Xiaomi 11T Pro

Review

Do you have to spend a fortune and buy a flagship if you want a strong, cool smartphone? Not necessarily. You can buy something like our today's hero: Xiaomi 11T Pro. I invite you to a short story about the strengths and weaknesses of this model.

Nice, but practical?

First things first, two words about what's included. It includes a silicone cover, a USB cable and a huge charger. It's big and really heavy, but 120-watt. The smartphone itself can be liked. The back has the texture of brushed metal, but at the same time it is shiny and unfortunately it gets dirty very quickly. The device has a solid metal frame and Gorilla Glass Victus on the front, which also gets dirty, but slightly less than the back.

I have no objections to ergonomics, apart from the size of the phone, of course. The buttons are where they should be, the USB-C socket, of course, the card slot - unfortunately only two nanoSIMs - is also easily accessible, it's located at the bottom. There is also one of the speakers at the bottom, and at the top - a plastic insert with another speaker, the Harman Kardon logo and an infrared transmitter. This is a useful element, because we can - with the help of the application built into the phone - turn our Xiaomi into a remote control, for example for a TV or set-top box.

Great reader and...

Although Xiaomi has decided to use an AMOLED screen here, there is no fingerprint reader under the screen. And very well, the reader is built into the power button and it works really great. It is fast, not annoying, and flawless. The face recognition system also works flawlessly, but remember that it is not as perfect as a fingerprint protection. However, you can add two recognition faces.

...Great display!

Since I mentioned the screen - it is an AMOLED matrix with a diagonal of 6.67 inches with all the advantages of this technology. I mean deep black or strong, well-saturated colours. Of course, in the menu, we can adjust the intensity of the colours to our liking. There is, of course, a fast 120Hz refresh, there is HDR 10+, there is also Dolby Vision. The screen works perfectly on sunny days, and in the dark it does not tire the eyes. Of course, we need to properly configure our eye protection. Automatic brightness adjustment also works as it should - I have no objections to the screen. Maybe except for the relatively wide frame - but for consolation, the hole for the selfie camera is relatively small.

Good sound, flawless communication

A few words about communication. The sound quality in the headphone loudspeaker does not raise any objections. I have reservations about the operation of the proximity sensor. It can be imprecise and sometimes illuminates the screen when it is not needed. Then, we can unintentionally end the conversation with the cheek or ear, for example, or mute the microphone

All communication interfaces are working flawlessly, and the external speakers are also really good. They are large and have large acoustic chambers. They are placed symmetrically - they sound reasonably clear and loud. Of course, they are small by nature, so you are unlikely to experience bass here. Sometimes they overdo the sopranos a bit, but they are nevertheless one of the best smartphone speakers you can have on the market right now.

Efficient but hot

Productivity looks good. We have Snapdragon 888, one of the strongest processors on the market, 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal memory, which, unfortunately, cannot be expanded with a microSD card. When it comes to direct benchmark numbers, you absolutely can not have any objections or reasons to complain. Reasons to complain will arise when we put this phone into a little more strenuous work over a long period of time. Then it turns into a pretty cool hand warmer. Can reach 50 degrees. Best of all, the smartphone has not completed any stress test. It just displayed an overheating message at some point and shut down the app. So I didn't measure how much throttling is here - but it definitely is. Take into account that it is not necessarily a smartphone for long-term gaming, I would not necessarily recommend it to demanding players. But all the other regular smartphone users should be satisfied with this performance.

Battery - battery, but it's charging...

Certainly Xiaomi 11T Pro users will be pleased with the battery. The large capacity of 5000 mAh did not translate into the thickness of the phone or its weight. It translates into the possibility of the smartphone working without charging for up to 3 days. Admittedly, at the expense of certain sacrifices, such as refreshing, screen brightness, not too much gaming, not too much video recording. In normal use, I did not charge it until the end of the second day. One day it will last even at full power, with maximum refreshment or maximum brightness, and most importantly, using the huge charger from the set (which does not fit every strip), you will charge it literally in less than 20 minutes. And that's the thing I love about this phone. It is a pity that you only have to use the original cable - with a few "incidental" super fast charging did not work. You can also regret the lack of inductive charging.

Photos on level

However, I do not regret what photos this smartphone takes. We have 3 cameras here: 108 Mpx as the main, 8 Mpx wide angle and 5 Mpx for macro and - of course - 16 Mp for selfies. What kind of photos does it all take? The main camera does not give any reason to complain, except maybe the colour reproduction, which deviates a bit towards the blue. The blue of the sky is just lovely and the other colours get chilled sometimes.

It depends, to some extent, on the scenery in which we photograph, the weather and the light. Another thing I can get a little grumbling about is HDR. When we photograph an object in motion in HDR or when our hand twitches more, we notice that the edges of the objects in the photo will not necessarily be perfectly aligned. The problem is really sporadic, so there is no point in dramatizing it. It is worth taking a closer look at the wide-angle camera, which also works well, although you can see that the sharpness at the edges and edges of the frame is already worse, but the image geometry is correct. Another thing that is worth paying attention to in the case of a wide-angle camera is, unfortunately, a different colour reproduction than in the main camera. You can even find them more pleasing to the eye at times than with the basic camera.

The macro camera is also fine, but when shooting, we have to take care of the light, because the matrix is relatively small. As for night photos, I would recommend staying with the main camera and using the night mode. It really does a good job. If we don't have a choice, we can use a wide-angle camera, but you have to remember that the shooting effects will be slightly weaker due to the specificity of the lens. When there is really little light left, we will notice some noise, a more intense denoise is activated - and sometimes instead of grass we will get dark-brown-green lava. You can't fool physics, but in general I can say that the camera does a decent job and takes good pictures.

The movies are also quite good, although I couldn't switch between lenses without interrupting the recording: I can go to wide angle but unfortunately I have to stop recording. In addition, the autofocus sometimes "goes crazy" and when we record the focus it happens to jump.

Selfiaki basically flawless - I applaud the front camera for having HDR, which helps when the background is too bright behind us. When it comes to the photo interface, I have no serious reservations, although unfortunately Xiaomi stubbornly hides the macro mode not between all camera modes, but in the top menu, which is a total nonsense for me, especially since the macro camera is decent.

Convenient interface

Finally, three more words about the interface. We have here Android 11 with the MUI 12 overlay. It is quite a nice overlay: you can use it in flat mode, you can use it in the tray mode, you can configure it for yourself in a fairly wide range. Xiaomi, of course, adds a lot of extras. Most company applications are useful things, but unfortunately, we will also find a few not necessarily unnecessary, but not everyone-needed, apps, such as the Amazon app. As a consolation, you can do it right away to remove. So I will also evaluate the interface positively.

Is it worth buying Xiaomi 11T Pro?

Time for a summary. Will positive or negative evaluations prevail? In my opinion, it is almost a flagship smartphone, but not entirely. It is a smartphone for someone who does not have to show off the top, most expensive smartphone - but at the same time expects a decent level from the device. And he will get this decent level here. The smartphone is not bad, although unfortunately it is not waterproof, it takes decent photos, has a great display, has an excellent battery and an even better charging system, plus very good stereo speakers and an infrared transmitter that can control various devices. Unfortunately, on the other hand, there is no mini-jack or space for a memory card. In addition, under certain circumstances, it can turn into a hand warmer, which, unfortunately, will also translate into a decrease in the efficiency of the device. It is true that only the most demanding users will notice it, but it is a feature that should not appear at this price level - 650 euros - at all. So: I do not advise against buying this phone, on the contrary, I think it is quite a nice proposition for the price. Unless you are ready to play...

Source GSMchoice.com