The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G is a midrange smartphone with a price of under 400 euros. As soon as we see the term Lite, we assume that a manufacturer has cut back a lot to keep the price of the device low. How is this smartphone doing?
Xiaomi Mii 11 Lite 5G
Recommended retail price From 399 euros
Colors Black, yellow and green
OS Android 11 (MIUI 12)
Screen 6.55 inch OLED (2400 x 1080, 90 Hz)
Processor Snapdragon 780G
RAM 6GB or 8GB
Storage 128GB or 256GB
Battery 4,250mAh
Camera 64, 8 and 2 megapixels (rear), 20 megapixels (front)
Connectivity 4G (LTE), 5G, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 5, GPS, NFC
Format 160.5 by 75.7 by 6.8 mm
Weight 159 grams
Other Infrared sensor, IP53 splash proof
Website www.mi.com 7.5 Score 75 
- Pros
- Colorful amoled screen
- Camera system
- Fast and capable
- Negatives
- Price (for 5G)
- Update Policy
- Amount of apps
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G is a flat, sleek device. With 159 grams in weight, it is also not very heavy. Despite its flat design, it fits comfortably in the hand. Striking design elements are the flat camera module on the back and the fingerprint scanner on the side, so you can easily reach it with your thumb. There are no buttons at all on the left; the on-off button is integrated in the fingerprint scanner. Furthermore, the screen edges are not too thick, there is no headphone jack and there is a front camera in the corner. Not special, but effective.
Under the hood
Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 780G processor. That processor has eight clusters. The first consists of a single core clocked at 2.4 GHz. The second cluster has three cores clocked at 2.2 GHz, while the third cluster has four cores of up to 1.9 GHz. Performance has improved by forty percent over its predecessor and is back to the level of the high-end processor of two years ago – sort of.
The processor is a bit counteracted by that one cluster with one powerful core, but the question is whether you notice that. The device comes with 128 to 256 GB of storage space and 6 to 8 GB of RAM. Unfortunately, it is an old type of memory (UFS 2.2), so the speed can be disappointing. However, it doesn’t look like the hardware is getting in the way. This is partly due to the refresh rate of 90 hertz, which makes the smartphone feel fast and capable.
The battery has a capacity of 4,250 mAh. With normal use, it takes about a day and a half to two days to empty this thing. You may have to reduce the hertz from 90 to 60 for that, but with not too heavy use, that’s unnecessary. The device supports fast charging with 33 watts. This gives you up to 58 energy back in half an hour. In about an hour, slightly longer, the battery is fully charged from one to one hundred percent.
Finally, we have to talk about the 5G connection. There are two versions of the Mi 11 Lite: one with 4G and one with 5G. The 5G version costs 399 euros, while the 4G version costs 299 euros. You also get a slightly less powerful processor, but otherwise the devices are identical. If you don’t think 5G is necessary yet (and to be honest: it will take a while before 5G is really available in the Netherlands), then you can also opt for the 4G variant.
Large amoled screen
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G has a large 6.55-inch AMOLED screen. You can set the refresh rate to 60 or 90 Hertz. The maximum resolution of 1,080 by 2,400 pixels. The display is nice and flat, so you don’t accidentally touch something with your palm. Moreover, colors come out very nicely, the viewing angle is nice and wide and the brightness can be set quite high. As a result, you can still see what is happening on your screen even in bright sunlight.
The screen also has a number of impressive features. For example, there is support for 10-bit color technology, which allows approximately one billion colors to be presented (compared to 16 million in competing models). The Full HD+ resolution ensures a pixel density of 402 pixels per inch (ppi). That provides a sharp and detailed image when you consume media. Anything above 400 ppi is considered high quality, so the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G scores well here.
The device also scores well on the fact that there is support for HDR10 + and Dolby Vision. Those are two important standards for high dynamic range. So if you have a subscription to Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or Disney+ and you watch a lot of content via your smartphone, you can be assured that you have the right standards on board. So you don’t have to miss anything.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G is equipped with stereo speakers. One speaker sits at the bottom, while the sound from the other speaker comes from the earpiece at the top. It is significantly softer than the speaker at the bottom, but these are not strange practices. The sound from the system is clear and intelligible and you can easily make phone calls or listen to podcasts.
No optical image stabilization
On the back are three lenses in a very compact camera module. The main camera has 64 megapixels, the wide-angle lens has eight megapixels and the macro lens has five megapixels. The main camera merges four pixels into one pixel, so you can take photos in sixteen megapixels. That not only produces reasonably to very detailed images (we still take the market segment into account), the colors also come out well.
Even when you feel that there is just a little too little light, the photos come out well. The quality surprises a bit in this segment, although you can really expect something for about 400 euros, of course. The biggest disadvantage of the camera module is that there is no optical image stabilization. Keeping a smartphone really still is never quite possible, so that photos sometimes register a bit of movement. Especially when you take pictures in the dark: then you have to hold the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G a little longer in a certain position.
We are less pleased with the wide-angle lens. Both the colors and the quality are poor, especially compared to the main sensor. We also see blurry effects at the edges of the photos. This also occurs with other devices with such sensors, but there are still better alternatives. The macro lens scores better than average in terms of quality, because it has five megapixels (where competing models often have a two-megapixel sensor).
Notification Center and Control Panel
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G runs on Android 11, with Xiaomi’s MIUI 12 skin over it. Recently, just before publishing the review, the device received version 12.0.8 from the manufacturer. Despite that, the monthly security update has stuck on April 2021, but even then it is much more recent than we encounter with similar devices from the segment. So technically it could be better, but somehow we can also be satisfied.
Unfortunately, the software includes quite a few pre-installed apps, but luckily you can remove most of them. Google’s apps obviously don’t, but fortunately other apps do. The software skin also offers a number of useful functions. For example, during the installation you can already indicate whether you want to use an app drawer or not. Furthermore, it advertises with an always-on screen; but there isn’t. You have to tap once on the locked screen to bring it out.
It is also great to see that Xiaomi is doing something new with the notification center. You can set the smartphone in such a way that when you swipe from top to bottom, on the home screen, you see either the notification center or the control panel (right, just like on an iPhone). This way, certain functionalities come into view better, while in the other window you completely concentrate on the notifications. This is an optional feature; you can also stick with the old.
Xiaomi makes a lot of promises. For example, the device should immediately run on MIUI 12.5, but that is not the case. A total of four major MIUI updates are coming, the first of which will appear in the second quarter of 2021. You should also be able to count on Android 12 and Android 13. The wording that Xiaomi chooses for this in the press release is a bit strange, so we have our doubts about it. For completeness, we include the relevant passage.
The Mi 11 series runs on Android version 11 and an update is expected for Android 12. We expect at least two Android updates, namely Android 11, Android 12 and Android 13. However, the exact update policy is determined by Google. The update cycles of various Xiaomi devices are in accordance with our agreements with Google and comply with the corresponding policies.
Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G – conclusion
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G combines a number of cool functions. For example, for 400 euros you get a smartphone with a large, flat and incredibly colorful AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of 90 hertz, stereo speakers and pretty good performance. The camera quality is really not disappointing and the battery life also scores quite well.
On the other hand, there is a hefty price tag of 400 euros, which means that you again end up in the midrange segment. There is also some ambiguity about the update policy and we think that far too many apps are pre-installed. Yes, you can delete them, but that’s a tedious job that you never want to do.
If you don’t care about 5G, but still have this device in mind, no problem. A particularly good alternative is the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G. That’s exactly the same phone, with two differences. You have to do without 5G and the processor is also somewhat slower. In addition, the Motorola Moto G100 can also appeal to you, which has many of the same specs for a slightly higher price. For a complete overview of the best smartphones under 400 euros, you can visit this article.