Currently Xiaomi’s top ranked phone in South Africa the Xiaomi 11T Pro is the latest of the affordable flagship phones featuring a top-end feature set, but costing less.
As you might expect this is a collection of top-rated components from last year’s fastest mobile processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, to the 108MP main camera and the all-glass body shell that’s splashproof to IP53. The luxurious 6.67-inch AMOLED screen deserves special mention. It’s a 120Hz high refresh model, but also supports all the most demanding video standards including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and its covered by Corning’s toughest ever: Gorilla Glass Invictus.
Also worth a mention is the excellent speaker performance. The stereo speakers are tuned by audiophile brand Harmon Kardon (now owned by Samsung). Normally these details make little difference, but not in this case. Music sounds remarkably good played loud but, importantly, also when played quietly; there’s some real bass in there. But there’s no headphone jack and no converter dongle in the box either.
The camera setup is very good indeed, although it doesn’t quite measure up to that of the top Samsung and Apple phones in the same price bracket. We found that, compared to these other brands, we had to carefully coax good looking photos from each of the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s three camera sensors. The main shooter is a whopping 108MP and uses pixel binning to produce optimised 12MP pictures. However, producing good looking photos effortlessly every time has less to do with the sensor than with all the smart software at work in the background.
And this is where things go slightly awry with the Xiaomi 11T Pro: the processing of image data still lags behind the market leaders so you sometimes get unexpected or overprocessed results. Despite this the 8MP wide angle and 5MP macro cameras both produced great looking photos. Especially impressive is the sophisticated Night Mode which activates automatically in low light, while manually turning on Night Mode produced some of the best low light photos we’ve ever seen.
The Xiaomi 11T Pro is a delight to use once you get to grips with the Miui skin and its quirks. It’s a powerhouse for gaming and photography and will satisfy all serious phone users with its sophisticated cameras, large 8GB of RAM and ample 256GB storage on top of the blazingly fast Snapgdragon 888 processor. With all that horsepower the 5000mAh battery will get you at least a day-and-a-half of use. Which brings us to the secret weapon: the 120W charger which will fully recharge the Xiaomi 11T Pro in less than 30 minutes, with a split battery design to prolong battery life.
5G, 6.67″ AMOLED FHD screen @120Hz, 8GB RAM, 16MP front / 108MP + 8MP wide + 5MP macros rear cameras, 256GB storage, IP53 splashproof, 5000mAh battery, R14000
Xiaomi’s native camera app is feature laden and fairly well designed for you to easily access the many camera features. Video features include a Dual mode (filming from both front and back cameras simultaneously) and half a dozen pre-set effects like Magic Zoom and Night time-lapse.
