Xiaomi has a reputation among users in Spain for being a brand with outstanding value for money in its mobiles. This has meant that its market share has risen to position itself as the firm that sells the most smartphones in our country.
Little by little, the average price of the company’s terminals has been rising, although always maintaining a slightly lower cost than most alternatives.
But Xiaomi does not want to be satisfied with that brand image, and it began to offer high-end devices at a price that has nothing to do with what has been seen so far. The Xiaomi Ultra was born, and the company’s mobile phone exceeded 1000 euros.
The first of them, the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra, did not arrive in our country, but its successor did, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, with which we have been for more than a week.
Outstanding performance at the cost of excessive heating
Honkai Impact Third on the Mi 11 Ultra
If there is a section in which there are no half measures in this model, it is in performance. Xiaomi does not try to be stingy in its high-end models, which is appreciated in this terminal.
For starters, we have the Snapdragon 888, Qualcomm’s latest processor. In addition, the RAM is 12 GB, with no option for less capacity in Spain. The same goes for the internal memory, 256 GB. Here it is already taken for granted that we have LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 technologies, which we emphasize a lot but rightly so. The difference between installing 100 applications or downloading a 6 GB game in a terminal with these memories and a cheaper one is very noticeable.
The user experience is very positive, and the system’s fluidity prevails at all times, regardless of the configuration of the screen.
Of course, we have encountered a severe problem: heating.
The Snapdragon 888 is not a processor that manages temperature well, as we have said in previous reviews. However, this has been the hottest device since I tested the infamous Snapdragon 801.
It only happened to me when I put the terminal to the maximum in Honkai Impact Third, but it got so hot that I had to leave it on the table; it was a very annoying hand. It is a very intense game, but the system seems to not stop the terminal from heating up because it decides that the game has priority.
His younger brother, the Xiaomi Mi 11, also got hot but within normal parameters. As you can see in the image, the average temperature of the terminal is around 35 degrees, but when we squeeze, it rises to a very high 50 degrees. Imagine putting your hand on the sheet metal of a car that has been in the sun in summer on the beach.
Regarding connectivity, we have the best of the moment, with Wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, dual-band GPS…
Xiaomi continues to provide better-than-average sound.
Xiaomi decided several models ago to put two speakers in practically all its mobiles for more than 250 euros.
This one costs much more, which is why it was not going to be an exception. The speaker system has two units, one in each small frame, top and bottom. Harman Kardon has equalized them, and the sound quality, as well as the volume, is outstanding.
Of course, the headphone jack is missing in a terminal that aspires to be “perfect.” I wouldn’t have used it, but there are still those who want to be able to use their high-end wired headphones, especially when it comes to taking advantage of new music services with Audio Lossless or similar.
A screen that meets in all sections
I recently had the opportunity to meet a friend who uses a Xiaomi Mi 6. I was fascinated by how small she was, and I didn’t remember it being so compact. And her screen was 5.5 inches, which was not small then. The entire mobile was smaller than the screen of the Mi 11 Ultra, by far.
This device uses a 6.81-inch panel, very large, although not far from what brands like Samsung or OnePlus have used in their high-end terminals.
Of course, it has an extreme curvature on the sides, although the MIUI software allows you to create virtual zones to avoid false touches.
The panel technology is OLED, and it has support for HDR10+ and a maximum brightness of no less than 1700 peak nits, although, on a day-to-day basis, it stays at a maximum of 900 nits, more than enough to use in any context.
The maximum refresh rate is 120 Hz, but we can change it to 60 if we want to save battery life without losing a sense of fluidity. For its part, the touch sampling rate is 480 Hz.
The quality of this panel is above Serbia, and MIUI customization options are the icing on the cake. We can even say there are not very strong green shifts when tilting the screen.
Highlight the fingerprint sensor on the screen, which in addition to working well, allows you to measure the heart rate with acceptable precision, at least if we compare it with the sensors of the smartwatches and bracelets we usually wear.
An extremely versatile camera… which is not perfect
When Xiaomi presented it’s Mi 11, it did so in many ways, from a Lite to this Ultra, going through an I model, a Pro and a normal one.
Since the Pro model has not been sold in Spain, the only one with optical zoom is the one we are analyzing today. In addition, it does so with a 5x periscopic system, with a very high resolution for a telephoto lens.
The 48 Mpx of this zoom sensor are equal in the wide-angle and go up to 50 Mpx in the primary sensor.
The photographic quality of the primary sensor is very high, behaving well when profiling elements, correcting colours, etc. Even indoors, we have a controlled noise. He only has a hard time when we do some portraits in complex conditions.
The optical zoom quality is also good, although it fails to blur moving elements, which is normal due to the opening of the sensor. However, it is up there with the best, and it is more than valid for architecture and travel photography.
