Two chips, with battery focus

Today Xiaomi announces three new devices: the 11T, the 11T Pro and the 11 Lite 5G NE. We’ve now had a review of the first two and can now offer first-hand experiences with phones.

The Xiaomi 11T series, which by the way is no longer called “Mi” in the name, is literally just “Xiaomi 11T” now, they are supposed to be additions to the company’s flagship range, but they come at lower prices. We had already reviewed the Mi 11 in March and the big brother, the Mi 11 Ultra in July, so be sure to read these pieces as the 11T series fits the lineup, albeit differently.

What defines the 11T series is the fact that they are priced slightly lower and have more budget than the original Mi 11, especially on the screen side, which has now been reduced to a 1080p panel. The build quality is also different, and finally we see a different set of SoC options depending on whether you get the normal 11T or the high-end 11T Pro.

Starting with SoCs, the two 11T devices are absolutely interesting phones, as in addition to the usual Samsung Galaxy devices each year, which run Snapdragon and Exynos SoCs, Xiaomi uses a similar strategy here with the dual-supply 11T series, both from Qualcomm and MediaTek.

The normal 11T runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 “Ultra”; we’re not sure what the Ultra means, but it looks like it’s related to a big clock NPU. There are no differences in the CPU clocks. The SoC includes one Cortex-A78 up to 3.00 GHz, three A78s at 2.60 GHz, and four A55s at 2.00 GHz. The GPU is a MaliG77MP9, although we cannot confirm the frequency. This is MediaTek’s highest end chip right now, so it’s pretty interesting. What also makes it special is that it is in the 6nm process node of TSMC and is the first chip we have in our hands on this node.

The Snapdragon 888 needs no introduction, and that’s what powers the 11T Pro. There are some peculiarities with the chip, however, that we will address in the system performance section, but the way Xiaomi is setting up the chip is not a star level in terms of behavior.

What is very exciting about the two devices with different SoC is that both phones are absolutely identical in specifications. It is essentially the same phone, only with a different SoC and different charging capabilities. For comparisons of apple-to-apple chipsets, it is rarely better than this, although we will see that there are behavioral discrepancies.

The back of the phone is relatively generic with the back of glass. One thing to keep in mind here is that the phone is a bit wider at 76.9mm. The weight is reasonable at 203-204 g due to the 5000 mAh battery.

Overall, the quality and design of the phone is not as attractive and sleek as what we saw in the Mi 11, and it feels like a slightly cheaper / lower end range model than the Mi 11 flagship series.

As for the camera, Xiaomi uses a 108MP sensor, but this is not the HMX found in the Mi 11, but the smaller HM2 sensor that uses 0.7 µm of pixels compared to 0.8 µm of the brother. The optics have a focal length equivalent to 24 mm at an aperture f / 1.75, but without OIS.

There is a 5MP telephoto module, but it is only used for macro shots, it cannot be used for real zoom.

Finally, there is a basic 8MP ultra with a f / 2.2 and 120 ° field of view; it’s really basic. Overall, all the camera setup is simple and Xiaomi doesn’t provide you with too many specifications.

Xiaomi is focusing on fast charging on these devices, especially the 11T Pro comes with a 120W charger. It works as advertised; however, we will discuss the topic in more depth in the review.

The 11T starts at € 499, which is quite reasonable, and the 11T Pro starts at € 649, which is actually quite expensive as you can currently have the Mi 11 for around € 715, the phone should rationalize somehow differentiations compared to his brother in the series.