Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra review: Premium android smartphone rivals Google and Samsung

A new brand is breaking into the Australian market, and they’ve dropped a new premium smartphone with a very unique feature.

REVIEW

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra’s first batch pre-order sold out quickly here in Australia.

This device has been said to rival, or even completely exceed, the specs of leading android smartphones including Samsung and Google’s best devices, which makes me wonder – could this be the android smartphone of the year?

Unboxing

Although the unboxing experience is fairly ordinary, I have to say, I was impressed with what’s included with the phone. You get what some companies neglect to include – a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack adaptor (helpful as the singular port on the phone is USB-C), a clear jelly phone case (average quality but welcome!) and a 67W (fast charging) wall plug. The phone itself has a premium and stylish ceramic design with two colour options – black or white – and I got my hands on the black one.

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Elly Awesome reviews the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.

Design

The phone has a curved screen which slopes around the top, bottom and side edges. The corners look a little funny but overall it makes for a great scrolling experience.

I have to admit though, it’s quite a slippery phone. Pair that with its fairly top heavy design, due to the ginormous camera module, and it can be a bit awkward to hold in the hand. Though I think it’s worth it for the cameras that they’ve managed to build into the phone.

Cameras

Seriously, Xiaomi has included some of the most impressive camera hardware out there. There are four cameras in total – a high quality hole punch style 20MP camera on the front and three extremely mind blowing cameras on the back.

Flip the phone over and you’ll find the 48MP Telephoto Camera with 5x Optical Zoom, a 48MP Ultrawide Camera and a 50MP main camera which has a 1/12” sensor – one of the industry’s largest camera sensors (and surprisingly made by Samsung!) Also you can record 4K and 8K video.

Let me tell you – the camera quality resembles something of a legitimate DSLR camera. So sure, the camera module looks ridiculous, but the ability to have such powerful cameras in your pocket is awesome.

There’s even a tiny display on the back of the phone. It’s not super impressive and fairly dim but it’s enough that you can take a fairly well framed selfie using the epic back camera, rather than the front one.

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The unique selfie capability of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.

Also, if you happen to lay your phone screen down, hopefully on a smooth or soft surface if you’re this way inclined, you can even see notifications come through or double tap the mini display, to wake it, to check the time.

The only downside about the back camera module is funnily enough it collects dust around the protruding edges, but that’s a non-issue, just visibly a little displeasing.

Display and specs

Combine these features with its large 6.8 inch AMOLED panel QuadHD+ (1440p) display and a 120hz refresh rate and everything looks fantastic. To be clear, you can choose between the phone’s “standard” refresh rate at 60Hz or “high” refresh rate at 120Hz.

Though, even when the phone is set to 120Hz the phone adapts its refresh rate based on your use. So, for example, you will get 120Hz while scrolling but you won’t always get 120Hz when watching YouTube videos or gaming (even if the game supports 120Hz).

The phone also has a 480Hz touch response rate, which keeps the phone speedy. And one of my favourite features is the 1700 nit display. Meaning it’s super bright and easy to read, even in environments with high glare. In fact it’s one of the brightest phone displays on the market.

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Elly was impressed with the smartphone’s display.

The phone is running Android 11 and is powered by Snapdragon 888, with a solid 12GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage.

On top of that, if you’re not using headphones you’ll notice it’s dual stereo speakers are good quality and pretty darn loud. The battery is 5000mAh which means you’ll have solid battery life all day and into the night and with the fast charger you’ll never have to worry about battery life again.

But should you buy it?

For the price of $1799 I don’t know if I’d recommend the phone to the average consumer. I’d probably recommend something lighter and cheaper for general use. However, when it comes to people who are in the market for a premium phone – if you’re an android lover – you’re probably already drooling by now.

This phone is fast, powerful, has the best cameras around and amazing battery life. And to be honest, for a premium phone, I think with all of the included features $1799 is actually a steal.

The only thing I’ve truly disliked about this phone is that it’s super slippery and it’s a mega fingerprint magnet, but that’s just surface level complaints.

Xiaomi is still breaking into the Australian market, but if they keep releasing quality phones like this, I have a feeling you’ll start seeing them everywhere soon.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawwesome | YouTube