Xiaomi announces the Mi 11: first Snapdragon 888 device

Today Xiaomi made the China launch announcement of the new Mi 11, the company’s new flagship phone for 2021. The new phone features a new super-high-end OLED screen that ticks all the check mark features you would expect from a 2021 design, featuring 1440p resolution and 120Hz refresh rates, features the new Snapdragon 888 SoC at its heart, plus a new slimmer, lighter, and sleeker industrial design compared to its predecessors.

At the heart of the new Mi 11 is the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC. The new 5nm chip is the first to use Arm’s new Cortex-X1 cores, and Qualcomm also claims that the great GPU performance increases this generation. . What is most different from the previous Snapdragon 865 flagship design is that the new S888 reverts to a monolithic SoC design that integrates the 5G modem back into the SoC; in turn, this means that there is more space for PCB components available within the phone and vendors can better optimize their designs.

The new Mi 11 also features 8GB or 12GB of the new LPDDR5 memory at its full 3200MHz (6400MT / s) speed, and it comes in 128GB or 256GB storage variants, although we are lacking details on the specifications of the modules used here. .

The new Mi 11 also features 8GB or 12GB of the new LPDDR5 memory at its full 3200MHz (6400MT / s) speed, and it comes in 128GB or 256GB storage variants, although we are lacking details on the specifications of the modules used here. .

In terms of design, the new Mi 11 is quite a departure from the Mi 10, as it is a much more elegant device than its predecessor. Xiaomi has been able to reduce the device’s bezels on all sides, still using a curved front and rear glass design that fits well in your palms. The new design is actually 0.9mm thinner than its predecessor, now at 8.06mm, and it also reduces 12g of its weight by 196g, still relatively heavy, but not as much as its predecessor.

The most exciting feature of the Mi 11 has to be the new OLED display. It has grown quite a bit compared to its predecessor, filling the space instead of the bezels, going from 6.67 “to 6.81”, but the most important aspect of the phone is the fact that it is now a QHD class resolution at 3200 x 1440 – a first for Xiaomi’s OLED display and a resolution we haven’t seen used by the company since the LCD days.

Plus, this is a cutting edge display, with a 120Hz refresh rate, and it’s advertised as a next-gen 10-bit panel that also features up to 8192 levels of brightness, indicating a next-gen DDIC. The panel is also advertised to use a new next-gen emitter material, with Xiaomi claiming it achieves a brightness of 1500 nits, which is a notch above what we’ve seen in 2020 phones.

Lastly, like a cherry on top of the cake, the panel features a staggering 480Hz touch input rate, which is the highest we’ve heard of in the mobile industry and hopefully results in excellent touch input and scrolling fluency.

Other features of the new design include a redesigned camera setup, moving from a fully vertical camera arrangement to a new rounded square element with three camera modules.

Instead of having a large camera edge and a single glass element protecting the entire camera arrangement, Xiaomi uses a three-pass glass element, each thicker than the other, to protect the modules of the three cameras. . It looks quite interesting and gives off a much more organic feel compared to other rectangular or more symmetrical camera arrangements out there.

Unfortunately, for today’s announcement, the Mi 11’s camera specs were pretty slim. What we do know is that the main camera is again a 108MP module, similar to its predecessor, but we don’t know if it is the exact same sensor or a newer iteration. What we do know is that the optics are definitely different as the aperture now lands at f / 1.89 instead of f / 1.69, a real positive change in my opinion, as the Mi 10’s optics were one of its main weaknesses.

Alongside the main camera is a 13MP ultra-wide angle with a 123 ° FoV and an F / 2.4 aperture, as well as a 5MP 2x 50mm optical equivalent telephoto module with f / 2.2. That last module sounds a bit mediocre; maybe we’ll see an eventual Mi 11 Pro with a stronger telephoto module.

Today’s announcement covers the Chinese variant of the phone, and the global and European variants will certainly follow in the coming weeks. Pre-orders for Chinese models start today with delivery of 1^{S t} January, with the Mi 11 with an 8 + 128GB variant at ￥ 3999.00, or USD $ 611. Western prices will certainly be different, but that’s already a pretty promising start for the new flagship.

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