Xiaomi 11T Pro offers flagship features at competitive price

I’m a big fan of the brushed metal design on the back of the 11T Pro although, it has a high polish finish that makes it a fingerprint magnet. This isn’t a big deal since it comes with a transparent case and a pre-installed screen protector

Around the back is the vertically stacked triple camera array that also features a triple LED flash. On the bottom left are the Xiaomi logo and 5G branding along with the usual CE text on the opposite side.

The top edge is flat and silver while the side rails are matte black plastic and the bottom edge is more rounded. The top and bottom edges have holes for the stereo speakers. It’s always nice to see an IR blaster on the top edge and the bottom edge has the USB-C port along with a SIM slot.

The front sports a gorgeous 6.67-inch display with rounded corners to match the phone. In the top centre is the front-facing selfie camera that cuts into the display in a punch hole style. The overall size and weight (204g) of the 11T Pro is large but thanks to the rounded edges and relatively slim girth (76.9mm), it’s comfortable to hold. That being said, one-handed use is difficult as it is with any phone this size.

On the right edge is the power button that doubles as the fingerprint reader. The latter is fast and reliable but I would prefer if it was a different colour to the rest of the edge to make it stand out more.

Sound and vision

The 11T Pro’s 6.67-inch display is AMOLED with a resolution of 2400×1080px. It has inky blacks, near-infinite contrast and vibrant colours that make it great for watching movies or consuming any kind of media. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate that makes scrolling through social feeds silky smooth. The same goes for when you’re browsing the web or just swiping through the UI.

The software allows you to choose how you want colours to be represented on the screen — vivid, standard for more accurate and natural colours or you can just let the system adjust it for you based on the content you’re viewing.

The display can get plenty bright even on our brightest winter days and HDR content looks stunning.

To complement the excellent screen you get a stereo speaker setup that’s been tuned by Harman Kardon. This provides lots of power and punch although it does lack somewhat in bass department like all smartphones. In particular, I was really impressed by the expansive soundstage when watching movies which is in part down to the outward firing speakers.

Cameras

The camera system on the 11T Pro is a bit of a mixed bag. The main shooter has a 108MP sensor that is capable of capturing incredible details. However, I got results that swung from brilliant to mediocre. When shooting on a sunny day the camera captured photos with good detail in the mid-tones and shadow but the highlights were blown out and the blue was way oversaturated.

The main wide-angle lens defaults to 12MP and you have to go into ‘more’ to use the 108MP mode which can capture more detail but you’ll lose out on the advanced computation advantages that you get in the standard mode.

The ultrawide camera has an 8MP sensor and there’s a dip in image quality as well as resolution. I also found a lack of consistency in white balance and colour when changing between lenses.

The third lens is a 5MP macro lens and while the resolution isn’t anything special, I did find I was able to capture some interesting macro shots with it. It can be great fun to capture interesting objects at a macro level but I found it more useful to see the fine print on labels or instructions.

Unfortunately, there’s no telephoto lens and going past 5x on the main camera results in soft photos. Overall, the cameras performed at what I’d expect from a mid-range phone.

Specs

The 11T Pro comes with impressive hardware including the Snapdragon 888 CPU coupled with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on my review unit. This combined with the 120Hz refresh rate makes the 11T Pro feel as fast as any flagship I’ve used. While 256GB of storage is more than enough for most users, there’s no ability to add more via a microSD card slot.

Everything from loading apps to playing the latest games feels snappy and quick. All of the games I tried, ran smoothly with no dropped frames or lag and the visuals looked stunning. The stereo speakers also add to the immersion although I more often than not used headphones.

Battery performance

While some manufacturers are selling their expensive phones without any charging brick, Xiaomi includes a powerful 120W brick that can deliver enough energy into the battery to take it to 100% in 17 minutes. Xiaomi is able to achieve this by using two separate 2,500mAh batteries that are charged simultaneously for a total battery capacity 5,000mAh. The result is super-fast charging times and up to two days of battery life.

Verdict

The Xiaomi 11T Pro is keenly priced with lots of powerful hardware and features including a capable camera system and a game-changing charger in the box. It’s also worth noting that the Xiaomi 11T has almost the same hardware including the screen, near-identical cameras but features a MediaTek CPU and a 67w charger for €150 less.

Xiaomi 11T Pro €699, Xiaomi 11T €549. See Xiamoi for more.