On the 29th of March, 2021, Xiaomi held a launch event and announced several new products. The majority of these products launched were high-end smartphones, the most notable of which are the Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra.

Chinese giants Xiaomi, have always had a reputation for producing affordable but quality smartphones. The company’s CEO has always maintained that quality phones are not cheap but they can be affordable and the company has largely stuck to their principles.

Due to this reputation for producing mostly affordable phones, a lot of people including their fans wondered if Xiaomi could make the jump from producing affordable midrange and budget phones to throwing punches with the big boys of the industry.

With the release of the Mi 11 Pro and the Mi 11 Ultra, the answer is yes. Xiaomi can trade blows with the big boys and even beat them at the game. The company keeps posting impressive sales figures every year and has risen to third place in the World’s smartphone company rankings.

Now just how good are the Mi 11 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra? Well let’s take a look, shall we?

Body

Both devices are made with an aluminum frame but that’s where it stops. Mi 11 Pro has a glass back and weighs 208g. Mi 11 Ultra has a ceramic back and is heavier at 234g. Both phones have an IP68 rating for full dust and water protection. For extra protection, both devices come with a protective case.

Display

Both devices boast very impressive displays. These are some of the best in the industry. The Mi 11 Pro and Ultra both sport 6.81” QHD AMOLED displays. The displays on both phones support a whopping 1 Billion colors, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision (the first time we’ll be seeing this on a smartphone).

Both screens share the same aspect ratio (20:9), pixel density (515ppi), and screen protection (Gorilla Glass Victus) but the Mi 11 Ultra has a brighter display (1700nit max) when compared to the 1500nit from the Mi 11 Pro.

Platform

Both phones have the latest and the most powerful Android SoC ever made, the Snapdragon 888. This SoC is a beast! With a three-tiered DynamIQ arrangement of 1 Kryo 680 Prime core (2.84GHz) + 3 Kryo 680 Gold cores (2.42GHz) + 4 Kyro K680 Silver cores (1.80GHz), this SoC is built for speed, power and efficiency. The SoC is built on a 5nm process, so battery management should be top-notch. This SoC is paired with a top-of-the-line Adreno 660 GPU. This SoC is future-proof for at least 3 years.

On the software side of things, both devices ship with the latest MIUI 12.5 based on Android 11. MIUI is a premium Android skin that is packed full of features that are sometimes way ahead of the Android operating system itself. In addition, you can be sure that Xiaomi will support these devices with updates for the next three years.

Memory

As a result of both phones using the SD 888, there is LPDDR5 RAM for fast app loading and multitasking. The internal memory is a blazing-fast UFS 3.1 module.

The Mi 11 Pro comes in configurations of 8/128GB, 8/256GB, and 12/256GB while the Mi 11 Ultra has 8/256GB, 12/256GB, and 12/512GB variants.

Read: Smartphone Storage Explained

Camera

This is arguably the biggest selling point of these devices and this is especially true in the case of the Mi 11 Ultra. The Mi 11 Ultra comes with a very impressive and flamboyant triple camera setup. The way this device was designed, you would think it is a camera that can make calls rather than a phone that can take photos.

The Mi 11 Ultra has a triple camera setup in which each camera is a main camera and is capable of jaw-dropping shots. The headline camera is a 50MP Samsung GN2 sensor.

The Samsung GN2 is joined by two 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensors. One of them functions as an ultra-wide camera and the other as a periscope telephoto camera capable of 120x zoom. The camera module on this phone has a viewfinder as well for taking selfies for notifications.

The Mi 11 Pro comes with a more modest triple camera setup. It uses the latest Samsung GN2 50MP sensor as its main camera. There are two supporting cameras here. One of them is an 8MP periscope camera capable of 5x optical zoom and the other is a 13MP ultra-wide camera with a 123-degree field of view.

The cameras on both phones are equipped with autofocus and Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.). They can also shoot video at resolutions of 8K (@24fps), 4K (@30/60fps), and 1080p (30/60fps). Gyro-Electronic Image Stabilization (E.I.S.) and HDR10+ recording are also fully supported.

Both the Mi 11 Pro and Ultra sport identical 20MP selfie cameras. These are also very good. They support gyro-EIS and shoot videos at 1080p (@30/60fps).

Audio

There are stereo speakers on both phones. The speakers are tuned by Harmann Kardon. The 3.5mm audio jack as expected is missing here.

Battery

The battery on both phones is a beefy 5000mAh (Li-po) battery. Both phones support fast charging technology (Q.C 4.0+ and USB PD 3.0). The batteries can be charged up to 67W (wired and wireless) and Xiaomi says the battery on either phone can be fully charged in 36 minutes.

Connectivity

Both devices are 5G (mmWave and sub-6GHz) and 4G LTE enabled. It supports Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28 (a & b), 38, 40 and 41. It also supports Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6 out of the box.

There is an optical under-display fingerprint for security. We can also find GPS, proximity sensors, ambient light sensors, an accelerometer, a compass, a gyroscope, NFC, and a notification LED. Finally, there is a USB-C port for charging and OTG.

Price and Availability

Mi 11 Pro: The 8/128GB variant sells for ¥4999, the 8/256GB sells for ¥5299 while the 8/256GB sells at ¥5699.

Mi 11 Ultra: The 8/256GB variant sells for ¥5999, the 12/256GB sells for ¥6499 while the 12/512GB sells for ¥6999.

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