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Xiaomi 11T Review - A worthy contender at PHP 21,990?

OPPO
Infinix
About two weeks after we unboxed the Xiaomi 11T, we today share what we think about it in general. Here's our full review.
How did the Xiaomi 11T fare in our review?

To recap, the Xiaomi 11T features a large 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. Inside, it features the 6nm 3.0GHz MediaTek Dimensity 1200 Ultra octa-core processor, Mali-G77 MC9 GPU, 8GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 128GB UFS 3.1 storage. It also has a 5,000mAh battery with 67W fast charging via USB-C. It also has a 108MP triple camera setup and a 16MP selfie camera.

It starts at PHP 21,990 in the Philippines.


Multimedia Experience

The screen delivered a great viewing experience with good colors, contrast, and brightness
The screen delivered a great viewing experience with good colors, contrast, and brightness

The Xiaomi 11T features a big 6.67-inch flat Gorilla Glass Victus protected AMOLED screen. It has a 2400 x 1080, 120Hz refresh rate, and a 480 touch sampling rate. In addition, it has MEMC technology, HDR10+ support, and a 395 ppi pixel density.

As expected from an AMOLED screen, it is able to deliver vibrant color, deep blacks, great contrast, and great brightness. You can choose between you 60Hz and 120Hz as your base refresh rate. It also has Adaptive Sync switches between different refresh rates automatically according to what tasks you are doing. This is to save battery life when the 120Hz refresh rate is not needed.

During our usage, we did not feel the Adaptive Sync kick in to disrupt the experience. Xiaomi was able to integrate it seamlessly into the experience enough to not break immersion. The punch-hole cutout did not bother us as well since it is not that big.

In the display settings, you can adjust the brightness level, choose between Light/Dark mode, toggle Anti-flicker mode, toggle Reading mode, adjust color schemes, adjust text size, and fullscreen mode options.

The screen gets relatively bright at max brightness and is easily readable under direct sunlight. As expected, it supports 10 points of multitouch. In terms of touch accuracy, it didn't pose any issues even during intense gameplay. One thing we want in the next iteration though is an In-Display fingerprint sensor. We believe it is easy enough to add at this price point.
As you can see there are two speakers at the top and bottom
As you can see there are two speakers at the top and bottom

In terms of audio, it has stereo speakers with grilles up top and at the bottom.

It delivers good-sounding audio even at just 60 percent volume with the speakers.

It doesn't have a 3.5mm headphone jack so you have to rely on TWS earbuds that can connect via Bluetooth 5.2 or a USB-C dongle to use your HiFi in-ear earphones.

For software enhancements, it also has Dolby Atmos support that will artificially create "3D" like sound effects.

The microphones can record clear sounds with decent noise reduction during calls and recordings.

For calls using the ear speaker, the audio was almost always loud and clear. The times that we had trouble hearing the person I am talking is mostly because of reception problems in my area. At times, I personally even prefer using the ear speaker and built-in mics for calls as it is more consistent than TWS earbuds.

Cameras

Xiaomi 11T's 108MP triple camera setup
Xiaomi 11T's 108MP triple camera setup

At the rectangular camera bump, it has a triple camera setup with a 108MP f/1.75 w/ PDAF + 8MP f/2.2 120-degree ultra-wide-angle + 5MP f/2.4 3-7cm telemacro + dual-tone LED flash.
Xiaomi 11T's camera app
Xiaomi 11T's camera app

The stock camera app has modes like Pro, Video, Photo, Portrait, Night mode, 108MP mode, Short Video, Panorama, Documents, VLOG mode, Slow Motion, Time-lapse, Movie Effects, Long Exposure, Dual Video, and Clone. It also has toggles for AI and HDR mode.

Rear Camera Samples

Daylight outdoor
Daylight outdoor
Daylight, normal shot
Daylight, normal shot
Daylight, ultra-wide-angle
Daylight, ultra-wide-angle
Daylight, 5X zoom
Daylight, 5x zoom
Daylight, 10x zoom
Daylight, 10x zoom
Indoors 1
Indoors 1
Indoors 2
Indoors 2
Macro shot 1
Macro shot 1
Macro shot, low light
Macro shot, low light
Indoors, lowlight
Indoors, lowlight
Outdoors w/ Night Mode off
Outdoors w/ Night Mode off
Outdoors w/ Night Mode on
Outdoors w/ Night Mode on

The 108MP f/1.75 is no joke. The images we were able to produce using the main camera have great colors, contrast, sharpness, detail, and depth. This holds true even for the ultra-wide-angle shots, zoomed, and macro shots. Xiaomi was able to optimize the camera software to deliver amazing photos.

The camera system was able to maintain great image quality even on zoomed-in shots. The colors were consistent all throughout our testing too. The Macro shots even came out good even at low light scenarios. Autofocus is fast making quick point-and-shoot situations a breeze to do.

Even at low light and night scenarios using Night Mode, we were able to create great-looking shots. Details were brought back without compromising the quality. We highly suggest always using the Night Mode in these situations to unleash the Xiaomi 11T's full potential at night.

Overall, the rear cameras delivered consistent and quality shots in all of our tests. We really enjoyed shooting with it.

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight selfie
Daylight selfie
Indoors with artificial lighting
Indoors with artificial lighting
Indoors with Portrait mode
Indoors with Portrait mode
Low light selfie with Night Mode
Low light selfie with Night Mode

In front, it has the 16MP f/2.45 selfie sensor. It was able to produce photos with consistent detail, color, exposure, and contrast. Using the Portrait Mode, it has good edge detection, especially good lighting. It also produces better and more natural-looking colors in our opinion. However, we saw some dull colors in scenarios with white artificial lights like fluorescent.

A good highlight here is the ability to shoot using the selfie camera with Night Mode on. With Night Mode on, the Xiaomi 11T was able to brighten the night and low light selfies without losing much detail. Our only gripe with this mode is that the colors become a bit dull.

Xiaomi 11T can shoot up to 4K 30fps videos. It can also shoot 1080p at 60fps as well. It is also featuring the CineMagic shooting experience here for video. It has video recording features such as Magic Zoom with AI assistance, Macroscope video, Audio Zoom, Pro Timelapse, Slow Motion, Cinematic Filters, One-Click AI Cinema, Kaleidoscope mode, Freeze Frame, and Video clone. There is no OIS and EIS though.

Performance

AnTuTu benchmark result
AnTuTu benchmark result

Inside, the Xiaomi 11T features the 6nm 3.0GHz MediaTek Dimensity 1200 Ultra octa-core processor, Mali-G77 MC9 GPU, 8GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 128GB UFS 3.1 storage. It also has a 5,000mAh battery with 67W fast charging via USB-C.
Geekbench results and battery tests results
Geekbench results and battery tests results

It was able to get 576,726 points on AnTuTu while it got an 872 Single-Core score and a 2,804 Multi-Core score in GeekBench 5. These are on par with what we expected given its specs.

The MediaTek 1200 Ultra SoC was able to provide a smooth performance with almost every task we threw at it. We watched a lot of YouTube and Netflix and played games like Call of Duty, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and Genshin Impact with little to no hiccups.
COD: Mobile and Genshin Impact settings
COD: Mobile and Genshin Impact settings

However, we were a bit disappointed with its thermals. The Xiaomi 11T got hot a lot of times. Even on tasks that we didn't expect to be warm, it got warm. Tasks like Facebook, Messenger, and YouTube provided a warm feel while high-intensity games like Call of Duty and Genshin Impact made the device extremely hot. The performance didn't show any signs of throttling though. Either way, we were concerned about it since Xiaomi claims it has Vapor Chamber cooling.

In terms of connectivity, it has WiFi 6 and has multiple 5G bands. It was able to receive 5G connectivity for Globe here in our place in Antipolo so it is safe to say that it has strong reception. It maintained 5G even in different areas of our home.

It also has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor that works in a snap. However, we would've liked an In-Display solution here.

In our PCMark battery test, we were able to get a result of 10 hours and 53 minutes. This is lower than what we expected. But, in real-life usage, we were able to get more than triple that at 22 hours and 22 minutes on a single charge. This is with almost 6 hours of screen time with the majority spent while playing Call of Duty: Mobile. As our daily driver, we used it with WiFi and 5G for social media, web browsing, voice and video calls, video streaming, and gaming. We did this at 120Hz too. So it is possible to get more than 16 hours when you cap it at just 60Hz all the time.

The 67W turbo charging was able to charge our Xiaomi 11T from 0 to 100 percent at just a whopping 41 minutes. This is quick for a 5,000mAh battery. It sorely lacks any wireless charging though which is a bit of a bummer.
MIUI 12.5
MIUI 12.5

The Xiaomi 11T runs Android 11 out of the box with MIUI 12.5 on top. The UI is clean and easy to use. Swipe down on the left side of the screen for the notifications and swipe down on the right for the different toggles. Swiping from the bottom opens the App drawer.
Notification panel and Settings toggles
Notification panel and Settings toggles

Overall, the Xiaomi 11T is a great performer in games, multitasking, and multimedia. This is a great daily driver. However, the heating issue is a bit of a concern though. Hopefully, software optimizations can fix this down the line.

Pros - 120Hz AMOLED screen, good performance, 108MP triple camera system, big battery with fast charging, clean and smooth experience with MIUI 12.5, 5G-ready, stereo speakers, competitive pricing
Cons - Thermal management can be improved, no In-Display fingerprint sensor, no wireless charging

Xiaomi 11T Specs

Display: 6.67-inch flat Gorilla Glass Victus protected AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate, 480Hz touch sampling rate, MEMC, HDR10+, FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 395 ppi
CPU: 3.0GHz 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 1200-Ultra octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G77 MC9
RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 128GB/256GB UFS 3.1
Back Camera: 108MP f/1.75 w/ PDAF + 8MP f/2.2 120-degree ultra-wide-angle + 5MP f/2.4 3-7cm telemacro + dual-tone LED flash
Selfie Camera: 16MP f/2.45
Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 67W turbo charging
OS: Android 11 w/ MIUI 12.5
Connectivity: WiFi 6, 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.2, OTG, NFC, GPS (L1+L5), A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo (E1+E5a), QZSS (L1+L5), dual SIM
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, face unlock, IR Blaster, stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res Audio Certification, X-axis linear vibration motor, Vapor chamber cooling system, USB-C, Colors: Meteorite Gray, Moonlight White, Celestial Blue
Dimensions: 164.1 x 76.9 x 8.8 mm
Weight: 204 g
Price: PHP 21,990 (128GB), PHP 24,990 (256GB)

Verdict

Is the Xiaomi 11T worth the price?
Is the Xiaomi 11T worth the price?

The Xiaomi 11T as an overall package is a great smartphone, especially for its starting price!

It provides a near-flagship experience for less than PHP 25K with great looks, great cameras, fast performance, and uber-fast charging technology. It also has future-proof features such as WiFi 6 and 5G.

However, there are things to improve too. Thermal management is a bit of a miss but this may be fixed with a software update. The omission of wireless charging and In-Display fingerprint sensor is a bit of a bummer as well.

What do you guys think?

Build/Design - 4.25
Multimedia Experience - 4.5
Cameras - 4.5
Performance - 4.25
Average - 4.38/5

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