Smart Android And Trik-Commenting on Andorid indeed never endless, because smart devices this one is often updated every certain amount of time. So that the market can always be garapnya menerinya with pleasure. And it is not denied if this device has become the lifestyle of each society. To not wonder if the 6th business information and many are turning to mobail smartphone. With Android which thoroughly dominated the mobile industry, choosing the best Android smartphone is almost identical to choose the best smartphone, period. But while Android phones have few real opponents on other platforms, internal competition is intense.
Introduction
The Mi 11X is the latest premium mid-range offering from Xiaomi in India. It's part of a series of two devices, the other being the Mi 11X Pro, which also launched alongside last week.
The Mi 11X is essentially a rebranded Redmi K40 or Poco F3 for the Indian market. The three phones are identical to each other save for the name printed on their backs.
The reason it's been renamed to Mi 11X in India is likely because the Redmi name is more synonymous with budget devices, and the Poco branding these days is being reserved for lower mid-range models. Since this model is on the pricier side for Xiaomi in India, it gets the more premium Mi branding.
Xiaomi Mi 11X specs at a glance:
- Body: 163.7x76.4x7.8mm, 196g. Glass front (Gorilla Glass 5), glass back (Gorilla Glass 5), plastic frame.
- Display: 6.67" Super AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 1300 nits (peak), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 395ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8250-AC Snapdragon 870 5G (7 nm): Octa-core (1x3.2 GHz Kryo 585 & 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4x1.80 GHz Kryo 585); Adreno 650.
- Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM; UFS 3.1.
- OS/Software: Android 11, MIUI 12.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 48 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/2", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra-wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚; Macro: 5 MP, f/2.4, 50mm, 1/5.0", 1.12µm.
- Front camera: 20 MP, f/2.5, (wide), 1/3.4", 0.8µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120/240/960fps, gyro-EIS; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, 720p@120fps.
- Battery: 4520mAh; Fast charging 33W.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); Infrared port.
However, true to Xiaomi ethos, the Mi 11X is very well specced for the price, which starts at INR 29,999 ($400). You get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset, a 120Hz AMOLED display, triple rear camera, 4520mAh battery, and 33W fast charging. Compared to the OnePlus 9R, which packs a similar feature set, the Mi 11X is a cool INR 10,000 ($135) cheaper.
Of course, not everything can be evaluated on paper, and some things have to be tried in person. So we spent a week with the Mi 11X, and this is what we found.
Unboxing
The Mi 11X comes with a fairly standard retail bundle, consisting of the phone, a 33W fast charger, a USB 2.0 cable, and a soft silicone case.
Design
The Mi 11X is a reasonably attractive phone. It features all the trappings of a modern smartphone, such as thin bezels, a small notch, a glossy glass back, and a sizable camera assembly on the back. The phone comes in three colors, Cosmic Black, Lunar White, and Celestial Silver. The silver has a unique finish that makes it shift hues depending upon the angle of the light hitting it.
The Mi 11X is also a fairly large smartphone. At 196g, it's also not particularly light. However, at just 7.8mm, the phone is quite thin, making it still relatively easy to use and carry.
The front of the phone has fairly thin bezels with aggressively curved corners. The camera hole at the top is centered and remarkably small. However, Xiaomi has put a silver reflective ring around the lens (like on some Samsung phones), which brings undue attention towards the camera and defeats the purpose of having a small, discreet cutout.
The sides of the phone are made out of plastic and have a two-tone finish. Most of the sides have a matte finish, but there's a hint of gloss running around the edges, and the top and bottom sides are entirely glossy.
The right side of the phone houses the power button and the volume button. The power button also doubles as a fingerprint sensor, although it's not the usual flat buttons we see that have this functionality. The button on the Mi 11X looks like a standard button with a raised design.
The top of the phone houses grilles for the loudspeaker, which also doubles as the earpiece. The phone does have an extremely thin grille facing the front, but the actual speaker seems to be somewhere inside the phone and not near where the grilles are. Also on top is the IR blaster.
On the bottom is a dual SIM tray on the left, a USB-C 2.0 port in the middle, and the other loudspeaker on the right.
The back of the phone is made out of the same Gorilla Glass 5 as the front. Our Cosmic Black variant didn't have any fancy pattern, just a glossy layer with a mirror finish that has an extreme affinity for fingerprints. The camera assembly in the corner has the triple-lens system with a third microphone and LED flash. The camera bump on this isn't as pronounced but it's enough to rock the phone on a hard surface.
The build quality of the phone is unremarkable. The plastic frame isn't particularly offensive but it also doesn't feel great to touch. The IP53 rating is also one of the barest minimum ratings you can get and while it's better than no protection at all, it also doesn't guarantee much. Despite that, the phone still feels reasonably premium and well worth the asking price.
Display
The Mi 11X has a 6.67-inch, 2400x1800 resolution AMOLED display. The display supports a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz and HDR, although it's only an 8-bit panel.
Under the MIUI display settings, the user has the option to change the color calibration. By default, the display is set to produce oversaturated, vivid colors and can also modulate the contrast under bright sunlight for better visibility. You can optionally change it to the original color preset, which will set the display to the correct color profile for the currently viewed content.
Display settings
You can also dig deeper and set the color space, color temperature, RGB values, contrast, gamma, hue, and saturation manually. This is a fairly elaborate set of options and can be useful if you intend to perform a manual calibration in the future, but you will need additional hardware to verify your results.
The color performance in the original color preset is excellent and the display looked great with a variety of content. Because it adjusts the color space based on the content, the display is always using the correct color profile, and so everything largely looks as it should. While we didn't test this particular unit for color calibration, you can check out our Poco F3 review for stats on the color performance.
The display on the Mi 11X can get reasonably bright both indoors and outdoors. However, the issue with the display is not whether it can get bright but rather if it will stay that way. The highest brightness level that you can manually set cannot be sustained by the display for more than a short amount of time.
If you are indoors in a relatively cool environment, you can sustain the maximum brightness for a few minutes but eventually, the display will drop brightness when it gets warm. If you are outdoors under the sun, it takes just a few seconds for the phone to immediately drop the brightness by a serious amount, making it hard to see, especially if you are trying to use the camera. Similarly, if you are playing games, the brightness drops significantly when the phone starts heating up, and then it drops again when it gets even hotter. By the end of it, you can barely see what's happening on the screen, even if you are indoors.
Display at max brightness before and after it overheats
This has to be the most aggressive brightness control that we have seen implemented on a smartphone display and makes the maximum brightness just something to adorn the spec sheets. The maximum brightness level is usually inaccessible when you most need it, like when you're outdoors under the sun.
The display is capable of a maximum 120Hz refresh rate but is set to 60Hz by default. Even if you set the display to 120Hz, based on the app and the content, the refresh rate can drop down to 90Hz or 60Hz. The display will also drop down to 60Hz if you stop interacting with it momentarily.
Refresh rate setting
Unlike some other Xiaomi models, the Mi 11X does not support additional refresh rates. There are no 30Hz, 48Hz, or 50Hz modes for 24, 25, 30, 48, or 50fps content. All video is played back at 60Hz regardless of the frame rate, which can result in telecine judder.
Moreover, the phone will also drop down the refresh rate of the display to 60Hz in popular video apps such as Netflix or YouTube, which means even the app UI is locked to 60Hz, not just the video playback. This is a departure from other Xiaomi phones that support adaptive refresh rates, such as the Mi 10T Pro, which supports full 144Hz for the app UI and adaptive refresh rates for the video playback.
The good thing is, unlike OnePlus, Xiaomi keeps the maximum display refresh rate unlocked for games to take full advantage of. Unless a game specifies a particular refresh rate, it will run at the maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.
The touchscreen supports a 360Hz touch sampling rate. The display was pretty responsive in our use, including in gaming. However, our unit occasionally registered some ghost touches and other times ignored intentional presses. This seems like something that can and should be fixed in software.
The Mi 11X offers a bunch of video-related features, which let you control the audio and visual aspects of the videos played on the device. This includes options to increase the clarity of the sound and even add live color filters to the video. One such feature is MEMC, which is supposed to reduce motion blur in the video. On other devices, this feature works by doubling the frame rate of the video by inserting alternate interpolated frames but on the Mi 11X, it didn't seem to be doing anything. Toggling this feature left the video frame rate untouched and the video itself looked no different.
Display features
The Mi 11X is capable of playing HDR10 and HDR10+ content. The display is just 8-bit, so it can't display the full range of colors in HDR content but for most parts, colors still look great. The real issue is with the brightness; while the display is at its maximum brightness, the content looks great. However, as mentioned before, the display cannot sustain this brightness for longer than a few minutes so after some time it will drop down, which will essentially turn your HDR video into SDR.
Video features
Overall, the display on the Mi 11X offers really good image quality, and the 120Hz refresh rate makes it a pleasure to use. However, we wish Xiaomi had included the adaptive refresh rate feature for video playback. The display was usable at maximum brightness for more than a few minutes or seconds.
Battery Life
We didn't conduct a full battery life test on the Mi 11X as it's likely identical to the Poco F3 that we have reviewed in the past. However, in our usage, the Mi 11X lasts about a day or so with around 20 hours of usage on a single charge.
Battery life
The phone comes with a 33W fast charger. Xiaomi claims 52 minutes to charge the phone completely, but it took just over an hour in our test with the always-on display enabled. Unfortunately, there's no wireless charging option on the Mi 11X.
Software
Our Mi 11X was running MIUI 12.0.3 on top of Android 11 at the time of testing with the February security patch. We currently have no exact timeline of when this device will be getting the announced MIUI 12.5 update.
MIUI continues to be a bit of an acquired taste. Aesthetically, the UI still carries a lot of the iOS influence from previous versions, even though many of the other Android skins have moved on towards looking like Android itself. The homescreen, for example, still has the fixed square icons and the default layout is the one where all the apps are on the homescreen instead of in an app drawer. The irony of this is that even iOS has an app drawer these days.
MIUI 12
Xiaomi has also fashioned its notifications, especially the new control center, after iOS, with many of the UI elements looking like a near copy of Apple's UI. This carries over to many other parts of the UI, and eventually, you wonder at what point Xiaomi is going to get over its obsession with Apple's design. Surely the company has carved itself enough identity on the global landscape that it doesn't have to come across as a cheap Chinese iPhone knock-off anymore.
Moving away from the Apple-ness of the UI, the Xiaomi-ness is probably more bothersome. The phone is just riddled with a bunch of unnecessary apps when you first boot it up, including first party, third party, and from Google (who is increasingly becoming the biggest supplier of bloatware on Android). Some of these can be removed easily, others can only be done via ADB, the latter of which is not recommended unless you know what you're doing.
Installed apps
Some features cannot be removed, such as the Security app, which houses features such as anti-virus, memory cleaner, storage cleaner, and more. These features are of dubious value and mostly just avenues for the company to show more ads.
Security app
Speaking of ads, we didn't see any on our Mi 11X review unit. We are not sure if this was disabled on the review unit (the review unit had other alterations, such as preventing the user from running benchmarks) or if it's also going to be the case with retail units as well.
The UI also has its idiosyncrasies. The Settings app continues to be a bit of a maze for those not familiar with MIUI. There are a ton of features here, but it's not always clear where you might find them. The way some features are handled is also ham-fisted. The dark mode, for example, manually forces a dark layer on top of every single installed app. This may potentially be useful for apps that don't have a dark mode, but it does this for everything, including apps that do have their own dark mode and just end up looking weird with an additional dark layer on top. It would have been better to just let the user manually select the apps they want to be forced to dark UI.
Dark mode and Themes
One particular pet peeve is how selecting ringtones is handled in third-party apps. On most other Android smartphones, selecting to change the notification tone in an app will instantly take you to the list of tones. On MIUI, it will throw a dialog box asking you whether you want to open Themes or File Manager, which alone would throw off most people.
The correct answer? Themes. That's because the ringtones are found inside the Themes app, which also houses other things, such as wallpapers, icons, fonts, and more. And you're still not taken to the relevant menu. You are just dropped in the Themes app, and from then you have to navigate away from the Themes store, go to the Profile tab and then click on the Ringtones option to find the list of locally saved ringtones. This has been the case with MIUI forever, and it's mind-boggling how no one at the company thinks this is anything but stupid.
However, there is a good one side to using MIUI, and that is the insane level of customization and features on offer. A lot of the UI can be changed, especially the changes added in recent updates. Don't like that the notification center and control center are now separate and require a swipe down from different sides of the display? You can go back to the old design, which put both together. Don't like the vertical arrangement of apps in the Recent menu? Go back to having them be horizontally arranged like on other Android phones. Sure, all of these sound like solutions to problems Xiaomi invented but at least the option exists if you want to go back.
MIUI 12 features
Similarly, there are several other cool features. You can have apps open in a tiny floating window, which stays on screen even as you open other apps. You can also have them open while watching the video using the video toolbox. You can have multiple apps playing audio simultaneously, and you can also control their individual volume in the overall mix. If you use wired headphones with an adapter, you can also customize the sound to your specific hearing.
Aside from configuring the navigation keys to launch apps on press and hold, you can even assign the fingerprint sensor to access a preset feature when double-tapped. You can also have the back of the phone be tapped twice or thrice and have a specific function be activated, although this rarely worked reliably.
The Gallery app also has the most comprehensive editing features of almost any image viewer on other devices. You get the full set of filters (which annoyingly aren't downloaded to the device but download pretty quickly once you tap on them for the first time) and other editing options, but you also get other cool features, such as the option to replace the sky in images with a set of preset still or even animated options. And it does them pretty well, too. You can also do other things like erasing objects out of the frame, blur parts of the image, or add text, stickers, and doodles. You can also process RAW files directly without requiring another app.
Gallery app
Like some other brands, Xiaomi has also switched to using Google's Phone and Messages apps instead of its own. This may very well be mandated by Google these days but Xiaomi's apps generally had more features, especially Messages, which categorized incoming messages automatically.
The Mi 11X uses an x-axis vibration motor, which oscillates a mass laterally along the length of the device to produce vibrations. Unfortunately, the haptic feedback wasn't very good on the Mi 11X. Even at the strongest setting, it felt quite muted and vague and it never quite felt like it was recreating a tactile sensation.
The software on our review unit was somewhat buggy. Apart from the issues we mentioned in the display section, the device also had other minor glitches, such as the display randomly dropping refresh rate to 60Hz in apps where it should be 120Hz and the navigation keys disappearing when the phone came out of fullscreen mode. The notifications also seemed bugged with the buttons appearing misaligned below them. The phone also randomly rebooted on a couple of occasions while sitting idle.
We also want to highlight the fingerprint sensor in this section, as it seemed to be a victim of software issues. The sensor, quite simply, just didn't work most of the time. Simply placing the finger on the button only turned the screen on without unlocking the phone, and the finger would then have to be lifted and placed back at the same spot for it to work. Eventually, this got tiring and we just resorted to using the face unlock feature, which worked fine.
Performance
The Mi 11X runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset with a choice of 6GB or 8GB LPDDR5 memory. Regardless of which you pick, you will be getting 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage with no further expansion.
Performance in everyday applications on the Mi 11X is excellent, with the phone feeling fast, smooth, and responsive. The 120Hz display helps tremendously, making all applications that run at the maximum refresh rate feel fluid and nimble.
120Hz support in Alto's Adventure
Playing games at 120Hz was also a great experience. Admittedly, most games don't support over 60Hz, but the ones that did look great and felt much more responsive. Some games cause the display to stay at 120Hz, but they are treated as applications rather than games, which means the refresh rate will drop to 60Hz when you stop interacting with the display. This is obviously not ideal as it causes the game to stutter every time the refresh rate changes, and the developer will have to update the title to fix this.
The hardware is quite capable of running demanding games, such as Genshin Impact, at their highest visual quality settings. The issue is, the phone does start getting quite warm after some time, especially if you live in warmer climates. And before you know it, the display dims down considerably, making it hard to see what you're playing.
We could not run our usual tests on our Mi 11X review unit as it prevented running any benchmark applications from running properly. You can check out our Poco F3 review for the benchmarks results, as they would likely be identical.
Audio
The Mi 11X comes with a set of stereo speakers. Unlike most other phones, both the speakers on the Mi 11X fire out the sides rather than from the front. That's because the earpiece speaker on the phone seems to be placed somewhere within the top half of the body and the outlet is through a port on the top of the device.
The audio quality through the loudspeakers is pretty good. The two speakers don't sound identical, with the bottom speaker being more full-bodied while the top speaker having a more bass and mid-focused sound. Combined, the two still sound fairly balanced. The speakers don't get especially loud, but for the most part, they are loud enough.
Xiaomi has announced Dolby Atmos support for the Mi 11X. However, this feature was not available on our review unit and will be added in a future update. Retain units, however, should have it out of the box.
Camera
The Mi 11X has a triple camera system on the back, consisting of a wide, ultra-wide, and macro camera. It also includes a single 20MP camera on the front.
The camera app UI has largely remained unchanged from previous versions, but Xiaomi has kept adding more and more features. Fortunately, you can now access most of them more easily, as the app optionally allows you to have the additional camera modes in a simple drawer that can be pulled up from the bottom - similar to the OnePlus Camera app - instead of clicking the More button at the of the list.
The default camera UI, however, is cluttered with way too many options, and you'd be better off taking some time out and removing the unnecessary ones to make the remaining ones easy to access.
Camera app
The Pro mode for still images is also quite elaborate, with options for not just focus peaking but also zebras for exposure compensation. The Pro mode also allows saving RAW files not just from the main wide camera but also the ultra-wide camera.
The main camera on the back is the 48MP Sony IMX582 sensor with a 6P 25mm equivalent f1.79 lens. The IMX582 sensor is almost identical to the popular IMX586, with the difference being the IMX582 can record videos up to 4K 30fps while the IMX586 can do 60fps.
The image quality from the main wide camera is decent but there are a few issues with it. The primary issue is with the colors, which tend to come out undersaturated. This is with the AI mode disabled, which can add a bit more saturation and contrast based on the scene but we prefer to leave it off for testing.
Main camera daylight
The other issue with the colors is that as the amount of light in the scene gets lower, they take on a strangely darkened appearance similar to the bleach bypass effect. This is most commonly seen when shooting indoors, where objects and especially skin tones tend to look darker and lifeless.
The other issue is with the dynamic range. The dynamic range in the image is often quite anemic, with both shadows and highlights being inadequately exposed. The HDR mode on the phone barely ever kicks in, even in high contrast situations, and even when it does it doesn't really seem to do anything.
The level of detail in the image is fine but unspectacular since this is still just a 12MP image. There is some oversharpening and haloing around high contrast edges but by and large, the images look fine.
Zooming on the Mi 11X is done entirely on the main wide camera. The 2x zoom mode seems to take a straightforward 1:1 pixel crop from the center of the 48MP sensor so the results are quite usable. Beyond that, the image softens considerably and becomes steadily less usable.
1x • 2x • 5x • 10x
Compared to the 48MP IMX586 camera on the OnePlus 9R, the Mi 11X fares a bit worse. While OnePlus' colors are occasionally of questionable taste, there's no denying that the 9R camera is pulling much more detail out of both shadows and highlights, while having much better saturation.
Mi 11X • OnePlus 9R • Mi 11X • OnePlus 9R
The 8MP ultra-wide camera with 15mm equivalent f2.2 lens isn't great. The color performance is decent and the colors even come out a bit more vibrant than the standard wide camera. However, the 8MP resolution is simply insufficient for such a wide field of view and so there's really not much detail to be found in the images.
Ultra-wide camera daylight
Once again, the OnePlus 9R does a bit better here, although the difference isn't as dramatic as with the main camera. The 16MP images from the ultra-wide on the 9R generally have more detail and look better on larger screens. The 9R ultra-wide also has a wider perspective for a more dramatic look.
Mi 11X • OnePlus 9R • Mi 11X • OnePlus 9R
Low Light image quality is so-so. Depending upon the lighting, the camera may choose to kick into a night mode of sorts even in the standard photo mode, but this only happens when the light is really low. This results in a situation where you could be in light that's not low enough to trigger this function so you end up with worse images, as the standard processing cannot cope under poor lighting.
Main camera low light
Alternatively, you can just manually switch to the actual night mode, which works a bit better. Mind you, it's still not great as Xiaomi's night mode is quite lackluster and far behind its rivals. Still, the images are generally better exposed compared to not using night mode, with decent colors and dynamic range. There's also a ton of oversharpening added to compensate for the noise reduction.
Main camera night mode
The ultrawide low light performance is really quite poor. The images are usually unusable and you often can't even see what the subject is.
Ultra-wide camera low light
Enabling night mode makes a big difference and it's a prerequisite if you intend to shoot in even slightly low light conditions with this camera. Still, the night mode can't perform miracles, and even with it enabled the images can be underexposed and too soft to make out any detail.
Ultra-wide camera night mode
The 5MP macro camera turned out to be pretty decent. The issue with these cameras usually is that even if you have the novelty of the perspective, the image quality itself is rather poor. The images from the macro camera on the Mi 11X are rather good and it also has autofocus so you don't have to be at a set distance from the subject. This results in much more usable images.
Macro
The Mi 11X can record video in 4K at 30fps from the main camera and 1080p 30fps from the ultra-wide camera. Interestingly enough, even the macro camera is capable of recording video, something we usually never see on phones from other brands.
The 4K video quality from the main camera is quite good in daylight with good color performance, dynamic range, and resolution. The image stabilization is also quite decent.
Competition
The main competition to the Mi 11X in India would likely be from the OnePlus 9R, another India-specific device. Both phones have very similar specifications but also have their differences. The OnePlus 9R has an aluminum frame, while the Mi 11X has a plastic frame. The 9R has a better-performing camera overall, even though it might not seem that way on paper. The 9R also supports faster charging.
Perhaps the biggest advantage that the OnePlus phone has is OxygenOS, which is still one of the best Android skins out there. It's far less quirky than MIUI, has a much more standard design that fits within the Android guidelines, less bloatware, and fewer unnecessary features and content stores. And while neither is particularly well-known for fast software updates, OnePlus has a slightly better track record.
On the downside, the OnePlus 9R is significantly more expensive, and the same price as the Mi 11X Pro, which has a more powerful chipset and better camera than both the Mi 11X and the 9R. So while the OnePlus 9R may seem better overall, Xiaomi has OnePlus cornered in terms of sheer value for money. However, if you have your mind set on OxygenOS - and we can't blame you for that - then the OnePlus 9R will still make sense even at the higher price.
Verdict
The Mi 11X is a very well-priced smartphone, and that is its biggest asset. On paper, the phone is very well equipped but the execution of some of the features leaves something to be desired. However, the pricing helps mitigate some of that pain, making the Mi 11X worth buying even considering the issues at play.
Also, most of the issues we had with the phone seem like something that could be fixed with software updates. A lot of them were just bugs, while others, such as the less-than-stellar camera performance, can potentially be improved. There are no deal breakers here, and as such, it's a phone that's very easy to recommend.
In fact, we'd go as far as to say that you probably don't even need to bother with the Pro model unless you really want that higher-quality main camera on the back. But the main camera isn't even all that bad on the Mi 11X and the more problematic ultra-wide camera remains the same on either model. Also, you are not really going to notice the difference between the Snapdragon 888 vs the 870, so don't even try to justify it as something worth upgrading for.
Overall, the Mi 11X is a pretty great offering from Xiaomi. It comes in at a price, which would be the upper bound for a lot of smartphone buyers, and offers a premium smartphone experience that belies the price tag. This makes it one of the best value propositions on the market right now.
Pros
- Excellent 120Hz AMOLED display
- Great performance
- Good speaker quality
- Good daylight image and video quality from the main camera
- Good macro camera
- Reasonably fast charging
Cons
- Buggy software
- Display cannot sustain max brightness for long
- Mediocre ultra-wide camera
- Weak haptics
- MIUI 12 is still a bloated, convoluted mess
0 Response to "Xiaomi Mi 11X hands-on review"
Post a Comment