be very a lot felt.

It’s exhausting to suit the Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely in a smaller pocket – we typically discovered ourselves carrying it in our backpack as a result of it simply didn’t slot in a few of our denims, which is hardly essentially the most accessible place on your cellphone. The in-the-box case barely covers the cellphone, and the bump is left completely uncovered when the case is used, which made us worry {that a} drop may injury the cameras and the mini show.

There are some enjoyable points to the bump. We may use it to hook the cellphone onto our laptop computer, which was a useful manner of letting us multi-task (though one which’s completely pointless provided that we may have simply split-screened on the laptop computer), and when holding the cellphone in panorama we may use the bump as a grip, a la a Kindle Oasis, as an alternative of holding the perimeters. Nevertheless, any such novelties the bump brings are greater than offset by the annoyances.

Show

• 6.81-inch 120Hz show with 1440 x 3200 decision
• Display screen appears to be like nice
• Rear 1.1-inch show with a number of features

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely has the very same show because the ‘vanilla’ Mi 11 – it’s a 6.81-inch smartphone-screen powerhouse, curved on the edges, with a cut-out for the entrance digicam within the top-left nook.

At that dimension, the cellphone has one of many greatest shows we’ve seen on a cellphone; it is not simply ‘Extremely’ in identify.

With a 1440 x 3200 decision, the display is higher-res than the usual 1080p most telephones use; and with a 120Hz refresh charge, HDR 10+ assist, 1700 nits max brightness and AMOLED expertise, it’s one of many best-looking shows we’ve seen on a cellphone.

There’s additionally an in-screen fingerprint scanner right here. Xiaomi telephones have prior to now had points with this piece of tech, as they’ll usually be temperamental to make use of, and whereas the Mi 11 Extremely doesn’t have the identical points because the Mi 11, we nonetheless usually needed to elevate and change our thumb to get the scanner to acknowledge our print.

So what concerning the rear 1.1-inch display? Properly, this is similar show because the Xiaomi Mi Band 6 has, however in contrast to on that multi-talented sports activities band, this rear panel is simply used for 3 distinct duties.

Its fundamental use is as an always-on show, so once you place your gadget screen-down you’ll be able to nonetheless see the time and your battery degree. Nevertheless, whereas that’s the idea, it’s not truly ‘all the time’ on – it switches off after a short time, so it’s not too helpful.

The rear show additionally works as a viewfinder for pictures, so once you’re taking an image of somebody with the rear cameras they’ll see how they give the impression of being. As you’ll be able to think about, nonetheless, a 1.1-inch display is difficult to see from a distance, so the show doesn’t work for this objective very properly both – plus, the viewfinder solely works in default Picture mode, not Portrait, which you’d most likely be utilizing to take a snap of somebody.

Trending: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra Price In USA

Lastly – and once more, in concept – should you’re enjoying music, a skip again, play/pause and skip ahead button seem on this rear panel – in concept, it’s best to be capable of use these as straightforward methods to manage your music, however in observe we discovered it the only most annoying side of the cellphone.

These buttons solely appeared sporadically – typically we might flip the cellphone and so they would not seem, and typically they’d be lively even after we had been holding the cellphone in common vogue, with the rear display dealing with away from us.

Why was this annoying? As a result of it was very straightforward to by chance press the rear show and skip a monitor; we might steadily be holding the cellphone as regular, just for our finger to by chance contact the rear show and pause or skip the tune. Much more annoyingly, this might simply occur when the cellphone was in a pocket too, and we might usually be strolling alongside, minding our enterprise and listening to some music, solely to have our tune randomly restart, or the podcast we had been listening to repeatedly leap ahead by 10 seconds.

Of all our gripes with the rear bump, the music participant challenge is what has us cursing it essentially the most. Certain, it looks like a minor grievance, however given how steadily many people hearken to music on our telephones, and the way usually we skilled the problem, it’s an issue many customers of this cellphone shall be bumping up in opposition to time and time once more.

Cameras

• 50MP fundamental, 48MP ultra-wide, 48MP periscope, 20MP selfie cameras
• Most cameras work properly, and there are many modes
• Extremely-wide and macro photographs look questionable

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Extremely has three rear cameras, the identical quantity because the iPhone 12 Professional Max and one fewer than the Samsung Galaxy S21 Extremely or OnePlus 9 Professional, however amount doesn’t essentially equate to high quality relating to smartphone pictures – removed from it in lots of instances.

These are 50MP f/2.0 fundamental, 48MP f/2.2 ultra-wide and 48MP f/4.1 periscope cameras, with the latter hitting 5x optical and 120x digital zoom. There’s additionally a 20MP f/2.2 front-facing snapper.

Photos taken on the primary digicam look improbable – they’re brilliant and daring, with natural-looking depth results and plenty of element. Xiaomi’s option to prioritize a big sensor dimension over excessive decision, as within the Mi 11 with its 108MP snapper, clearly pays off right here.

In well-lit settings particularly, but in addition to an admirable diploma in low-light circumstances, photographs had been sharp, and publicity was dealt with properly too. It’s exhausting to fault images taken with the primary digicam, as you’ll be able to see within the ‘Digicam samples’ part beneath.

Subsequent, to the periscope digicam, which handles zoom photographs. We had been impressed by snaps taken with this, particularly at 5x optical zoom. These footage had been simply as daring and detailed as un-zoomed ones, and truly regarded fairly comparable – and sometimes we discovered 5x zoom higher than 1x zoom for images, because it improved the framing of a snap with out resulting in a loss in high quality.

High quality drops off once you zoom in far although, particularly in the direction of the 120x finish the cellphone goes as much as (enormous most zoom ranges like this are a pleasant gimmick, however the footage are seldom very usable). Hybrid footage at 10x zoom, which mix digital and optical zoom, are literally fairly spectacular although, and we took some sharp footage with this extra modest vary.