Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE Review

Xiaomi has been one of the top smartphone brands in terms of sales because of their budget-friendly smartphone offerings like the new Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE. It may have some similarities to its older sibling, the Mi 11 Lite, but there have been a few improvements along the way. If you want to know our full thoughts about it, continue reading.

Design and Construction

As mentioned in the intro, the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE can easily be mistaken as the Mi 11 Lite. Besides the design resemblance, the 11 Lite 5G NE just has a few upgrades.

Upon holding the 11 Lite 5G NE for the first time, we were immediately stunned by how lightweight it is at 158g. It’s even lighter than most budget smartphones today, which makes it a bit awkward to hold as someone who’s used to hefty phones. It takes some getting used to, especially if you have man-sized hands. Even so, this device still feels solid and robust.

The back is made out of a matte textured polycarbonate material, which can feel slippery at times, so we highly recommend you use the free jelly case included in the box. Also situated at the rear are its triple rear camera module and some Xiaomi branding.

The unit we have is in this very chic Peach Pink colorway that has an iridescent effect depending on the lighting angle. But if this is not your color, you have an array of colors to choose from, namely Truffle Black, Bubblegum Blue, and Snowflake white colorways.

There’s nothing on the left side, but on the right are the volume rocker and the power/lock button that also doubles as a fingerprint scanner. The buttons are tactile and clicky and are placed in a sweet spot. So if you have small hands like me, you won’t have any struggle adjusting the volume of unlocking this device.

At the bottom, we have the primary microphone, a hybrid dual SIM card slot, USB-C port, and the speaker.

Up top, there’s an IR blaster and a secondary microphone. While at the bottom are the loudspeaker, USB Type-C port, main microphone, and a hybrid card slot for either 2 nano-SIM cards or 1 nano-SIM plus a microSD card. There’s no headphone port here but we do get a free Type-C to headphone jack adapter in the box.

We are also happy to report that this device has an IP53 rating meaning that the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE can withstand accidental splashes and even survive when submerged in water. But if I were you, I wouldn’t go swimming with it. Overall, we are digging into the design of this device. It looks modern and is minimalist. I personally liked this design compared to the Xiaomi 11T and 11T Pro — but that’s just me.

Display and Multimedia

We are now checking out the main part of this phone— the display. Upfront, we have a 6.55-inch AMOLED panel with a resolution of 2400 x 1080. It’s also got a 90Hz refresh rate providing a smoother experience. The selfie camera resides on the hole-punch cutout on the upper left of the device. For protection, the display is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and comes with a screen protector pre-installed.

The display quality is superb, has vibrant colors, and has great details with a pixel density of 402 PPI. Viewing angles are also great, and the display can produce up to 800 nits for the HDR 10+ and 500 nits for regular usage. Because of this, we didn’t have any issues when using it under direct sunlight, which is a plus.

In the display settings, you can switch between the usual Light Mode and Dark Mode; turn on Sunlight Mode to adjust the brightness to intense ambient light when automatic brightness is off; and you can even take advantage of the Reading mode, which asides from reducing the amount of blue light, it has a Paper mode that gives an additional paper texture for your reading sessions.

You can also change the color scheme to Vivid, Original, Saturated, and Auto option that automatically blends the colors based on your current lighting.

The Always-On Display feature is also available, and it is packed with numerous themes that are all customizable.

When it comes to its speakers, it’s got a stereo setup making the multimedia experience a little bit better compared to most Android smartphones that have stereo speakers. It can easily fill up a room at maximum volume, but we suggest taking advantage of the Type-C to 3.5mm dongle included in the package or a Bluetooth headset for a more optimal listening experience.

Cameras

As for the cameras, the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE has a triple rear camera sensor consisting of a 64MP main, 8MP ultrawide, and a 5MP tele-macro lens. As for selfies, we have a 20MP camera.

Photos taken with the 64 MP main camera are decent. Colors are accurate, although there are some scenarios where the images produced are contrasty and oversaturated, but most of the time, images have good HDR projection and are also sharp.

Images taken from the ultrawide sensor can also be a little too contrasty and even muddy, especially when taken under low light scenarios. Furthermore, photos can come out a little bit blown out when photos are taken against the light source.

Portrait mode is also present, it gives a decent subject-to-background separation and does look natural. Although sometimes, the camera tends to blur other parts of the subject, especially if the subject has jagged edges.

As for the Night Mode feature, there’s not much of a difference between a photo taken under lowlight in normal mode and in night mode. Colors, when night mode is turned on, are a little bit more pronounced, but details and the overall night mode photo quality are not as good.

For selfies, surprisingly, it can handle HDR very well, images come out sharp, skin tones look a little bit soft, but overall, image quality is good and vibrant and will definitely suffice your social media needs. Beauty mode is also present if you are into that.

When it comes to video recording, it can shoot up to 4K at 30fps. So even though there is no OIS present, the Video quality is still great, details are clear, colors are accurate, it has a good dynamic range, and surprisingly, the digital stabilization is great.

OS, UI, and Apps

For software, it runs on MIUI 12.5.5 based on Android 11. It’s a clean UI that is easy on the eyes and easy to use. Pre-installed apps are present, like Amazon, Facebook, TikTok, WPS Office, iQIYI, LinkedIn, 92, and Booking.com, but these can be easily uninstalled.

Now MIUI 12.5 also provides the option to use either the usual Android drop-down notification and control center format, or the newer style that’s a lot similar to the iOS design. Moreover, you can navigate with gestures or the on-display buttons, and you can also use an app drawer if you prefer. If you want to keep things simple, you can turn on the Lite mode launcher in the home screen options.

With an IR blaster on board, you can use the Mi 11 Lite as a universal remote via the Mi remote app. While other features include second space, Video Toolbox, floating window, one-handed mode, digital wellbeing, and parental controls.

Out of the 128GB that we have, we are getting 113.24GB of free storage. If that is not enough, there’s a microSD card slot available.

Performance and Benchmarks

As for performance, the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778 5G, up to 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, and up to 256GB UFS 2.2. Surprisingly, for a mid-range chipset, it can handle demanding mobile game titles like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile on the highest graphic settings available without any hiccups. Multitasking is easily handled as well. However, when playing games or doing heavy tasks for long periods, it can be warm to the touch — but not to the alarming level.

If you are interested in numbers, here are the benchmark scores that we got.

• AnTuTu v9.1.7 – 531,563
• AnTuTu v9.1.7 Storage Test – 49,621 (1,322.8 MB/s Seq. Read, 621.2 MB/s Seq. Write)
• Geekbench 5 – 602 (Single-Core), 2,832 (Multi-Core), 4,212 (OpenCL), 3,211 (Vulkan)
• PCMark – 10,921 (Work 3.0)
• 3DMark – 5,212, 35.20 FPS (Wild Life)
• AndroBench – 1,483.22 MB/s Seq. Read, 697.53 MB/s Seq. Write

Connectivity and Battery Life

When it comes to connectivity, it features Dual-SIM with 5G, fast WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, GPS, and IR Blaster.

Powering the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE is a sizable 4,250mAh battery with support for 33w fast charging. In our standard video loop test, which entails the device playing 1080p video on loop, airplane mode turned on, headphones plugged in, we yielded a score of 21 hours and 8 minutes while the PC Mark’s Work 3.0 battery benchmark rated it at 13 hours and 19 minutes. For this battery capacity, this is actually decent.

The Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE can recharge from 0% to 100% in roughly 2 hours, which is fast.

Conclusion

Xiaomi didn’t disappoint us with the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE. It’s got a decent battery life, cameras, and surprisingly amazing performance. Sure, there are some aspects of this phone that are lacking, especially in the camera department, but overall we can forgive these types of sacrifices considering its price. For pricing, the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE has three variants a 6GB + 128GB variant at PHP 16,990, the 8GB+128GB variant at PHP 18,990, and the beefed-up version which has 8GB + 256GB at PHP 20,990.

So what do you guys think about the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE? Is this going to be your next daily driver? Do let us know in the comments section.

With inputs from Justine Basco

Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE specs:
6.55-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) AMOLED DotDisplay
90Hz refresh rate
240Hz touch sampling rate
Dolby Vision, HDR 10+
Corning Gorilla Glass 5 (front)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 778 5G
6GB, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM
128GB, 256GB UFS 2.2 storage
Triple rear cameras:
• 64MP F1.79 (main)
• 8MP F2.2 (ultrawide)
• 5MP F2.4 (telemacro)
20MP F2.45 front camera
5G, 4G LTE
Dual-SIM (nano)
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou, NavIC
NFC
Dual Speakers
Fingerprint scanner (side)
MIUI 12.5 (Android 11)
USB Type-C
4,250mAh battery w/ 33W fast charging
160.53 x 75.73 x 6.81mm
158g
Truffle Black, Bubblegum Blue, Peach Pink, Snowflake White