Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Are the Issues from the Mi 11 fixed?

Paco Zheng — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:21:14 +0000

In the Mi 11 video released in January, we introduced the powerful Mi 11 flagship to you guys and told you why you should wait for a couple of months for the Mi 11 Pro and the Ultra. Now they have finally arrived.

So was it worth the wait? Let’s find out the answer.

In the last video, we reviewed the Mi 11 Ultra and today let’s turn to the Mi 11 Pro.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Design

First of all, when compared to the appearance and design of the Mi 11, the Mi 11 Pro doesn’t really bring improvements. On the contrary, the body of the Pro feels a bit bulkier with a thickness of 8.53mm and a weight of 208 grams. So if you are really concerned about the weight, the Pro may disappoint you because the two phones feel very different when holding in the hand.

Another thing that you have to think about is the higher price. By far the Pro version is only available in China market and only comes with Chinese versions, which generally will a bit cheaper than its global version. The Pro’s starting price is 1000 RMB more expensive than the Mi 11, while the global version’s price is estimated to be at least 100USD higher than the global Mi 11.

But other than the pricing and design changes, let’s take a look at what’s upgraded on the Pro model.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Display & Hardware

But first, I want to remind you what’s reserved on the Pro model from the standard version. For example, the excellent display shared by both the Pro and standard models is still one of the best phone displays, so it seems like a reasonable decision.

And the performance-related hardware is shared by both the phones, like the Snapdragon 888 chipset, accompanied with UFS 3.1 storage and LPDDR5 memory, which is also one of the best combinations that you can find among Android smartphones in 2021. And the excellent dual speakers with Harman Kardon Tuning are still delightful to listen to.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Cameras

But the most significant upgrade in the Pro model is the rear camera setup. The main camera is upgraded to a top one featuring the Samsung GN2 sensor, which is the biggest camera sensor that you can find on a smartphone right now. The Mi 11 Ultra, the best and the most expensive model among the Mi 11 series, is also equipped with this camera sensor for its main camera.

The 11’s useless 5MP tele-macro camera does not make it to the Mi 11 Pro, and Xiaomi replaces it with an 8MP telephoto camera which supports 5-time optical zoom and up to 50-time digital zoom.

As for the wide-angle lens, Xiaomi didn’t do any changes with this 13MP one.

Main Camera

So let’s check out what exactly we got and start with its main camera. Thanks to the larger sensor, generally the Pro’s samples were more excellent at delivering a higher-contrast image, and at the same time, have better noise control over the dark areas. And if we look closely at their colors, it’s not difficult to find that the Pro model presents richer colors with natural transition, but sometimes we may argue whether the images were a bit over-processed. Another advantage of the large sensor is the natural aperture bokeh effect. Compared to the Mi 11, the out-of-focus bokeh blurring is closer to a truly optical effect that we usually see on mirrorless cameras. And the fringing issue also got fixed well on the Pro model.

50MP vs 108MP

But the Pro model didn’t get a complete victory in the main camera department due to the 50MP resolution. The 108MP resolution of the Mi 11’s main camera brought higher image clarity with sharper edges detail, no matter for the normal mode with the 24MP resolution or the original 108MP mode.

Night Camera Performance

From the samples shot during the day, it’s pretty easy to estimate their night performance. No doubt the Pro model’s larger sensor improves the overall night creation. It’s much easier to get a brighter image with better noise control and richer detail on the Pro model. And more importantly, the shooting experience is much smoother and faster than the standard Mi 11. Especially for extremely low-light conditions, the Pro still maintained excellent performance. And on the Pro model, now it’s really not necessary to turn on the night mode in most night scenes. Instead, sometimes you even can have better images in the normal mode with AI adjustment on.

Ultra-Wide Camera

As for their ultra-wide cameras, there is no significant image quality gap between their samples. Both of them are good and the samples didn’t really surprise us with the 13MP resolution. It is worth mentioning that as flagship models, there are already flagships with better wide-angle cameras. Even with Xiaomi, there is already one phone offering you a better wide-angle camera, which is the Ultra version.

Although there is no hardware upgrade on the Pro model, we still want to point out a tiny difference in the samples. The image distortion seems more serious and hasn’t got optimized well on the Pro model. And probably you may also notice the difference in their color preferences. Look at the images here, we feel it doesn’t really make the images look better.

So let’s not talk more about the night shots. Just check the samples here.

Ultra-Wide – Night

Another significant upgrade is the optical 5-times zoom capacity. The exclusive telephoto camera of the Pro model works well. Although it only features 8MP resolution, the image is still much sharper and clearer than the digital zoom of the Mi 11. And the night mode also works well on the 5-times-zoom shooting, which greatly improved the overall brightness and stability.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Gaming & Performance

As for the performance, there is no obvious improvement when compared to the Mi 11 as the Pro shares the same setup. On the contrary, the Mi 11 seems to perform better after getting continuously optimized in the last couple of months. In the benchmarks we tested, the results of the Mi11 are slightly better than the Mi 11 Pro. For example, it gets a slightly higher score in Geekbench 5’s multi-core test; and takes a small lead in the new Antutu benchmark; and is slightly better in 3DMark’s GPU test. And our gaming-test results also support the fact that by far the Mi 11 Pro didn’t have a ‘Pro’ performance, although Xiaomi claims it has an upgraded cooling solution.

In the PUBG Mobile China version, the 11 Pro is allowed to run at 90fps under smooth graphics, while in the global version, it’s only allowed to run up to 60fps. So to access a higher framerate, our PUBG test was done with the China version. The Pro finished the test easily with a stable framerate at around 90fps.

In Genshin Impact, actually, the Pro performed pretty well and achieved an average framerate at 52.16fps. But we also found that it had frequent performance throttling down from the 9th minute, probably because of the old thermal issue of the snapdragon 888 chipset. And then let’s look at the Mi 11’s performance. The Mi 11 was able to run at a higher framerate at 55.12fps and maintain a high-performance output for a longer time. CPU throttling down still happened but it was less frequent. And if we look at their CPU temperature, it’s not difficult to find that the Mi 11 was running at a higher temperature. The fact is that the Pro probably got slightly better at cooling but it’s not so significant to reflect in its gaming performance at this moment.

Actually, the surfaces of these two models were really hot during the 30-min gaming test. We are not kidding, if not for the gaming test, I would never play the game on these two models for over 10 mins under the highest graphic settings.

In Nimian Legend, the situation was quite similar. The Mi 11 Pro’s framerate is still a bit lower than the standard model. The heating issue still existed on the Pro model, and the temperature of their surface also raised up to around 50℃ during the gaming test. So here we really suggest those who wanna play heavy games on the Mi 11 series, it’s better to use an external cooling fan for a better gaming experience.

Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro Review: Battery Life & Charging

The solution of battery and charging is also upgraded on the Mi 11 Pro. The full-charge test only took us 37mins with the included 67W charger. And the wireless charging also got amazingly improved, which can provide up to 67W fast-wireless-charging efficiency. In the actual test, it took a few minutes longer to fully charge back the battery.

About its 5000mAh battery life, the improvement is not so obvious. Just check our results here.

So that’s all about the Mi 11 Pro. The Pro models come with a bulkier body and a similar design, offering a compromise between the Mi 11 and the Mi 11 Ultra. When compared to the Mi 11, indeed it’s upgraded with better camera setups and better charging solution, but at the same time, it’s priced higher too.

So what do think of the Pro model? Does it live up to its Pro title?