TCL today launched three new premium 4K TVs in the Indian market. The new range features 120Hz MEMC support, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, IMAX Enhanced, Game Master, Hands-free voice control 2.0, and a host of other features. The new range will also be upgraded to the new Google TV interface, starting Q3 2021. Here’s a quick look at all the new models in TCL’s C Series lineup:
TCL C825 Mini LED 4K TV
The TCL C825 Mini LED 4K TV is the crown jewel of TCL’s new TV range. It offers support for a range of premium features, including full array local dimming, Dolby Vision HDR, Dolby Vision IQ, 120Hz refresh rate with MEMC support, Game Master with HDMI 2.1 input, and IMAX Enhanced certification. The TV also comes with a 1080p magnetic camera that can be used to make video calls using Google Duo or Zoom. Furthermore, the TV features an integrated Onkyo Soundbar with a built-in subwoofer and Dolby Atmos support.
The TCL C825 will be available in two size variants in the Indian market — 55-inch and 65-inch — priced at ₹114,990 and ₹149,990, respectively.
TCL C725 QLED 4K TV
The TCL C725 features a 4K QLED panel, and it also offers support for features like Dolby Vision, HDR10+, MEMC, and hands-free voice control 2.0. Much like the C825, the C725 comes with a webcam for video calls and an integrated soundbar from Onkyo with Dolby Atmos support.
The TV will be available in three screen sizes — 50-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch — priced at ₹64,990, ₹72,990, and ₹99,999, respectively.
TCL C728 QLED 4K TV
Rounding off the list is the new TCL C728 TV, which also features a 4K QLED panel. The TV is squarely aimed at console gamers, and it features Game Master support with HMDI 2.1 input, 120Hz MEMC, and hand-free voice control. The TV also offers variable refresh rate (VRR) support, an auto low-latency mode (ALLM), and eARC.
The TCL 728 will be available in three sizes — 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch — priced at ₹79,990, ₹102,990, and ₹159,990, respectively.
All three models will run TCL UI based on Android TV out of the box, and they’ll be upgraded to Google TV later this year. The TVs will be available on Amazon.in, Reliance Digital, TCL’s website, and select offline retail stores. It’s worth noting that the company will start smartphone and TV display panel manufacturing in India later this year, which should effectively bring down the price for the aforementioned models.
It’s hard to deny that Google Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers used by a majority of people across the world, regardless of the platform. It comes pre-installed on all Android smartphones and Chromebooks, and has also become the browser of choice for a lot of people on Windows computers, because it syncs your data across all devices that use Chrome. Even if you don’t use Chrome directly and use alternatives like Brave or Microsoft Edge instead, those browsers still use the Chromium engine. So a lot of elements like the sync functionality and Chrome extensions remain uniform.
Chrome extensions are a great way to increase the functionality of your web browser and add functions that extend beyond just browsing around on the web. We’ve tried various Chrome extensions across different genres to see which ones actually stand out and add some value to your browsing experience, and here are some of the best ones we found. The list contains Chrome extensions for everyone regardless of what you do on the internet. From productivity to entertainment, we’ve tried covering all bases to make sure there’s something that interests everyone.
All of these extensions can be used on any Chromium-based browser and platforms including Mac, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc. If you have a ChromeOS-based device, we have a list of the best keyboards for Chromebooks and even a guide to opt out of Google’s Privacy Sandbox on Chrome that you may want to check out if you’re a privacy nerd.
These are the extensions we feel everyone must use on their browsers and can benefit from in different ways. From helping you save money to saving important data on the cloud, these extensions will help you while performing different activities on the web.
Save to Google Drive
Save to Google Drive is quite a basic one and the name tells you what it does. Don’t write it off just yet though — we’ve included it under essential extensions for a reason. How many times have you come across a webpage, image, video, or file that you wanted to save for later or share with someone? If your answer is often, this extension is for you.
It basically adds a Save to Google Drive button in the contextual right-click menu in your browser so next time you see something you want to save or share, just right-click and select Save to Google Drive and it’ll be automatically added to Drive. From there, you can either download it for yourself or share the link with anyone you want.
If you’re a shopaholic and order a lot of things from different e-commerce websites online, this one’s for you. Honey is a Chrome extension that checks for the best deals and offers you can apply while checking out on multiple online shopping websites. You can compare deals and buy whatever you want from the portal that offers the best price.
Honey has a database of discount and coupon codes that it tries to apply automatically on almost all popular shopping websites which can save you a lot of money especially if you order stuff regularly. From ordering food to expensive electronics, Honey claims you can save upwards of $100 every year using their extension.
If you hate captchas, Buster is for you. A lot of websites often ask you to enter or solve captchas which can get boring or sometimes confusing too, especially when you’re using Chrome in incognito mode or if you’re using a VPN. You’ll be prompted to solve a captcha quite frequently and after a point, it does get really annoying. Don’t worry, Buster has got you covered. Every time you see a captcha, the bottom section of the captcha window will now have an extra icon that fires up Buster once you install the extension. Clicking on the button will automatically solve the captcha for you in a matter of seconds.
These extensions contribute towards improving your productivity while you’re working and help you get more out of your web browser. You can integrate these extensions into your workflow to help you do your work in a better way, manage time properly, or even multitask in a more efficient manner. These are our top three productivity-related extensions.
Todoist
We’ve featured Todoist as a part of our best WearOS apps article as well, and that’s because it’s one of the best services to create a to-do list. The Chrome extension from Todoist doesn’t require any additional app installation but offers a great deal of functionality. It sits in your browser in the extension bar and a single click will reveal a window where you can access all your tasks and tick them off whenever you’re done with them.
It’s a great way to start your day by inputting all your pending work and it’s quite satisfying to check all the boxes as and when you complete your work.
MightyText is a great way to avoid constantly checking your phone while you’re working on your computer. It enables you to send and receive SMS messages directly from the Chrome extension, so if you’re texting your friends and colleagues or just want an OTP for a transaction, you no longer have to reach out for your phone.
We all know if you pick up your phone to reply to a message, it doesn’t just stop there. You’ll probably open a social media app and end up spending more time than required, so this is a good app to avoid such distractions.
You’ve probably heard of Google’s own picture-in-picture extension and probably even use it to watch videos in PiP mode on your browser. However, the Google Meet PiP extension lets you have a PiP window of a Google Meet call running on your screen while you continue to do other tasks.
This is very helpful if you’re in a meeting and someone is sharing their screen for a presentation and you need to refer to some notes or you’re just involved in other important work. You won’t have to stay on the meeting tab all the time while still continuing to see the presentation. If you attend a lot of meetings, this is a great addition.
These are some extensions on Chrome that make your job a lot easier or introduce features that can be really nifty. While you may initially think you don’t really need these features, using them a few times will make you realize what you were missing out on before you had them installed!
Save Image as Type
If you download a lot of images from the web, this extension makes your job a lot easier. While most images are in popular formats like JPG or PNG, there are some websites that have images in less popular formats like WebP which are not very easy to open or edit on a few devices.
Save as Image Type adds an option in the contextual menu when you right-click on an image and allows you to save the image in whatever format you want. It saves the time and effort of first downloading the image and then converting it to the required type.
While most instant messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal have the option to enable read receipts for messages, there’s no such option on Gmail. If you’re sending an important email, there’s no way of knowing if the recipient has opened your email or not, let alone knowing when or how many times they’ve opened it. Well, Mailtrack solves that problem.
Once you install the extension and authorize it with your Google account, you will be able to track all the emails that you send and receive a notification every time your mail was opened by the recipient. You can even see how many times an email was opened which is neat. Once you start using Mailtrack, there’s no going back.
This one’s quite self-explanatory. While most smartphones have a built-in dark mode to make viewing the screen easier on your eyes in the dark, a lot of websites still don’t have a dark mode, and Chrome by default doesn’t have the option to enforce dark mode. Dark Reader is an extension that does exactly that.
You can enable dark mode on every single website, so if you’re using Chrome on an OLED display, you can save some battery while also reducing the strain on your eyes especially at night.
While you can take screenshots on your computer using the default tools on Windows, Mac, or any other OS for that matter, Awesome Screenshot and Screen Recorder lets you take customized screenshots within Chrome itself which can be very handy if you want to capture only specific portions of the webpage or a scrolling screenshot of the entire webpage.
Additionally, you even get a screen recorder built-in that can either record the entire Chrome window or a specific tab along with feed from your webcam which can be very handy if you’re shooting a tutorial or just recording something to help somebody. This is another of those must-have extensions.
If you open a lot of tabs on your browser and don’t close them for whatever reason, The Great Suspender is a godsend. It puts unused tabs in a suspended state meaning a tab will not be active anymore if you haven’t opened it in a while. When you have too many tabs open, your browser — especially Chrome — consumes a lot of RAM that can in turn slow down your entire computer.
By using this extension, you can put all of those unused tabs to sleep to save memory on your device and make Chrome, as well as your computer, run smoother. Whenever you open a suspended tab, you just have to refresh it to bring it back to life.
Enough of work and productivity, it’s time to have some fun and get entertained. Here are some extensions to improve your experience while consuming media on your browser or even add some features to social media apps that are not present by default. If you want to watch your favorite shows and movies with friends and family, we’ve got that covered too.
Inssist
Instagram is arguably one of the most popular social media platforms but is also the one with the worst web interface. Even after being around for years, the Instagram web app doesn’t allow users to upload posts or stories onto their profile which is a pain. Even the ability to check and reply to DMs was introduced only recently so that tells you how unimportant its web client is to Instagram.
The way to fix this is by using Inssist. It’s an extension you need to authorize by logging into Instagram, and once you’ve done that, you will be able to post photos, videos, and even stories onto your Instagram profile directly from your computer without having to open the app on your smartphone.
YouTube is a great platform to watch videos on. However, YouTube can often just be used to listen to music as well, since a lot of artists upload their tracks to YouTube along with other music streaming platforms. While you can use YouTube Music on your smartphone to listen to the song without the video playing along, there’s no such thing on the web. So if you only want to listen to the music, the video stream consumes your internet data unnecessarily. Audio Only YouTube fixes that by adding a button that allows you to stream just the music and saves up to 50% of data.
If you use YouTube to listen to a lot of songs, this extension allows you to stream just the music and save data by not streaming the video along with it.
Here’s another Chrome extension for YouTube. There are times when you want to skip to a particular section in the video where the creator mentions a specific thing you were looking for. It’s quite tedious to manually scroll through the seek bar to find the exact section especially if it’s a long video. That’s where Invideo for YouTube comes in.
It makes use of YouTube’s transcription feature to search within a video and find the section where the creator mentions the term you’re looking for. Just search for the word or phrase you want to find in a video and you can skip directly to that timestamp.
You’re probably aware of this one but for those of you who aren’t, Watch Party allows you to watch your favorite TV shows and movies with your friends and family in sync. It can be a pain to stream video together, especially if you’re a lot of people and while hosting an online meeting is an option, it doesn’t work too well with audio at times or everyone in the meeting doesn’t get controls to play/pause the content.
From productivity to entertainment, all of these extensions add immense value to your usage and can help you save time or enable features you didn’t think could be done. You can install all of them to try them out and keep the ones that are really helpful to you. However, note that Chrome extensions do consume a good chunk of memory so make sure you limit yourself to a few extensions. You can install the rest whenever you want to use them temporarily for a specific purpose and then delete them later.
Which of these extensions interested you the most? Are there any useful extensions that we missed out on which you use? Let us know in the comments below so we can add them to the list.
Samsung will launch two new foldable phones later this year — the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3. Over the last few months, we’ve seen a boatload of leaks about these devices that have revealed everything from their design to their specifications. We’ve also learned that the devices could be 20% cheaper than their predecessors and that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 might offer S Pen support. Now, as the launch event draws closer, high-quality renders of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 have surfaced online.
Samsung will likely launch the new foldable devices and the Galaxy Watch 4 series in August this year. Ahead of the launch, an industry source has leaked renders of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (via 91mobiles). The new renders showcase the same design that we saw in the renders shared by noted leaker Evan Blass. But the new renders show the device in two different colorways –pink and green.
(Images: 91mobiles)
As you can see in the attached images, the pink variant of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 has a gradient finish, while the green variant has a solid finish. The phone features a vertically aligned triple-camera setup on the back and a full-sized display over on the front with a hole punch cutout for the selfie camera. On the inside, the phone features a larger foldable panel that has an under-display camera in the top right corner. The capacitive fingerprint sensor/power button and volume rocker on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 reside on the right edge, while the SIM card slot can be found on the left edge.
(Images: 91mobiles)
While the report doesn’t confirm any of the hardware specifications, previous leaks suggest that the phone will feature a 7.55-inch foldable display and a 6.23-inch external display. As mentioned earlier, the device will likely offer S Pen support. At the moment, we don’t have any details about the SoC packed in the device, but it could be a more powerful version of the Exynos 2100 or the recently launched Snapdragon 888 Plus. We’ll share more details about the upcoming phone as soon as they’re revealed.
Samsung will launch two new foldable phones later this year — the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3. Over the last few months, we’ve seen a boatload of leaks about these devices that have revealed everything from their design to their specifications. We’ve also learned that the devices could be 20% cheaper than their predecessors and that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 might offer S Pen support. Now, as the launch event draws closer, high-quality renders of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 have surfaced online.
Samsung will likely launch the new foldable devices and the Galaxy Watch 4 series in August this year. Ahead of the launch, an industry source has leaked renders of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (via 91mobiles). The new renders showcase the same design that we saw in the renders shared by noted leaker Evan Blass. But the new renders show the device in two different colorways –pink and green.
(Images: 91mobiles)
As you can see in the attached images, the pink variant of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 has a gradient finish, while the green variant has a solid finish. The phone features a vertically aligned triple-camera setup on the back and a full-sized display over on the front with a hole punch cutout for the selfie camera. On the inside, the phone features a larger foldable panel that has an under-display camera in the top right corner. The capacitive fingerprint sensor/power button and volume rocker on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 reside on the right edge, while the SIM card slot can be found on the left edge.
(Images: 91mobiles)
While the report doesn’t confirm any of the hardware specifications, previous leaks suggest that the phone will feature a 7.55-inch foldable display and a 6.23-inch external display. As mentioned earlier, the device will likely offer S Pen support. At the moment, we don’t have any details about the SoC packed in the device, but it could be a more powerful version of the Exynos 2100 or the recently launched Snapdragon 888 Plus. We’ll share more details about the upcoming phone as soon as they’re revealed.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is Xiaomi’s answer to every “Ultra” phone released in the past year. A culmination of the best hardware that Xiaomi can muster into a smartphone, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is a premium device aimed at taking the flagship Android throne. Xiaomi has pulled off an impressive feat but it’s not perfect, as the MIUI 12.5 update introduced a number of problems to my unit before they were fixed weeks later.
About this review: I received the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra for review from Xiaomi USA at the end of April 2021. This review was written jointly with my XDA colleagues based in India. Xiaomi had no input regarding the contents of this review.
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra: Specifications
Specification
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
Build
Colors: Ceramic White and Ceramic Black
Protection: Corning Gorilla Victus (front), Ceramic (back), IP68 rating for water and dust resistance
Dimensions & Weight
164.3mm x 74.6mm x 8.38mm, 234g
Display
Main
6.81″ AMOLED Quad-curved DotDisplay
WQHD+ resolution (3200 x 1440), 20:9 aspect ratio, 515 ppi
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is polarising, and there’s no other real way to put it. Depending on who you ask, it’s either one of the best-looking phones on the market or the worst. The device in white looks vaguely like an Among Us character, and that’s thanks to the near-comically large camera bump on the back.
To some, it’s futuristic. To others, it’s an eyesore. I’m a fan of it, but I get why you might not be. Nevertheless, this is unquestionably the most premium smartphone Xiaomi has ever designed, even if you don’t actually like the design all that much.
The ceramic back on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, and I’m thankful for the clear case that’s in the box as a result. It’s slightly curved on all edges of the phone and sits nicely in the hand. The ceramic back of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is an improvement in comfort and feel over the Mi Mix 2S, the last Xiaomi device I used with a ceramic back. It means you need to be careful of both sides of the phone when you drop it, but it looks good and also allows for wireless charging, so it does have a purpose.
This is unquestionably the most premium smartphone Xiaomi has ever designed
The Mi 11 Ultra though is heavy, coming in at 234 grams. While it’s fine to use once you get used to it, switching to anything lighter is a breath of fresh air. I switched to the Google Pixel 5 to try out the Android 12 beta briefly, and I was amazed at the difference in feel between the two. The smaller phone is lighter, but it’s such a huge difference.
It feels big in the hands too, even if it’s not substantially bigger than the OnePlus 9 Pro or the OPPO Find X3 Pro. The curve of the display does mean your palm goes over the front of the display when scrolling using it one-handed, but Xiaomi’s palm rejection has been good for the most part.
The display has Gorilla Glass Victus covering it, and the company hasn’t given any indication of what covers the back. The mid-frame is also made of aluminum, and the top, bottom, and sides being curved means there’s a kind of weird uneven look in each of the four corners. When using the phone daily, you never notice it, and I find that renders heavily overstated the problem. It’s not something you’ll notice using the phone, and I find it actually looks good in person.
The most insane part of the phone is the screen on the back of the display
The boldest aspect of this device’s design is the back camera, and it’s part of what lends the “Ultra” moniker to this smartphone. It houses (what was at the time) the largest camera sensor in a smartphone, along with an ultra-wide camera and a telephoto camera that can go up to 120x zoom. The most insane part of it all is the screen on the back of the display, which you can use to see the time, your battery level, some notifications, and even control your music.
Love it or hate it, it does have some utility, though even as a fan, I’m unsure of just how useful it really is. I don’t really ever look at it except for when my phone is facing down, but most of the time I have my phone’s display facing up for the always-on-display anyway.
Display
The display of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is a WQHD+ 120Hz AMOLED panel, and it looks good. While it’s not totally unimpeded thanks to the hole-punch camera, it’s right up there as one of the brightest displays on the market. I’ve been keeping an eye out for all of the display issues that people tend to spot on smartphones, like black crush, color banding, and poor viewing angles. None of these are present in my unit.
The Mi 11 Ultra has one of the brightest displays on the market, with 10-bit support and HDR10+ support
The only issue I’ve noticed is the brightness seems slightly inconsistent when at the lowest brightness level. A great way to test an inconsistent brightness is to set the brightness to its lowest, open up an incognito tab in Google Chrome, and then look around the display. Mine is darkest towards the bottom, and lights up in the middle of the panel, even though the entire panel should be completely uniform. This is admittedly a niche case, and not something that’s even noticeable outside of opening up an incognito tab and actively looking for a non-uniform display. In day-to-day usage, it’s completely unnoticeable.
Xiaomi says that the Mi 11 Ultra can hit a peak brightness of 1,700 nits, which is likely measured at 100% APL and with high brightness mode enabled. I’ve had no trouble using it outdoors under direct sunlight, and it also tweaks the contrast of the display to be brighter as well. There’s DC dimming (called “anti-flicker mode” in display settings) too so the display gets dimmer than usual. I’ve had no trouble using this phone at night, be it in bed or just in a dark room.
Xiaomi says the Mi 11 Ultra has both 10-bit support and HDR10+ support, and from my testing, Netflix does serve HDR10 content to the Mi 11 Ultra. 10-bit color means the display can show over 1 billion colors versus a more “standard” 16.78 million on other devices. If you’re curious about how exactly those color values are calculated, an 8-bit display means each of the three color channels has 8 bits of data (red, green, and blue, RGB), making it 24 bits per pixel. From there, we calculate the number of possible colors to be 2^24, equalling 16,777,216, or 16.78 million. A 10-bit display has 10 bits per color channel, which means we get 30 bits per pixel, equivalent to 2^30. 2^30 comes in at around 1.07 billion, which is the number of colors that can be displayed on the screen.
Sadly, the Mi 11 Ultra doesn’t have a low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, or LTPO, display, which I think is the biggest missed opportunity here. LTPO is becoming the next big display technology, and it lets the display refresh rate go as low as 1Hz, significantly decreasing power draw at the same time. There’s also no way of setting a 90Hz refresh rate, meaning you have to go with the power-hungriest 120Hz option or drop right down to 60Hz. There’s no in-between. It’s possible to overwrite the refresh rate if you use adb by executing the following command to drop down to 90Hz.
adb shell settings put system peak_refresh_rate 90
However, the problem is within a minute, MIUI overwrites this and sets it back to 120Hz. There doesn’t seem to be any way to actively force 90Hz at all times.
Performance
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra won’t disappoint in performance and will handle pretty much everything you’ll throw at it. Packing the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, it has all the generational leaps over its predecessors and a 5nm node size for better performance without a substantial increase in power draw. The Snapdragon 888 retains the 1+3+4 configuration which Qualcomm has been running for a while, with the single Prime core being based on ARM’s new Cortex-X1.
There are also three performance cores based on the Cortex-A78, and four “efficiency” cores based on the Cortex-A55. The Snapdragon 888 is equipped with an Adreno 660 GPU which is claimed to be 35% faster than its predecessor. Finally, the chipset also comes with an integrated Snapdragon X60 modem for seamless 5G connectivity, although I was unable to test 5G connectivity here in Ireland and neither were my colleagues able to test it in India.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra won't disappoint in performance and will handle pretty much everything you'll throw at it
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is the most powerful chipset to power an Android smartphone so far. It’s the core of the most exciting flagships released in the last year, driving the Samsung Galaxy S21 Series, the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro, and “flagship killers” like the Realme GT and the Redmi K40 Pro+. Smartphones are more than just the sum of their performance though, which is why we always end up with such a wide range of pricing between smartphones. The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra also has up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage and 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM. My unit has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Real-world Performance
We’ve devised a series of benchmarks that test the real-world performance of Android phones. The first test is a real-world test of app launch speeds that launches twelve popular apps we use each day in succession for 30 iterations. These apps are all “cold” launched on the device, meaning the app isn’t cached in memory before it’s launched. Timing is stopped when the app’s main activity first begins to draw, so there’s no waiting on content to load from the network. Thus, this test can determine how quickly a device can load an app from storage into memory, with the caveat being this test is sensitive to changes in the app and OS version.
What’s interesting is that these results are actually consistently better than the OnePlus 9 Pro, except for Google Chrome which is a massive outlier. Most apps launch in and around the 300ms mark, with many of them launching lower than that. These are impressive results for any smartphone, besting pretty much all of last year’s devices. While the results from Google Chrome are weird, because of the large amount of memory on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, it’s likely an app that will mostly stay in memory anyway.
The next test we’ve created is a modified version of Google’s open-source JankBench benchmark. This benchmark simulates a handful of common tasks you’ll see in everyday apps, including scrolling through a ListView with text, scrolling through a ListView with images, scrolling through a low-hitrate text render view, scrolling through a high-hitrate text render view, inputting and editing text with the keyboard, repeating overdraws with cards, and uploading bitmaps.
Our script records the draw time for each frame during the test, eventually plotting all the frames and their draw times in a plot along with several horizontal lines representing the target frame draw times for the four common display refresh rates (60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz.)
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra results in Google’s JankBench benchmark
OnePlus 9 Pro results in Google’s JankBench benchmark
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra produces some interesting results in the above graphs and bests the OnePlus 9 Pro in some areas. In 5 of 7 tests, just like the OnePlus 9 Pro, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra renders 99% of frames in time for a 120Hz display. In both the “Edit Text Input” and the “Bitmap Upload Test”, however, it experiences jank.
I haven’t noticed frame drops when typing on the display. There have been some perceptible frame drops when browsing Twitter (which is the type of content that the “bitmap upload test refers to”) but it’s rare enough, and I’m happy with the real-world performance on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.
The sustained performance of the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra has impressed me, as it managed to only throttle to 79% of its total performance after half an hour of stress testing using the CPU Throttling Test app on the Google Play Store. That means there should be minimal impact to performance in long gaming sessions, with only the most taxing of games dragging it down. The storage speed also won’t be a bottleneck for your favorite games and apps, as the UFS 3.1 storage is as quick as you’d expect.
Gaming on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is a pleasure, even if it isn’t a gaming phone, so to say. I’ve been primarily using it for emulation, and games like The Simpsons: Hit & Run and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker run near-perfectly. 3DS games are playable too, with titles such as Pokémon X and Animal Crossing: New Leaf running very well, particularly after the recent Citra update that added support for a shader cache. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 can handle everything you throw at it, with very few games on the Google Play Store being capable of pushing the chip to its limits.
Battery
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is a gigantic phone with a power-hungry display and processor to match. The 5,000 mAh battery handles more or less everything I throw at it, getting me just through to the end of the day after heavy usage. Given the size of the battery, I expected slightly better battery life, but it’s just enough for me even when I’m on the go.
I use my phone for a lot of social media, YouTube, and work, and it gets me through the day with a little bit to spare at the end of it. That’s with the always-on display enabled all day and a mixture of Wi-Fi and mobile data usage. Here’s a typical day of usage for me, in terms of pure battery statistics. You can see I got up around 9 AM, and the battery lasted me until just about 9 PM when I got home.
Testing the Xiaomi MI 11 ultra in PCMark’s Work 3.0 benchmark at the device’s lowest brightness gave us a result of just over 9 hours in our test. This test was conducted at a constant brightness of 200 nits and measured how long it takes the phone’s battery to go from 80% to 20%. It’s not the best battery life, but it gets the job done, and the charging speeds help top up the battery if you need it.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra also supports up to 67W fast charging, which Xiaomi includes a charger for in the box in Europe. In India, the company only includes a 55W charger in the box. I tested the charging speed from 1% to 100% and was impressed with the results. It took 35 minutes to charge when plugged into the 67W fast charger, making this the fastest charger that I’ve ever tested in a smartphone.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra also supports 67W fast wireless charging, but you need a proprietary wireless charger from Xiaomi to achieve that. Xiaomi says it takes 49 minutes to charge with the wireless charger from 1% to 100%, but note that this will depend on ambient conditions. If used in a warm room, more heat will be trapped, and charging speed will be slowed in wireless charging to prevent overheating, so you will need to ensure that your charging environment is cooler for it to work.
Testing our unit in India that comes with a 55W charger, it takes roughly 50 minutes to charge the 5,000 mAh battery to full.
Camera
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra has one of the biggest primary camera sensors in a phone, and it shows thanks to the natural bokeh that you can get in photos. The background blur you get in close-up photos isn’t software – it’s genuinely just the large camera sensor doing what it’s supposed to. While the camera does leave a lot to be desired at times, I’m overall happy with it.
I think this is one of the better Xiaomi cameras on a smartphone (and the video quality is very good), but there are times where it definitely does better. Xiaomi poised the Mi 11 Ultra as a DSLR competitor, so I took to the XDA YouTube channel and my Twitter page to see which photo people preferred. The results were interesting, as in most cases, people actually preferred the Mi 11 Ultra over the DSLR.
Overall, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra’s camera I believe is overhyped in its current state, but definitely capable of great photos at times. I know there have been improvements and changes with updates, but none have been total game changers since I got the device. It’s a solid shooter with a good ultra-wide and a great zoom camera, but I still find that even the Google Pixel 5 is better for still photos. It struggles with moving subjects, making photos of my cat when moving a blurry mess. Xiaomi’s cameras are some of the better ones on Android smartphones, particularly when the lighting is good, but you’re still better off using a Pixel 5 for still shots.
Software: The first MIUI 12.5 update caused a lot of problems
The software on a smartphone can make or break the experience, and in a lot of ways, it’s likely more important than the hardware packed inside. I know a lot of people won’t use a Xiaomi device no matter how good the hardware is, thanks to MIUI, and that’s just one example. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the software is a sticking point for a lot of people, and it’s almost certainly part of what makes a flagship smartphone a flagship smartphone.
To preface — I have always been a huge fan of MIUI. I think the features it brings to Android make it one of the best Android variants out there, and I love how it looks. The animations are smooth, and I’ve never really had any issues with using my smartphone on a MIUI device. There have certainly been some hitches that are unique to Xiaomi devices that I’ve come across, but nothing that made me hate using my phone as much as MIUI 12.5 did for a period of time.
The experience I had on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra was overwhelmingly positive at first, and any software hitches were fixed pretty quickly. There were a number of hotfix updates that came out shortly after launch with general system improvements and camera changes — the usual updates that tend to follow a release, nothing out of the ordinary.
Then MIUI 12.5 came along.
The first MIUI 12.5 update for the Europe region ruined the experience I had with the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and made the device frustrating to use. I had to factory reset my phone after the update to fix some of the issues, and that’s something I’ve never had to do before. Issues I had included a persistent music notification that would never go away (and when it did, left a massive empty space in my notifications), hard crashing, severe battery drainage, and overheating issues. Our unit with my colleagues in India doesn’t have any of the problems I’ve mentioned here, but here’s the thing — that unit is on MIUI 12.0.6.
However, there was one major issue that wouldn’t go away, and I was seemingly not alone. The screen’s touch sensitivity was entirely off, meaning that swipes were being registered as taps on the screen. We already reached out to Xiaomi about this problem and were told a fix was on the way, which has since arrived. The fix has indeed dealt with all of the issues I was having with Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, but it took several weeks of unusability to get it in the first place.
The fix has indeed dealt with all of the issues I was having with Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, but it took several weeks of unusability to get the update
The problem affected everything on the device, and it randomly went away and reappeared. It made scrolling (something that makes up 90% of phone usage) a chore and the only way I got around it was to swipe harder. Users on Reddit have mentioned the problem recently on a wide swathe of Xiaomi-made smartphones. Judging from the comments in the thread, this didn’t appear to be a problem unique to the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. Worryingly for Xiaomi, according to the thread, it also doesn’t seem to be an issue exclusive to MIUI 12.5 either. The problem surfaced on our unit shortly after the update to MIUI 12.5, and our Indian-based unit doesn’t appear to be affected, which is on MIUI 12.0.6.
Was it all a coincidence? Possibly, but it seems that something may have been wrong with MIUI 12.5. I’ve never had to factory reset my phone after a software update before, and I had a lot of other problems after the update too that forced me to. It’s also worth mentioning that the problem doesn’t affect my POCO F3 which is updated to MIUI 12.5 too. MIUI 12.5 might be a perfectly fine update by and large, but it was certainly way more trouble than it was worth for me.
Before those problems arose, MIUI was excellent for the most part. At times there have been issues with notification delivery with Facebook Messenger that aren’t solved even when setting no battery restrictions on it, and there are still one or two UI problems like I found on the Xiaomi Mi 11. On our Indian unit, the system is plagued with advertisements, though I’ve had none on my European unit. Ad recommendations can be switched off in additional settings, and unless you want to see everything shown below, then I recommend doing so.
I get why this is done on cheaper devices as it helps subsidize the price, but I don’t get why they’re doing this on their most ultra-premium smartphone yet. If this is truly a Samsung competitor though, I guess they know Samsung loves to get away with this kind of thing.
MIUI 12.5 is the same MIUI that you’ve come to expect, and sadly the software issues massively soured the otherwise amazing Android experience that I had prior. If the touch issues hadn’t been solved, then this would have been a difficult phone to recommend to anyone. In its current state with everything working, this is easily a top Android phone of the year for me. While the problems may not necessarily have been widespread, there was an issue that Xiaomi had absolutely acknowledged. A €1,199 smartphone shouldn’t have had this many software problems, and it’s a shame that it did.
To be fair, the phone is seemingly back to its excellent state with all of MIUI 12.5’s improvements and changes. The experience is good and there aren’t any issues that I’ve run into since getting the update, though I’m slightly wary of future software updates now as a result. For anyone who picks up this device now in Europe, you’ll get updates straight up to MIUI 12.5.6 out of the box, and you’ll likely skip the entire experience that I had up to this point.
Previously, I also would have said that the fingerprint sensor wasn’t very good, but this latest update also significantly improved it in a way that none of the software updates have before.
Conclusion
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra is the most feature-packed, top-of-the-line smartphone I’ve ever used. It has fantastic speakers, pretty good cameras, a beautiful and vibrant display, and excellent performance. The battery life is ample, the charging speed is insanely quick, and I’ve had no trouble with phone calls, texts, or mobile data connectivity in general. Sharp and powerful haptics also means that when notifications do come in, I know about them, and this is one of the few phones I enable haptic feedback on when typing. It was a shame that the entire experience was soured by the MIUI 12.5 update, but I’m happy that it was at the very least eventually rectified when a fix was released.
In its current state, then this phone is more or less a no-brainer, so long as you like MIUI, anyway. €1,199 is a tall asking price for a smartphone, but this is one built to last for a number of years, and it has a certain flex factor thanks to the rear-facing screen that no other smartphones on the market have today. It goes toe to toe with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, and I think that’s exactly what Xiaomi set out to achieve.
