Xiaomi 11T Pro review: Lightning-quick charging meets middling cameras
Did Xiaomi balance the right set of features and pricing for its latest? Find out more in this Xiaomi 11T Pro review.
Xiaomi 11T Pro
Xiaomi aimed high with the 11T Pro, but didn’t quite reach its target. The phone has plenty going for it, such as a gorgeous display, top performance, and blazing fast charging, but the cameras are middling and there are several missing features that hurt its overall appeal. An admirable attempt at balancing price and quality, the 11T Pro tips slightly in the wrong direction when stacked against tough competition.
Xiaomi 11T Pro
Xiaomi aimed high with the 11T Pro, but didn’t quite reach its target. The phone has plenty going for it, such as a gorgeous display, top performance, and blazing fast charging, but the cameras are middling and there are several missing features that hurt its overall appeal. An admirable attempt at balancing price and quality, the 11T Pro tips slightly in the wrong direction when stacked against tough competition.
Xiaomi is targeting cost-conscious buyers who still want top performance from their smartphones with its new Xiaomi 11T Pro. This fresh phone includes some high-end specs that are wrapped in an affordable package meant to entice flagship seekers on a budget. Can this would-be “flagship killer” stand out in the crowded field of high-end mid-range devices? Find out in the Android Authority Xiaomi 11T Pro review.
About this Xiaomi 11T Pro review: I tested the Xiaomi 11T Pro over a period of six days. It was running Android 11 with MIUI 12.5 on the July 2021 security patch. The unit was provided by Xiaomi for this review.
What you need to know about the Xiaomi 11T Pro
The Xiaomi 11T Pro represents the top of the new 11T range, which also includes the Xiaomi 11T and Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE. The 11T series sits just under the higher-end Mi 11 and Mi 11 Ultra released earlier this year and is the successor to the Mi 10T series from 2020. As you might have noticed, Xiaomi has dropped the “Mi” branding for this and all future products within Xiaomi’s core smartphone portfolio. While the Xiaomi 11T series appears to carry over many of the same features from the Mi 11 range, such as processors and cameras, you’ll note differences in materials, some specs, and other details.
The 11T Pro, in particular, faces some tough competition in the upper mid-range from similarly-priced fare from Samsung, Motorola, and OnePlus, among others. While it has what it takes in several respects, it falls a little flat in others. As always, striking a balance is key, but we’ll get to all that later.
Xiaomi is offering three versions of the 11T Pro, including one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, one with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and one with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Colors for the 11T Pro include Meteorite Gray, Moonlight White, and Celestial Blue. The phone was first introduced in China but has since been launched in India as well where it takes direct aim at the OnePlus 9RT. Potential US buyers will find it online via third-party retailers, though Xiaomi hasn’t said when the phone will reach those retailers.
How is the hardware?
The Xiaomi 11T Pro comes across as a bit vanilla in terms of design. It’s a pretty standard slab that is assembled from run-of-the-mill materials. Nothing about its looks stands out in particular. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
The phone’s basic shape isn’t far off from the Mi 11 that we saw earlier this year. You could call it a simple rectangle. The four corners are rounded in a pleasing way and the rear panel curves somewhat aggressively along the side edges while the front is perfectly flat. The display is set into a plastic frame that forms a very slight rim. These pieces are set into an aluminum alloy mid-frame and the rear panel is made from tempered glass. You wouldn’t know it while holding it, though, as the materials feel a little plasticky.
On a better note, the display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus. This is the toughest stuff available from Corning at the moment and is usually reserved for premium flagships. Even so, Xiaomi saw fit to pre-install a screen protector over the glass — that’s a lot of protection!
Xiaomi lent us the Meteorite Gray colorway. It has a fine-grained horizontal pattern that runs side to side, though the pattern is hard to spot over the fingerprint-prone glossy material that shellacks the back.
It’s a sizable device (164.1 x 76.9 x 8.8mm) owing to the large-ish screen, but Xiaomi kept the weight way down (204g) thanks to the body materials. I found the 11T Pro comfortable to hold and use over the course of a week, though the glass back is rather slippery. It will slip off desks, tables, and other surfaces if you’re not careful. A basic, clear, rubberized case comes in the box. This protects the phone and makes it easier to grip, though it isn’t the best-looking protective cover I’ve seen.
The chassis includes a fairly typical set of features in the places you expect to find them. Of note, the Xiaomi 11T Pro supports two SIM cards, both of which can connect to 5G networks. There’s no room for a microSD memory card, though. A USB-C port graces the bottom edge and the control buttons are perched along the right. The power button doubles as a fingerprint reader. It was easy to train and quick and reliable to unlock the phone.
On the audio front, there’s no headphone jack but there are stereo speakers. Xiaomi tapped Harman Kardon to fine-tune the speakers, which are Dolby Atmos capable. The phone produced excellent sound. Music came across with a pleasing balance of lows and highs, and movies delivered just the right amount of punch. The 11T Pro can handily fill an average room with music and do so without distorting or breaking up. Well done, Xiaomi.
The camera module is (thankfully) nothing like the massive camera module of the Mi 11 Ultra. Instead, it’s a slightly more square variation of the Mi 11’s camera module. There are two levels to the raised module, with the lenses in one tier and the flash and mic combo in the other. The main lens has a highly reflective gray rim around it that makes it stand out visually while the ultra-wide lens has a less-reflective rim.
As far as the IP rating is concerned, the phone carries IP53 dust and water protection. This means it can handle some light dust and splashing, but it is absolutely not dunk-proof. At least some phones in this price category have at least IP67 ratings, so it’s a bit disappointing that Xiaomi didn’t build in all the protection it could for the phone.
Xiaomi crafted a solid, if somewhat simple, piece of hardware in the 11T Pro. It could use a bit more personality though surely many people will be happy with the toned-down looks and features of this phone.
Is the screen any good?
Xiaomi aimed high with the 11T Pro’s display and hit the mark dead on with this beautiful panel.
The AMOLED screen measures 6.67 inches across the diagonal, which is a fine size, and packs 2,400 x 1,080 pixels for FHD resolution. It’s an expansive display that offers more than enough room and resolution for all your apps and activities. Websites, social networks, and video content are dazzlingly sharp and crisp on the screen, though it is a step below the WQHD resolution of the Mi 11 and Mi 11 Ultra.
Color and brightness are top-notch. The screen supports over one billion colors and features a contrast ratio of five million to one. Combined with 800 nits of standard brightness and 1,000 nits of peak brightness, the display pushes out a huge amount of light and is easy to see and use under even the brightest conditions. It supports HDR10 Plus, and high dynamic range content from the likes of Netflix looks really impressive.
Like many competing flagships, the 11T Pro’s screen can ramp up the refresh rate from 60Hz (standard) to 120Hz (adaptive). Flipping on the 120Hz setting results in ultra-smooth scrolling and animations on the screen as you navigate through apps and the user interface. The phone will use more power in the 120Hz mode, despite the adaptive nature of the refresh rate. Accompanying the high refresh rate is a fast touch response rate of up to 480Hz. This means the phone will react to your finger touch input faster, which is great for gaming.
Xiaomi opted for a punch-hole selfie camera, which is centered in the top of the screen. It mostly disappears from view as you use the phone, though it’s still noticeable when watching videos.
In all, Xiaomi assembled an excellent display for the 11T Pro.
How is battery life?
The 11T Pro sports some of Xiaomi’s most advanced battery technology, which ensures that the phone always has a charge when you need it.
The 11T Pro is one of the fastest-charging phones in the world. It supports 120W wired charging and ships with the 120W charger in the box. Nice. How fast is fast? It goes from zero to 100% in just 17 minutes. Plugging in for 10 minutes nets you a 72% charge.
With charging speeds like this, you almost always have the time to top up completely, even when you’re in a hurry. Xiaomi says the phone can manage these Rapid charging speeds over time (800 charging cycles) and do so without heating up and damaging the battery. In my time with the phone, I noticed only the slightest degree of warmth during charging with the included 120W charger. Time will tell if battery health holds up, but Xiaomi has been toying with super-fast charging for a while now and is adamant that even after 800 cycles (or approximately two years of use), the phone should only lose 20% of its battery capacity.
You’ll pay for this fast wired charging via one stinging omission: the Xiaomi 11T Pro does not support wireless charging. That’s a major missing feature even on a sub-flagship. While the Rapid wired charging is absolutely great, wireless charging has become a creature comfort that’s sure to be missed by some buyers who’ve grown accustomed to it on their existing phones.
That aside, between the solid screen-on time and Rapid wired charging, the Xiaomi 11T Pro manages to deliver the goods when it comes to the battery.
How powerful is the Xiaomi 11T Pro?
Xiaomi was sure to opt for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor for the 11T Pro. It’s the top chipset of 2021 (barring the gaming-focused Plus variant) and has powered nearly every flagship of consequence. It’s paired with LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage for top speeds with all manner of tasks.
During daily use of the phone, I witnessed near-flawless performance. The device ran quickly and smoothly with very little sluggishness or stuttering. Screen transitions were like liquid and apps of all types opened in a blink. Demanding apps such as 3D games jumped to life and delivered excellent experiences. Benchmark scores for the 11T Pro were solid, though not the best we’ve seen from a Snapdragon 888 device. It posted a solid runtime on our homegrown Speed Test G benchmark, for example, but still managed to take a little longer than the Mi 11 and Mi 11 Ultra. The phone’s day-to-day prowess, however, supplants the importance of the benchmarks, and it more than delivers here.
On the wireless front, the phone supports sub-6GHz 5G. The phone will be sold unlocked via select online retailers in the US market and it is compatible with some US 5G bands for ATT and T-Mobile, but not all. We were unable to test the phone’s 5G performance for this review. Keep in mind it doesn’t support mmWave 5G on compatible networks such as Verizon.
Wi-Fi 6 is on board, as is Bluetooth 5.2. Wi-Fi 6E would’ve taken the phone to another level for future-proofing, but Wi-Fi 6 at least ensures solid performance with modern networking and is in line with what we’d expect to see at this price. I experienced reliable Wi-Fi speeds while testing the phone.
How’s that 108MP camera?
Xiaomi didn’t stray far from recent Mi series camera arrangements with the 11T Pro’s shooters. That means a 108MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, and a 5MP telemacro camera on the rear, all joined by a 16MP selfie camera on the front. These provide Xiaomi 11T Pro owners with plenty of flexibility when it comes time to capture a variety of shots, though, just like with the Mi 11, I’d prefer Xiaomi dropped the telemacro lens in favor of a regular optical zoom lens.
Camera shooting modes are robust. The phone includes a basic carousel in the viewfinder that slides between pro, video, photo, portrait, and more. Under the more tab, you’ll find extended shooting modes, including night, 108MP, short video, panorama, document scanner, vlog, slow motion, time-lapse, movie effects, long exposure, dual video, and clone.
The main 108MP camera bins down by a factor of nine, making for final “Super Pixel” images of 12MP at a pixel size of 2.1μm. Of course, you can tap into the full 108MP resolution of the main camera if you wish. It’s a fast lens at f/1.75, which means it lets in plenty of light. The camera gets the job done in good order. Regular daytime photos taken with the main camera are fine. I saw solid FOCUS, good exposure, and accurate color representation. If there’s one thing I spotted from time to time, it was a little oversharpening. The HDR function managed to strike the right balance most of the time, with only a few stinkers in the lot.
The ultra-wide struggled with exposure and detail, and was more prone to introducing over-sharpening and noise.
Xiaomi reined in the 8MP ultra-wide lens a bit to 120-degrees, down from the Mi 11’s 128-degree field-of-view. That’s still plenty wide and actually makes for a bit less distortion in the resulting images. Shots I took were average for an ultra-wide, though. There was still some noticeable stretching in the corners of most images, but it wasn’t too bad. The ultra-wide also struggled with exposure and detail and was more prone to introducing oversharpening and noise.
The 5MP telemacro camera is meant to help you take better close-up shots. It’s a macro lens but features a small amount of optical zoom. This allows you to capture macro shots from a greater distance from the subject. Most of the time you need to be literally right on top of your subject to pull off an in-FOCUS shot. This lens lets you back off a little, in the range of 3cm to 7cm. over, it includes auto-FOCUS to help sharpen things up.
I’m still not sold on the usefulness of macro lenses and Xiaomi’s telemacro implementation doesn’t change that. Getting in-FOCUS shots was really hard, even with the autofocus function. You have to hold very still, and the depth of field is so narrow that only a small portion of the image is in FOCUS. Color and exposure were good, at least in the daytime shots I took.
Low-light shooting delivered the expected results. That means a bit more noise and grain visible in the images. The white balance looks good, but FOCUS is a touch soft. Shooting in night mode offers mixed results at best. While the camera is able to digest a fair amount of light and bring out the details, it does so at the expense of noise and grain, which weigh heavily on the pix.
The 16MP selfie camera is just okay. In the selfie and the self-portrait below, you can see that I am in good FOCUS. There’s enough detail scattered in the background of each image. I like the bokeh effect of the portrait shot, but the background got really washed out and overexposed. The colors turned out to be mostly accurate, if a little flat. The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s selfie camera doesn’t set the world on fire, but it’s perfectly serviceable.
The 4K/60fps video footage I captured was clean with good exposure and little noise. There’s also support for 960fps super slow motion and 8K recording. It’s a serviceable video camera.
On balance, while many of the shots are fine none of them is truly exceptional. We saw better performance from the pricier Xiaomi Mi 11 and some competing phones in the market have an edge here.
You can view full-resolution photo samples in this Google Drive folder.
Anything else?
Xiaomi 11T Pro specs
6.67-inch AMOLED flat DotDisplay2,400 x 1,080 FHD120Hz AdaptiveSync480Hz touch responseHDR10Gorilla Glass Victus800 nits brightness, 1,000 nits peak brightnessContrast ratio: 5,000,000:1
Rear:Main: 108MP, f/1.75, 2.1μm 9-in-1 Super PixelUltra Wide-angle: 8MP, f/2.2, 120-degree FOVTelemacro: 5MP, f/2.4
Video:8K at 30fps720p at 960fps super slow motion
Value and competition
The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s starting price of €649 feels reasonable at first blush. The phone has a lot going for it. First, there’s the luscious display that makes everything look vivid. Then there’s the ultra quick-charging battery that lasts all day. Let’s not forget the flagship processor and its hefty overall performance and comprehensive connectivity suite. These all command a price premium. There are, however, a few things that hold the phone back. For example, the camera could be better and so could the design and materials. over, the phone lacks a robust IP rating. These few things make me wish the phone were a little cheaper than it is.
One-click AI cinema | Xiaomi 11T Pro
In terms of the competition, the Xiaomi 11T Pro has a lot to worry about from its own stable. The Chinese brand also debuted the Xiaomi 11T (€499) and Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G (€399). The much cheaper 11T has the same camera and display as the 11T Pro, but swaps out the Snapdragon 888 for a MediaTek Dimensity 1200-Ultra processor and the 120W charging for 67W charging. The 11 Lite 5G further pares down the specs with a smaller screen, Snapdragon 778G processor, and a wholly different camera arrangement. Of course, you could opt for the high-end Mi 11 (749) for a little extra, or if you’re happy to spend a lot more, the Mi 11 Ultra (1,599). Xiaomi has no shortage of competitive offerings.
There are other alternatives. For example, there’s the vanilla OnePlus 9 (649) model. It has the same processor and a fantastic 120Hz panel of its own. For those in the US, there’s also the Motorola Edge (699), which has a similar-sized screen that refreshes at 144Hz and a 108MP camera, though you lose some power with the Snapdragon 778G chipset. UK buyers instead get the Motorola Edge 20 Pro (£649) with an even sturdier spec sheet and a similar camera setup to the Xiaomi 11T Pro, albeit with a marginally inferior Snapdragon 870 processor.
In India, the phone takes on the OnePlus 9RT (Rs. 43,999), a recently launched refresh of the OnePlus 9R. The OnePlus 9RT brings a higher-end 50MP primary sensor from the OnePlus 9 as well as a Snapdragon 888 chipset. However, the Xiaomi 11T Pro handily trounces the OnePlus 9RT with its 108MP camera, faster charging, and, most importantly, price.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 FE (699 / €749 / £699 / Rs. 54,999) is yet another competitor for the phone which offers great value for money with specs that compare well to the Xiaomi 11T Pro. In India, however, the phone commands a significant premium over the Xiaomi 11T Pro making it less of a deal.
Xiaomi 11T Pro Review: Not worthy of its Pro name
This review definitely isn’t about Mi, as Xiaomi has dropped the “Mi” name from its phones, with the refresh to the six-month-old Xiaomi Mi 11 simply being called the Xiaomi 11T. There are three models in the new range — the 11T, 11T Lite, and 11T Pro — and I’ve been using the top model, the 11T Pro.
You can’t call the 11T Pro a sequel, as it’s not drastically different from the Mi 11. Even worse, there’s nothing here that makes it a Pro phone either, and that causes me to wonder why it exists. Let’s see if there’s a hidden reason.
Design
The Xiaomi 11T Pro weighs 204 grams, measures 8.8mm thick, and has a flat screen and a rear panel that looks like glass covering metal, but feels and sounds more like plastic. The addition of the “T” to the name indicates this isn’t a full sequel to the Mi 11, but a refresh, just like OnePlus once did with its own T models. However, this Pro version doesn’t look as modern as the basic, older Mi 11.
The curved glass over the screen on the Mi 11 may not have had a functional element, but it did give it some character, as did the multistep camera module on the back. For the 11T Pro, that’s all gone. The rear panel has a glossy finish and an attractive brushed metal look, but it gets smudgy and sounds quite hollow. It does provide enough grip to keep it safe in your hands. though. It’s seen here in the Meteorite Gray color, but there are also white and blue versions.
What does it say about the rest of the phone’s design when it’s the power key I like best?
My favorite design element is the power key because it’s very easy to use. It stands proud of the chassis on the right-hand side, but still incorporates the fingerprint sensor. Since the last phone I used was the Nokia XR20, with its practically hidden fingerprint sensor, it’s nice that the 11T Pro’s sensor is easy to locate and ultra-responsive. I have never needed to fall back on any other unlock method while using the 11T Pro.
However, what does it say about the rest of the phone’s design when it’s the power key I like best? It says it’s a bit dull and forgettable. There’s nothing wrong with the 11T Pro’s look, but there’s nothing particularly stylish about it ,either. The 20:9 aspect ratio screen, chunky body, and weight of more than 200 grams doesn’t make it especially able or feel very modern. There’s no IP rating either, which puts it behind most of its competitors and at greater risk from damage.
Screen
Covered in Gorilla Glass Victus, the 11T Pro’s screen is a 6.67-inch AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate, 1000 nits peak brightness, a 480Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10 certification, and a 2400 x 1080-pixel resolution. This is a downgrade from the higher-resolution screen on the Mi 11, and it really shows. It’s less vibrant, has a cooler tone, worse contrast levels, and is generally less visually exciting to look at. At best, it’s perhaps a little more natural-looking, but when viewed side by side, your eyes default to the Mi 11.
The screen does not have an adaptive refresh rate, so it’s either set at 60Hz or 120Hz. While the smoothness of 120Hz is always evident when it’s active, it does have an odd tendency to slow scrolling down in some apps and the menu. In. for example, there is far slower scrolling speed, and the app has a slightly muddy feel to it. This is also evident in areas of the operating system. Switch back to 60Hz, and it goes away. I also found the auto-brightness to be a little oversensitive, dimming the screen when I didn’t want it to.
While not terrible, there’s not much about the screen that makes me think of the 11T Pro as a “Pro” phone, a trend that continues throughout my review.
Camera
The main camera has 108-megapixels and is joined by an 8MP wide-angle and a 5MP telemacro camera. The Mi 11 had a higher megapixel wide-angle camera. How has this affected the photo experience? It’s all rather similar to the Mi 11. It takes some great photos, and then some bad ones with oddly muted colors or poor white balance.
The 2x digital zoom shows good detail as it doesn’t get too close, and the main camera can take balanced photos that emphasize natural tones, but because the camera is inconsistent, I often took two or three photos from slightly different angles in the hope one would come out well. The differences between them can sometimes be huge — see the photos of the roof structure in the examples below for evidence — and it doesn’t make me trust the camera much.
The 5MP Super Macro mode is more useful than most due to an autofocus feature, and photos are more attractive and easier to take than on phones with a basic 2MP fixed-FOCUS macro camera. The phone shoots 8K video at 30 frames per second (fps), and there are all the same A.I. video modes from the Mi 11, too. These provide cinematic looks like a super-zoom-in-style shot, a lowlight tracking mode, and a “time freeze” where an object is frozen while everything else continues to move. In practice, these all require very specific situations to shine, and most work best with another person in the shot.
Xiaomi’s addition of an optical zoom is welcome, but its presence isn’t enough to really lift the camera on the 11T Pro over the Mi 11, and the “Pro” name definitely hasn’t been added to highlight any camera improvements.
Battery
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is the fastest-charging phone I’ve tested. The dual-cell 5000mAh battery gets its energy from an included 120-watt wired charging block that Xiaomi claims reaches 100% in 17 minutes. I could barely believe the phone had fully charged so quickly the first few times I tried it out, as it maxed the battery in about 20 minutes.
Oddly though, it’s not always so fast. Most days, total charge time was 20 minutes, but on other days, it would edge toward 30 minutes. Still fast, but the variation doesn’t lead to trust in the system, which is important. I’m using a European charging block with an adapter for use in the U.K., which may affect charging speeds.
I haven’t charged the 11T Pro overnight at all because the battery life is good enough for about two working days, or a day-and-a-half of constant use. This means that by using the 120W wired fast charging, I can charge the battery fully first thing when I’m doing something else like showering or making breakfast. There’s no wireless charging, and while I don’t really see this as a major downside, it is a standard feature on many competing phones, and was on the Mi 11, too.
The quick charging is very convenient, cuts down on energy waste, and should help with battery longevity as well. The battery life is better than on the Mi 11, due to a slightly larger battery capacity and improved efficiency from Xiaomi’s MIUI 12.5 software. It’s really the only vaguely Pro aspect of the phone, and even then, it’s a bit of a stretch.
Performance and software
A Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor and either 8GB or 12GB of RAM powers the 11T Pro. It boasts dual-SIM 5G connectivity, NFC for Google Pay, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.2. Android 11 with Xiaomi’s MIUI Global 12.5 software is installed.
First, the good stuff. There’s an app tray, a really pretty and highly customizable always-on screen, and new Super Wallpapers that look amazing — they’re fully animated, very fluid, and dynamic, too, as they change their look with the time of the day. The phone has been reliable, I was able to uninstall the majority of the preinstalled apps, and I saw some efficiency improvements through the battery life, too.
Price and availability
It’s unlikely the 11T Pro will ever be officially available in the U.S., however, you will likely be able to import it. In the U.K. the 11T Pro will be released on October 1 with pre-orders beginning on September 24, with the price set at 599 British pounds or 650 euros for the 8GB/128GB version, or about 770. Two other versions will also be available, a 650 pounds/699 euro or 830 8GB/256GB phone, and in selected markets a 749 euro, 885 12GB/256GB phone.
Our take
The question I asked most often about the Xiaomi 11T Pro is “why does it exist?” It has the same chip as the Mi 11, an almost identical camera, and a lower-spec screen, but a slightly larger battery and faster charging. I don’t think it’s as good-looking as the Mi 11, and when you hold the two at the same time, the Mi 11 feels like the superior, more expensive device. The final conundrum comes with the name, as not only does it not surpass the standard Mi 11 to earn its Pro title, but I could find nothing that technically made it “Pro” at all.
Certainly, if you own the Mi 11, there’s absolutely no need to upgrade. The worse news (for Xiaomi) is, because it’s not a reasonable upgrade over the Mi 11, which only launched in February, there are quite a few strong alternatives from the competition available. The Snapdragon 888 may make the 11T Pro appear to be a flagship phone, but unfortunately, it’s surrounded by midrange tech that’s not always very well optimized, and that doesn’t do the chip or the Pro name justice.
Is there a better alternative?
Yes. We recommend the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G for a great blend of affordable price, capable camera, great screen, and useful feature additions like water resistance and 5G connectivity. Alternatively, take a look at the OnePlus Nord 2, the Google Pixel 5a, or the Realme GT. If you have more to spend, the OnePlus 9 Pro continues to be a great buy.
How long will it last?
You will get two years of use with ease, but by that time, it may be ripe for replacement. There’s no water resistance here, so you’ll have to be careful with the phone, but a transparent TPU case is included in the box to help keep it safe. There’s 5G to keep the phone at the cutting-edge of connectivity for a while, plus there are no concerns over performance due to the top-of-the-range processor. Xiaomi does send software updates through regularly, but they mostly apply to MIUI, and although the phone will receive Android updates for three years, you will have to wait longer for Android 12 than with a phone like the Google Pixel 5a.
Should you buy one?
No. It’s not an upgrade over the Mi 11, and can’t compete with many other reasonably priced smartphones.
Огляд Xiaomi 11T Pro — щось не Про
Editors’ Recommendations
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Wireless smartphone plans are historically confusing and complicated — and this can be especially true when trying to mix and match different plan types. Take ATT as an example. Ever since the carrier launched its FirstNet wireless service for first responders, families with FirstNet and regular/commercial ATT plans have had to put up with multiple wireless plans, multiple accounts, and multiple bills. However, starting August 9, ATT is taking big steps to reduce the headaches and make its FirstNet service offerings much easier to digest.
Created in 2001 and contracted to ATT in 2017, FirstNet is a wireless network “built with ATT to specifically to meet the needs of first responders.” In the event of a natural disaster, terror attack, etc., it’s not uncommon for wireless cell signals to become overloaded and disrupted. FirstNet is designed to remain up and running during such events and gives first responders “superior security, truly dedicated coverage and capacity when they need it and unique benefits they can’t get anywhere else.” While that aspect of FirstNet is great, how it’s traditionally been billed to people has been anything but.
As phones have become entirely engrained into our lives, they’re frequently placed in positions where they could face damage. Whether that’s from falling out of s, being stepped on, or being chewed up by a pet — when you buy a new phone, you’re making a major investment in a world where everything is a potential phone-killer. With the OnePlus 10T here, potential buyers are asking questions regarding how sturdy the device will be. specifically, you’re probably wondering if the OnePlus 10T is waterproof.
One of the biggest areas where device owners want their smartphones to be the most resistant is when it comes to waterproofing. Keeping devices dry can be a difficult task, so most people want to know what the OnePlus 10T can survive. From withstanding a drop in the pool to a quick splash from a knocked-over glass of water, there’s a wide range of what waterproofing can mean. Most devices possess some level of waterproofing, which makes answering “is the OnePlus 10T waterproof” a little complicated. The OnePlus 10T has IP54 water resistance
Xiaomi is working with Leica on the camera for its next flagship, the Xiaomi 12 Ultra, and has additionally shared that the new phone will be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor. Previously Leica shared a successful partnership with Huawei, but this has come to an end with the announcement of the new deal.
“Xiaomi focuses on creating the ultimate user experience, and has always hoped to explore the capabilities of smartphone photography to the extreme. Xiaomi and Leica agree with each other’s pursuits and ideas and appreciate each other’s advantages and industry. This cooperation will provide a strong boost to Xiaomi’s imaging strategy,” Lei Jun, founder, chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi Group said. “During the cooperation, from optical design to tuning aesthetic orientations, the innovative technologies, product philosophies, and imaging preferences of both parties have experienced unprecedented in-depth collision and fusion.”
Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks.
Xiaomi 11T Pro review
The Xiaomi 11T Pro brings flagship power to a mid-range price smartphone, with the party trick of 120W charging. This would be a must-buy if it wasn’t for the chaotic nature of its Android skin, its tendency to get hot, and the middling camera.
Pros
- Powerful Snapdragon 888 chip
- Long battery life
- Gorgeous OLED screen
- Insanely fast 120W charging
Cons
- – Camera system not as good as they claim
- – It’s a fingerprint magnet
- – Gets hot easily
- – MIUI software is busy
- – Limited water resistance
Why you can trust Laptop Mag
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro leads the company’s charge to ditch the “Mi” prefix and refresh its smartphone lineup.
Picking up from the Mi 11 Ultra, Xiaomi has improved the flagship formula with a Snapdragon 888 chipset, 120Hz OLED display with Dolby Vision, a 5,000 mAh battery with impressive 120W charging, and a 108MP camera system.
So, this is clearly more than just an ideological rebranding of Xiaomi’s top-of-the-range phones. Rather, it is a big play for the flagship killer market, but does it deliver on the lofty promises?
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Price and configurations
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is available for order now with a release date of October 1. It comes in three finishes: Moonlight White, Meteorite Gray and Celestial Blue. Pricing starts at £599 (around 830) for the model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, which goes up to £699 (roughly 970) for double the storage.
This puts it in direct contention with similarly specced competitors like the OnePlus 9 and in the same territory as Apple’s iPhone 13.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Design
The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s design doesn’t stand out, but that’s not a bad thing. This is another premium-looking slab with a flat glass screen on the front, which is a warmly welcomed change from the curved display of the Mi 11.
A metallic visual style on the back does give the entire thing a more upmarket feel, but with a glossy rear, that can quickly be ruined by fingerprints.
Breaking down the specifics, at 6.46 x 3.03 x 0.35 inches and a weight of 7.2 ounces, the 11T Pro is not a phone for small hands. It is larger and heavier than both the OnePlus 9 (6.3 x 2.9 x 0.32 inches, 6.8 ounces) and iPhone 13 (5.8 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches, 6.1 ounces).
In real world use, the weight didn’t cause much fatigue, but it is one of the biggest phones released this year, slotting just behind the 6.7-inch ZTE Axon 30 beast. Thankfully, its buttons are in easy-to-reach places and the software has been tweaked to allow you to minimize the screen and reach icons at the top if one-handed use is the only option.
One thing to take note of, though, is that while the Mi 11 Ultra featured IP68 water resistance, the 11T Pro only gets an IP53 rating, which guarantees protection against dust and “spraying water.” As such, this isn’t the most durable phone in the elements, so be careful in downpours, and don’t be too clumsy near sinks or toilets.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Display
Turn it on and the 6.67-inch AMOLED panel comes to life. On paper, this is a bit of a downgrade from the Xiaomi Mi 11, which maxed out at 1440p. The 11T Pro opts for a 2400 x 1080-pixel resolution instead, and this has a 120Hz refresh rate rather than the 144Hz you saw in the Mi 10T series of phones.
You may feel disappointed by these cutbacks, but in practice, you’ll barely notice the difference. In fact, you may even enjoy this one slightly more, as the screen isn’t curved and the colors seem to be more vibrant and accurate thanks to the implementation of Dolby Vision.
Watching the trailer for The Matrix Resurrections highlights the strengths of this screen, as the HDR qualities add a luminosity to things and enabled brighter scenes to glow off the screen. colorful moments of combat really pop and darker scenes had extra depth.
While the iPhone 13 also shares HDR on its Liquid Retina display and OnePlus 9 sports the same resolution, surprisingly, the latter does not have this HDR standard.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Audio
The lack of headphone jack is disappointing, but not surprising. However, Xiaomi makes up for this with powerful stereo speakers tuned by Harman Kardon. These pair with the gorgeously vivid OLED display to make a formidable entertainment experience.
Testing these speakers with Four Year Strong’s cover of “Bittersweet Symphony” reaffirms that quality, as the 11T Pro captured the subtler details in the quiet parts, while handling the onslaught of the thrashing loud chorus sections without distortion.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Performance
Armed with a Snapdragon 888 5G chipset and up to 12GB RAM, the Xiaomi 11T Pro is a speedy phone. Putting this to the test in Geekbench 5, the 11T Pro achieved a single-core score of 974 single-core and 3,542 multi-core. This puts it within fighting distance of the OnePlus 9 (3,618 multi-core), but the iPhone 13, as has been the case with Apple phones in the past, has shot ahead with a multi-core score of 4,436.
In 3DMark’s WildLife, Xiaomi’s phone also held its own with an average frame rate of 35 frames per second, jumping ahead of the OnePlus 9’s 34 fps and falling behind the iPhone 13’s 52 fps. These numbers prove this is a phone with more than enough power for the daily essentials and some prosumer tasks.
This is proven right in real-world use, as I didn’t come across any stuttering no matter how many CPU-intensive processes I threw at the 11T Pro. Call Of Duty: Mobile on the OLED display looks and performs great, while multitasking between apps like Adobe’s Photoshop mobile, TikTok and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas didn’t slow down the experience one iota.
You won’t be disappointed by the speedy performance, although the back does get hot when under more prolonged use.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Battery Life Charging
With a 5,000 mAh battery, the Xiaomi 11T Pro can comfortably make it through a day of average use. I got it down to around 15% on a typical day, which involved a few hours of web browsing, listening to podcasts and Spotify all day, plenty of social media use, photography, gaming, and watching YouTube videos in the evening.
And when you do find yourself with a drained battery, the 120W charger can juice this all the way back to 100% in under 20 minutes. Yep, you read that right. Actually, in our testing, Xiaomi deserves a little more credit as it recharged the 11T Pro fully in 16 minutes.
Unfortunately, there is no wireless charging support, meaning you need to be tethered to top up this Xiaomi phone. But this can be easily forgiven given the sheer speed of charging on this device.
Xiaomi 11T Pro: Cameras
Xiaomi has placed a lot of emphasis on the 11T Pro’s cameras in its promotional materials. In reality, these claims feel exaggerated. The 11T Pro shares the Mi 11’s 108MP f/1.8 main and 5MP f/2.4 macro cameras, while downgrading the ultra-wide to an 8MP f/2.2 shooter, and its selfie snapper to a 16MP f/2.5 sensor.
Starting up front, portraits are decent. Selfies are sharp, colorful and provide good contrast. Sure, the higher aperture results in some noise in darker shots, but the camera software does a good job of smoothing this out.
Around the back, the less-used macro and ultra-wide cameras provide mediocre picture quality — with the former being too noisy for real macro photography and the latter being too colorful and spongy.
Xiaomi 11T Pro Review
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is a good-value 5G phone with a top-end processor. It displays a decent spread of abilities across gaming, video streaming and the camera hardware. The photos it captures are a little inconsistent, and the design could be mistaken for that of a much cheaper Xiaomi, but there’s enough substance to make up for it.
Availability
Introduction
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is a mid-range phone with a top-end processor. It’s a slightly more affordable alternative to the Xiaomi Mi 11.
Like so many Xiaomi Android devices, the 11T Pro is made for the tech enthusiast who demands good value. It features a Snapdragon 888 CPU, a 108-megapixel camera, 120W charging, and a 120Hz AMOLED screen. All in all, it brings high-end flair buyers looking for the best mid-range phone.
If camera quality is a priority, you’re probably better off with a Google Pixel 6. The Xiaomi 11T Pro can take great photos, but it isn’t all that consistent. However, it has a larger screen and loud stereo speakers – which are huge positives if you care as much about gaming and the video streaming experience as photography.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro comes in two flavours: 128GB of storage for £599, or 256GB for £649.
A lot of my impressions in this review will also apply to the step-down Xiaomi 11T. It costs £549 but comes with 256GB of storage, making it £100 cheaper than the Pro version. What do you lose? Charging is at a rate of 67W rather than 120W – which is still very quick, mind – and it features a MediaTek Dimensity processor rather than a Snapdragon 888.
There may well be some other differences, too, which wouldn’t be apparent without having the two devices side-by-side. Nevertheless, the Xiaomi 11T seems a worthy alternative if you’re not fussed about the extra gaming punch of the Pro version.
Design and Screen
Nowadays, on first glance it’s often difficult to tell apart entry-level phones from higher-end models such as the Xiaomi 11T Pro. This is particularly true of Xiaomi’s recent Androids, all of which seem to have cameras made to look oversized and techie.
However, there’s a difference. Where a phone such as the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro comes with a plastic back and sides, the Xiaomi 11T Pro has a glass rear.
Xiaomi has done something a little unusual with this particular finish, however: it has a brushed aluminium effect underneath the glass. I see plenty of plastic phones faking it as glass ones, but the Xiaomi 11T Pro is a glass phone pretending to be aluminium – despite glass being seen by most as a higher-end finish over metal.
This isn’t your only option. The Xiaomi 11T Pro is also available in white and blue, and those versions don’t have the aluminium sheen.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s sides are plastic, much like those of the OnePlus 9. That phone is a little more stylish than this Xiaomi; a little less anonymous. But in one sense the 11T Pro actually competes with the higher-end OnePlus 9 Pro since it has a larger screen. As with so many Xiaomi phones, the Xiaomi 11T Pro appears to be made for value-conscious phone buyers.
If you want a more deliberate sense of style from a Xiaomi, check out the step-up Xiaomi Mi 11. That’s right, while the Xiaomi 11T Pro sounds like it should be higher-end than the Mi 11, it’s actually a step below.
There are some neat sections to the outer hardware. The Xiaomi 11T Pro display is covered by Gorilla Glass Victus – Corning’s top-end toughened glass. It’s a tier above the glass used in the OnePlus 9 Pro.
The type of glass on the back isn’t specified, and is likely to be a cheaper Gorilla Glass alternative. However, I’d suggest you use the phone as I have, with the silicone case attached. Xiaomi also applies a screen protector in the factory, which is always welcome.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro comes with some good-quality speakers. It has two drivers, one on the bottom of the phone and another above the screen, appearing to fire out sound from the top as well as the earpiece vent on the phone’s front.
These speakers are loud, and better balanced than most. The above-screen speaker is only a little quieter and less bassy than the primary unit, so you get a good sense of stereo sound when holding the phone in a landscape position. They’re great for gaming, for video, or just listening to podcasts in a noisier environment.
This is typical Xiaomi stuff: you get plenty of features. However, the Xiaomi Mi 11T Pro uses a side-loaded fingerprint scanner rather than an in-screen unit of the type in the OnePlus 9. These are seen as a little less fancy, a little less glossy – but functionally, they’re just as good. This particular one takes a fraction of a second longer than some, but it’s reliable all the same.
As is usual for a phone at this level, the Xiaomi 11T Pro doesn’t have a headphone jack, and water-resistance is a basic IP53. This means it should be fine in a bit of light drizzle, but you still need to be careful.
One of the key characteristics here is both a draw and a reason to be turned off. The Xiaomi 11T Pro is, like so many Xiaomi phones, quite large. It has a big screen, and not one that curves around the sides to minimise the phone’s footprint.
I’m a fan of large phones such as this; plus, it’s still a bit narrower than an iPhone 13 Pro Max at 76.9mm. But size is something to consider.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro features a 6.67-inch screen, like many Xiaomi phones including the Poco X3 Pro, the Xiaomi 11T, and the Redmi Note 10 Pro.
There are many affordable Xiaomi devices with great screens, but the 11T Pro does have a few advantages. First, as mentioned, it’s protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, where lower-end models use a step-down grade of glass. This screen is also brighter than most.
Xiaomi says it can reach peaks of 1000 nits, and 800-nit functional brightness when you’re in a bright environment. The highest measurement I recorded in a real-world scenario was 730 nits. It’s sufficient to ensure a clear screen in all conditions.
This is a 120Hz OLED screen, resulting in noticeably smoother scrolling than when using the 60Hz mode. Xiaomi also offers decent controls over the display’s colour calibration, letting you choose styles with more pop, or a more accurate representation.
I’d recommend sticking to a slightly less saturated mode since Xiaomi’s screen tuning isn’t clever enough to remove oversaturation when you look at photos you’ve taken in the Gallery. It appears better with the colour temperature warmed, too, since the default leans towards cooler blue-tinged whites. This does the display’s rich OLED colour no favours, in my opinion.
There’s just one other minor issue here. The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s screen skews blue at an angle, regardless of the colour tuning chosen. This is a common effect in OLED screens, but the latest high-end Samsung panels have managed to minimise the effect. Here it’s quite noticeable, although it’s the kind of thing you’ll notice on day one, and forget about by day three.
Performance
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is a phone for people who care about performance, but don’t want to spend a fortune on a high-end processor. It comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 CPU, like several of today’s most expensive phones.
Those not fussed about having a Qualcomm chipset should also consider the Xiaomi 11T. It includes a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor and costs £100 less at the 256GB storage level.
I’ve had a good time with some of these high-powered MediaTek phones, such as the OnePlus Nord 2, and would be perfectly happy with the standard Xiaomi 11T. However, the 11T Pro is certainly more powerful.
It scored 3526 points in Geekbench 5 (807 per core), very similar to a score you might see from a OnePlus 9. And the lower-end Dimensity 1200 actually records very similar results.
Things change slightly when you use a purely gaming-driven test, though. The Xiaomi 11T Pro scores 5906 points in 3DMark’s Wild Life test – 40% higher than you might see from a Dimensity 1200 phone such as the standard Xiaomi 11T.
Where you’ll actually see these benefits is something to consider. For example, Fortnite is one of Android’s most demanding games, but at the moment you can’t run it in the higher-end 60fps mode. This is something Epic seems to unlock on a per-phone basis, and the Xiaomi 11T Pro is currently stuck at a max of 30fps at the time of review. We’re not getting full use of the phone’s power.
The game still runs great – but this is a reminder that, on occasion, a great system-on-chip isn’t always enough to ensure you see the very best from games. Still, everything I tried ran perfectly. There were no obvious slow-down moments in Asphalt 9 on the action getting busy, and ARK: Survival Evolved plays happily maxed-out.
This is up there with the OnePlus 9 as one of the most powerful phones you can get for £600. But gamers should also consider even more affordable powerhouses such as the Xiaomi Poco F3 and Poco X3 Pro. They get you similar real-world results for less cash.
The software inside the 11T Pro is the usual Xiaomi fodder. It runs Android 11 with the company’s MIUI on top.
It’s a decent interface, but the latest version does make one objectionable change. The pull-down menu gesture is now segmented. Flick from the left side of the screen for your notifications; flick down from from the right for the “control centre” feature toggles.
With a phone of this size, you’ll almost always flick from the right side when using one hand rather than two. This means to access your notifications, you then need to swipe right – it’s another gesture added to this version of MIUI.
I find this style clunky, particularly when I want to see my notifications far more often than the Wi-Fi toggle button. Older versions of MIUI didn’t do this.
Still, that’s the one issue I have with what is otherwise a pretty practical and decent-looking custom interface.
Camera
The Xiaomi 11T Pro has three cameras on its rear and one on the front. While its 108-megapixel Samsung HM2 primary sensor is the star, this is also a good example of Xiaomi getting a mid-price camera strategy right.
There are no useless or filler cameras here. The other two rear cameras are an 8-megapixel Sony IMX355, which performs fairly well given its relatively low resolution, and a 5-megapixel macro. Again, this is far better than most dedicated macro cameras because it has a “zoomed in” lens view, making it possible to get genuine macro-grade detail without needing to get unreasonably close to your subject.
They both perform far better than they sound on paper. The only issue is Xiaomi has used this hardware in some of its cheaper models.
My first impressions of the Xiaomi 11T Pro camera were almost entirely positive. Shooting feels more-or-less instantaneous, the Auto HDR mode seems to breeze through just about every situation, and there’s a Night mode that improves low-light images quite dramatically.
Looking at the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s images on a laptop for a closer inspection revealed a few issues that mean this phone, while good, isn’t a match for a device such as the Google Pixel 6 Pro.
The first concerns HDR. This phone can use nuclear-grade HDR when needed, but its application seems to be based around a limited number of “gears” or levels that kick in when a scene meets a certain set of criteria. It leads to inconsistency, where some of your images will look as though they were taken with a totally different camera.
On occasions HDR is overdone, leading to a tonal flattening of the image. At other times colour saturation is cranked too high as well, even if you switch off the “AI” mode that tends to boost colour further.
The look of the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s images down at pixel level isn’t best-in-class, either. They appear a little too processed, smoothed or manipulated. It’s a pretty common effect in high-megapixel sensors that produce lower-resolution results. Still, this isn’t a major issue unless you’re going to crop into pictures and blow them up to A3 size to put them up on a wall.
On occasion the lack of optical image stabilisation will become evident, too. I’ve seen some minor HDR ghosting in stationary objects, and the detail of low-light photos isn’t best in class.
Using the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s camera feels like a flagship experience, but the final results aren’t quite at the level of the best camera phones. Still, there are some processes at which it really excels.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is particularly good at rendering Cloud contours. This stands for both the main camera and the ultra-wide, suggesting it has much more to do with the tone mapping in the software rather than anything special in the hardware.
Also note that this phone doesn’t have a zoom camera. The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s camera app lets you take 2x images, but these are digital zooms. They do feature genuinely more detail than 1x shots, properly resolving detail that is obfuscated in the standard picture, such as chain-link fences. However, they don’t hold up to further cropping and aren’t a perfect replacement for a genuine zoom lens.
Xiaomi takes things a step further with the 108-megapixel mode. However, I’d suggest avoiding this most of the time since fine detail can either look dithered or over-sharpened – and, more important, you lose HDR. This means you’re likely to see big blown-out areas in a lot of scenes.
How about video? The Xiaomi 11T Pro can shoot at up to 8K resolution, 30 frames per second. Or up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second.
I’d suggest sticking to the latter, or 4K at 30fps, since there’s no stabilisation at 8K. 4K video looks great as it is.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro’s front camera uses 16-megapixel Omnivision hardware. Xiaomi has used this in some of its cheaper phones, but it holds up pretty well. While selfies never look as if they have 16 megapixels of detail in them, the detail they do have holds up even in poor lighting. This suggests there may be some 4-in-1 pixel binning going on here (even if the actual output is a 16-megapixel file).
Battery life
The Xiaomi 11T Pro has a 5000mAh battery, the standard size for Xiaomi phones these days. It can comfortably last a full day of use, and in my experience at least outlasts the OnePlus 9.
If you’re upgrading from a lower-end Xiaomi with a similarly sized battery then you’ll find the 11T Pro’s battery life a little shorter in real-world use. But this may be down to the 120Hz screen, plus the fact that when you take the phone outdoors, the screen can get a whole lot brighter than some. Higher brightness equals faster battery drain.
I wouldn’t call the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s stamina exceptional, but I’m entirely happy with it. This phone can outlast plenty of flagship phones, because they do often take a slight hit to battery capacity in order to slim down the frame by 0.5-1mm.
The main attraction here isn’t the battery itself, but the charging speed. This is one of the few phones to deliver 120W charging, which Xiaomi calls HyperCharge.
It can power up the phone in under 20 minutes, which is sensational.
Unfortunately, our Xiaomi 11T Pro didn’t come with a cable, so the 120W adapter was only able to draw around 60W from the supply using a cable from another Xiaomi phone. Xiaomi’s system requires the right kind of cable as well as the original adapter.
Even my lower-spec Xiaomi cable provides great results, though, taking the phone from 30% to 70% in just 10 minutes.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro doesn’t support wireless charging. That may be a deal-breaker for some, but at this level you’re unlikely to see ultra-fast wireless charging anyway, so any solution it did have would look ultra-slow next to the wired alternative.
Should you buy it?
You want a mid-price phone with flagship power A Snapdragon 888 processor makes this a match for some of the most expensive phones, particularly for gaming. Good stereo speakers elevate the experience there, too.
You want a stand-out camera or design The 11T Pro doesn’t look all that different to some of Xiaomi’s cheaper phones. And its camera, while a great performer in some areas, produces slightly inconsistent images. It’s not best in classs.
Final thoughts
The most compelling Xiaomi phones offer a taste of the flagship phone experience for much less money.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is more like a OnePlus phone, in that it tries to offer 90% of what the most expensive phones include, at perhaps 60% of the cost. A Snapdragon 888 CPU is the most important change over the cheaper Xiaomi models, but 120W charging deserves a mention, too, even if I wasn’t able to see the full extent of its power first-hand.
Its camera offers powerful HDR, although its approach to the technique often means the character of the images it captures varies too much from one scene to the next. A device such as the Google Pixel 6 is probably better for keen photographers.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro design is also rather anonymous, especially compared to the more distinctive OnePlus 9 and the step-up Xiaomi Mi 11.
However, a phone such as this doesn’t need to nail every element. It’s a generalist, and is one the best in this category of devices right now.
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
You might like…
Oppo Find X6 Pro Review
Google Pixel 7a Review
FAQs
Is the Xiaomi 11T Pro waterproof? It comes with IP53 dust/water-resistance, which is about as low as you’ll see in a phone while still having a rating.
Does the Xiaomi 11T Pro support wireless charging? No, this phone only offers cabled charging.
Does the Xiaomi 11T Pro have a headphone jack? Like most phones at this level, the Xiaomi 11T Pro doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack.
