Xiaomi 11T Reviewed

Let me start this by saying that I have always heard good reviews from people who are huge fans of Xiaomi phones. I do acknowledge that they make good electronics as well and I am loving my Xiaomi SWDK Handheld Electric Mop. So when the EIC messaged me one day to ask if I would like to try reviewing the Xiaomi 11T, I gladly agreed! Here’s my chance to finally test out one of their smartphones!

It’s also a weird coincidence that I’m actually in the market for a smartphone too! My main one just died a couple of days ago, and I’m currently using an old Samsung Galaxy S8 that is hellishly slow.

So yes…I was really looking forward to testing the Xiaomi 11T, as a reviewer and as a potential buyer.

What is the Xiaomi 11T?

At first look, the 11T does look pretty good and sleek with its design but, what stood out was definitely the three cameras at the back. I mean, take a look at it, why don’t you!

My first thought was definitely to wonder if the images would come up sharp and clear as most of the other phones that I have reviewed. Or would the images surpass them? But, before we get into all that, let’s start on the specs.

As I look at the overview for the Xiaomi 11T on their website, the word that strikes me used often is “cinemagic”. As quoted, “ultimate cinematic experience from stunning photography, vibrant visuals to studio-grade videography”. Those are pretty big claims huh?

The Xiaomi 11T currently retails between $589 for the 5GB RAM and $849 for the 12GB RAM on Shopee and Lazada. Xiaomi 11T is also available in our telcos with plans if you are considering a new phone for re-contract. To be frank, the Xiaomi phones is probably another of the affordable brands that I have reviewed here as compared to the others. Only one other brand was probably as affordable as Xiaomi.

Okay, on to the specs of the 11T.

There are three colours to choose from: Moonlight White, Celestial Blue and Meteorite Gray. The one that is lent to me was Meteorite Gray. The colours are pretty average, nothing much to rave about.

Dimensions: 164.1mm (height) x 76.9mm (width) x 8.8mm (thickness)

Weight: 204g – I have to concur I could tell the difference between holding on to the 11T and my personal phone.

Display: 6.67″ AMOLED DotDisplay

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 888

There are three available Storage & RAM. However, the disclaimer on the Xiaomi’s website indicated that the available storage and RAM would be lesser than indicated due to storage of operating system and software pre-installed.

The Xiaomi 11T comes with 8GB+128GB, 8GB+256GB and lastly, 12GB+256GB.

The cameras are the ones that I was most interested in though.

The Camera Performance

The 11T Pro comes with 108MP+8MP+5MP triple camera. A wide-angle, ultra wide-angle and a telemacro camera. Did it make a difference in the pictures captured?

Oh. My. God. YES!!! I was blown away by the ultra wide-angle picture and seriously impressed with the wide-angle. The ultra-wide angle was superbly clear and it made the HDB block opposite mine look super good? Like, it’s a block of flats. How do you make it look good? But, apparently it can.

Unfortunately though, in the transferring of the photos from phone to laptop, the pictures were corrupted and I am unable to upload them. The only outdoor picture I am able to upload is this one, which is zoomed in.

However, we recently celebrated both my husband’s and daughter’s birthdays. I bought helium balloons and put up some decorations. So I took the opportunity to check how the pictures would be using the phone and I have to say, the colours really looked good.

2nd Try

So, I tried transferring again and this time, it worked!

This picture here is the one that is normal range, neither zoomed in nor out. I conclude that the pictures taken are wide-angle first since this seems to be wider than usual. Again, I’m not overly impressed by how it looks here as compared to on the phone. Not sure what is the issue here that resulted in this kind of dull colours. I have tried brightening my laptop to see if that would make a difference but, eh.

Next up, is the ultra wide-angle.

I love how the picture manages to fit a lot of details into it, but the colours. Oh man. Aside from that though, I love how the fluffy the clouds look in the picture and how the ultra wide-angle camera managed to fit it in. Somehow, the angle made the HDB block opposite looks 2D, don’t you think so?

I’m not sure how to feel about the camera performance. The colours were so much vibrant in the phone. However, the helium balloons and decorations were pretty much true to colour. Maybe it has something to do with indoor lighting and outdoor? Something to consider maybe.

Performance?

Am I overly impressed? Not really. Do I feel like it is difficult to use? Not at all. I was a little confused at first when I kept searching for the apps and realized that the there is no application page but rather everything is right there. Swiping up brings up the Google Search bar, which I am not used to but it is nothing against Xiaomi of course.

If you have been using the same brand of phones for the last couple of years, changing brands would require you to get used to how the system is slightly different. It is as expected.

Ever since I shifted houses and ended my leave, I have not had any time to play games. To keep things true to how it is usually is for me, I skipped playing games on this phone as well. So the phone was pretty much used for everyday things like scrolling through social medias and capturing pictures.

The Benchmarks

Here’s the true test of the phones.

I started with the 3DMark of the phone and was greeted by this image (down) when I wanted to run the test.

So of course, I still went ahead and ran the test. Just to see what the results would be and:

As expected, the Xiaomi 11T had maxed out everything so I moved on to the Wild Life which was the recommended test. Let’s see the result.

So, looking at the results from the Wild Life test, I think we can safely conclude that the Xiaomi 11T pretty much exceeded my expectations on how it would fare. I certainly didn’t think that it would be better than a majority of other devices. In fact, I have always heard rave reviews about the <the other phone mentioned in the result> but to see that the 11T had it beat, well that’s something.

Now, moving on the the PCMark part of the tests. We started with the Work 3.0 performance test for the Xiaomi 11T.

Apparently there is not enough data in their system to compare the scores of the Xiaomi 11T to other phones. However, based on the other phones that I have reviewed before, the 11T might not have the best results of them all yet it is still quite acceptable. Xiaomi 11T is running on OS 11 though will the others were on OS 10 so, please do keep that in mind.

Next is the Work 3.0 battery life test.

The Xiaomi 11T can lasts about 16 hours running. That shows a pretty long battery span. You can pretty much last the whole workday without charging your phone. If you were the type to not even use your phone during working hours, it’s a pretty much sure thing that you’d go home still with a full battery. That’s pretty impressive to be honest. Who wouldn’t want a phone with a long battery life.

The Bottom Line

Do I like the Xiaomi 11T? Yes I do!

It has decent horsepower, a great display, cameras that take great pictures. That’s pretty much everything a normal user would need.

Would I jump ship and change brands? I might have to reconsider that seeing as my pictures were corrupted when trying to send it over to my personal phone and to my laptop. Then, there’s the fact that my picture (the HDB block) did not look as impressive on my laptop as it did on the phone.

Of course, that’s probably due to the better display on the phone. Notebook monitors aren’t really known for their great color reproduction.

TLDR:

Great phone but with some technical issues.