Historically, Xiaomi has been a constant candidate to introduce the first phones with the next generation Qualcomm silicone. It took the lead again this year by announcing its Mi 11 series of phones, featuring the Snapdragon 888. With the new engine comes a horseback ride of other upgrades.
While some goodies come from the Snapdragon 888, such as Wi-Fi 6, better 5G and more powerful AI processing, others are available to expand its capabilities – faster memory in the form of UFS 3.1 storage and LPDDR5 dual-channel RAM and ‘ some liquid refrigeration infrastructure.
The giant pumpkin weighing contest of the smartphone industry seems to be in the showroom and Xiaomi has added its web page thumb to much boast: 10-bit AMOLED screen with refresh rate of up to 120Hz, touch samples up to 480Hz, maximum brightness of 1500 nets, contrast measured at 5 million to one, and an A + rating from DisplayMate. It’s large with a width of 6.81 “, but long with an aspect ratio of 20: 9, and concludes with this year’s Gorning Glass Victus by Corning. The screen is accompanied by stereo speakers with the Harman Kardon- brand.
Another battle, especially on Chinese OEMs, is with force. The company decided to go with 55 W wire charging and 50 W wireless charging – this guarantees a zero-to-full pump cycle within 53 minutes or less – with 10 W reverse charging via Qi. Via USB-C, the Mi 11 supports Power Delivery as well as Qualcomm’s own Quick Charge 4.
For this phone, Xiaomi more or less sticks to the Mi 10 camera combination, which includes Samsung’s top-end HMX 108MP sensor (though with a slightly slower aperture), a 13MP wide-angle camera and a macro camera rated at 5MP.
The phone is available in three glass finishes and two are cut from vegan leather – far removed from the days of the Moto X with its Horween leather from vegetable-brown, but maybe we and the animals from which we obtain the material are better for it. Speaking of storage, the company will only supply chargers to customers who buy the phone with a separate accessory bundle (now free, but $ 15 extra for later purchases), but they will be at least compact and smooth gallium nitride wall warts.
The base model with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage starts at 3,999 yuan (~ $ 612), with the 12 / 256GB configuration for 4,699 yuan (~ $ 719).