The Mi 11 Lite is the latest addition to Xiaomi’s Mi lineup in the country. The phone falls under Rs 25,000 price segment, which is an overcrowded space with some great devices such as the OnePlus Nord CE, the Mi 10i, the Poco X3 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy M42, among others.
Most phones in the said price range offer powerful specs but the Mi phone takes a different path altogether. The Mi 11 Lite does not offer a powerful specs sheet when compared to the competition, but it surely gets the work done in real life usage.
I have been using the Mi 11 Lite for over a week now and absolutely love how it looks and the experience it offers, though there are some areas where I feel the phone could have been slightly better.
Mi 11 Lite review: Design
If you are looking for a phone that is affordable yet offers a premium feel and look, the Mi 11 Lite is definitely the one for you. The smartphone looks stunning with the anti-glare matte design that solves one of the biggest problems I have always had with glossy glass finished phones – fingerprint marks. Most glossy finished phones register fingerprints very quickly but that is not the case for the Mi 11 Lite. I didn’t have to use a case with this one.
The phone comes in three vibrant colours including jazz blue, tuscany coral and vinyl black. The one that I have for review is the tuscany coral and it looks just stunning. The colour shift design looks interesting and I feel that can attract more consumers to get this one.
The phone offers a clean design language on both front and back. On the rear panel, it includes the square shaped camera module that isn’t bumpy, this lets the Mi 11 Lite lie flat on a table and not tumble as much. The camera module design looks clean with three sensors and a LED flash placed with slight gap in between, which ensures the design doesn’t look clumsy. At the bottom, there’s the Xiaomi brand logo, which is barely visible and mixes well with the overall look.
On the front, the Mi 11 Lite includes a punch hole cutout that sits on the extreme top-left, and is one of the smallest I have seen in a phone so far. The bezels on all sides are also cut significantly and that offers a great viewing and multimedia experience.
Mi 11 Lite review: Build
One of the USPs of the Mi 11 Lite is its weight. To be specific, the phone weighs 157g. While I am not sure if a balloon can fly the phone, as the company claims, but it is surely one of the lightest phones I have used in years. So, kudos to Xiaomi for that.
The phone does not feel flimsy at any point and is built very well. The back panel includes a glass top layer that further adds to the premiumness. The frames are built with plastic but that does not make the phone look less expensive. The sides are curved and polished and that makes it extremely easy to use the phone with one hand.
Beside just being light weight, the Mi 11 Lite is also one of the slimmest phones in this price segment. In fact, I compared it with a pen (see photo above) and the phone is slightly slimmer than that. The Mi 11 Lite is easy to use with one hand and also slips into the jeans pocket with no extra effort.
Mi 11 Lite review: Display
The display of the Mi 11 Lite gets adequately bright in indoor as well as outdoor situation – not when the sunlight is too harsh. The phone offers a big 6.55-inch 10-bit AMOLED display with 2400x1080p screen resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, and 90hz refresh rate. To make it sturdier, the display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
The Mi 11 Lite offers good multimedia experience in indoors and decent in outdoor situations. In indoor scenarios, the display gets adequately bright.
For me, around 40-50 percent brightness worked best in this situation. The scenario was not the same when I climbed to my terrace. At noon, even the maximum brightness did not work well but around 7am and 4pm, 100 percent brightness level seemed perfectly fine. The screen also gets pretty reflective and that interferes with the viewing experience sometimes.
I used the Mi 11 Lite to do all the basic regular tasks – from playing games to browsing social media and watching movies and more, the phone offered pretty good viewing experience in all instances. The viewing angles also looked pretty good in indoors, not so much in outdoors given its reflective nature.
Mi 11 Lite review: Performance
The Mi 11 Lite is powered by Snapdragon 732G chip paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The base model comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. When compared to the competition, the Mi 11 Lite looks less powerful on paper but in real life it offers decent performance in all aspects.
It is not always about numbers, what matters at the end of the day is the experience — Xiaomi possibly takes cue from this. Despite packing less powerful chip, the Mi 11 Lite turns out to be pretty good in terms of overall performance.
I used the phone as my primary device and did all my regular tasks including sending emails, taking calls, chatting on WhatsApp, browsing social media, playing all sorts of games, listening to music and also watching movies. The Mi 11 Lite did not lag at any point. The phone was able to handle multi-tasking very well. Switching between apps was also pretty smooth. I had several apps running in the background but that didn’t impact the overall performance at any point.
As for games, the Mi 11 Lite was able to run all sorts of games including Battlegrounds Mobile India, Subway surfer, Garena Free Fire, Temple Run or Asphalt 9 extremely smoothly. I played PUBG Mobile India aka Battlegrounds Mobile India on the Mi phone and the game ran smoothly at high graphics setting. Same was the case with Asphalt 9. The phone did warm up slightly after long gaming session but that happens with almost all phones, so that should not worry.
Mi 11 Lite review: Camera
Camera is a mixed bag in my opinion. There are some good bits, while there are areas that can be improved via software update in the days to come.
The Mi 11 Lite comes packed with a 64-megapixel primary lens at the rear paired with an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens and 5-megapixel telemacro sensor. As far as the performance is concerned, the phone could click decent pictures with the main lens in daylight situation, but not so good in low-light situation. There is the night mode to help in this situation.
Daylight photos appeared with pretty accurate colours and details in most instances. Most photos captured with this phone looked sharp with prominent edges. However, if your hands are not very stable at clicking photos then there are chances that some shots can end up being blurry. As for the ultra-wide camera performance, photos appeared with details that looked just fine.
The highlight of the Mi 11 Lite’s camera is surely the telemacro lens. In this camera mode, the phone could click stunning shots with great details and colours. These macro mode photos also looked sharp and social media friendly, so, there will not be a need to edit them before sharing with friends on social media.
Xiaomi has added several other camera features in the app, which includes short video, slow motion, time lapse, vlog, dual video, movie effects – which includes magic zoom, show shutter, time freeze and more.
On the front, the phone includes a 16-megapixel camera sensor that can also click good-looking selfies with proper details and colours. I personally like my photos to show real colours, but for people who like photos with more saturation, there are options for that as well on the camera app. The Mi 11 Lite manages to click well detailed portrait selfies with sharp edges and background properly blurred out.
Mi 11 Lite review: Battery
The Mi 11 Lite offers an all-day battery life on a single charge. It comes packed with a 4250mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging support in the box. The phone could charge up completely in about 45minutes, which is pretty good. One of the best things is that the device doesn’t heat up much during the charging process.
Mi 11 Lite review: Verdict
Mi 11 Lite is a good overall package at the starting price of Rs 21,999. In my opinion it is one of the best looking phones you can get at the price point. It is light weight and offers a great hand feel, thanks to the slim form factor.
The Mi 11 Lite shines in most of other areas as well with slight improvement scope in the camera performance. The phone can handle multitasking well, shoot great macro shots, offer long-lasting battery life and more. The Mi 11 Lite also offers a clean and smooth user experience. So, overall, the Mi 11 Lite is a pretty good package to consider under Rs 25,000 in India right now.
