The New Xiaomi Mi 11 Will Likely Cost Over S$1,200

Update 25/2/2021: The Xiaomi Mi 11 will, in fact, not cost over S$1,200. The brand has just announced that the Mi 11 will cost just S$999 (8GB + 128GB) or S$1,099 (8GB + 256GB) when it hits Singapore’s shores on 20th March 2021. At that price point, this phone is definitely shaping up to be one of the best value flagship phones of the year.

Credit: Xiaomi

Xiaomi’s newly announced Mi 11 flagship phone is shaping up to be possibly one of the best phones for 2021. It’s a powerhouse of a phone, but it won’t come cheap, and that’s surprising. This phone might just be the one to lift Xiaomi out from the branding blackhole that companies producing midrange phones get stuck in.

Let’s talk about specs first. The Mi 11 is the first phone in the world to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, which means you’ll be getting really incredible performance since this is the new chip for 2021’s flagship phones. It’s paired with 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. The amount of RAM is a little on the lower end, but perhaps Xiaomi is keeping a card up their sleeve in case they want to launch a Mi 11 Pro in the future.

Credit: Xiaomi

The front display is a 6.81-inch AMOLED screen that has Adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, meaning the refresh rate will automatically adjust itself depending on the content that’s on the screen at any given time. 120Hz is typically reserved for actions like scrolling through webpages and gaming, while 30Hz or 60Hz will be used for the always-on lockscreen display and such.

But what’s incredible about the display is that it has a mindblowing 480Hz touch sampling rate. To put that into comparison, other flagship phones like the iPhone 12 only has a 120Hz touch sampling rate, while the Asus ROG Phone 3 has one of the higher rates on the market at 270Hz. This means that the phone will detect user inputs 480 times a second, resulting in less input latency when it’s needed, like in fast-paced games.

Credit: Xiaomi

Xiaomi has partnered with Harman Kardon for the dual speakers in the phone, which is always nice. The Mi 10 Pro had excellent audio, so we’re definitely expecting more of the same here. There’s also Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and back of the Mi 11, which Corning claims can survive drops onto hard and rough surfaces from up to 2 meters.

The Mi 11 supports 5G and Wi-Fi 6, while packing a 4,600mAh battery to make sure the phone will last a whole day. Even if it doesn’t though, there’s support for 55W wired fast charging and 50W wireless fast charging, which Xiaomi claims both will be able to charge a phone from 0-100% in under an hour.

Credit: Xiaomi

One of the biggest features of the phone, though, is the camera capabilities. Boasting a triple camera array on the rear, with a 108MP main lens, 13MP ultra-wide-angle lens and a 5MP macro lens, Xiaomi showed off some incredible videography features in their launch event, including ultra-low-light video shooting, six cinema features like Parallel World and Magic Zoom, where the background is zooming in but the subject stays the same, and more.

The Mi 11 will come in two configurations: 8GB of RAM + 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM + 256GB of storage. There are no details on local availability or pricing yet, but European pricing has been revealed to be €749 (approximately S$1,203).

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Written by Cheryl Tan