In this article, I will be giving you the unboxing and my first impressions of the new Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE or New Edition, not to be confused with the Mi 11 Lite that was previously released.

 

Unboxing

Starting from the unboxing, the box comes in white, with the Mi logo on the top right, 11 in the middle and Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE down below.

Opening the box cover, there will be a smaller white box, where you will find the SIM ejector pin on the outside. Then inside, there is the user guide and the soft clear phone case.

Then, you will find the phone itself.

Underneath, there is the USB-A to USB-C cable and the 33-watt fast-charging brick.

 

Build Quality

Now looking at the build of the phone, and my oh my, this phone is really light, so yes, Xiaomi was not kidding when they said that it was a featherweight design.

Besides the color white being my favorite color, this finish was something very unique, as it had a matte and a glittering stone-like effect.

And here is where I do appreciate what Xiaomi has done because some companies will go all out by giving you a glitter effect AND putting in a gloss back so it’s nice that they gave a nice matte texture kind of finish instead.

The camera arrays are very reminiscent of the Mi 11’s camera arrays, with quite a thin to almost medium-sized camera bump, so it barely wobbles when you type on the phone when placed on a surface towards the middle left side of the screen. 

The sides are a silver glossy finish, and although I’d prefer a matte finish here too it does balance out the overall design of the phone to give that sort of elegant look, which I prefer than a typical glossy finish, so that was another plus as well.

Then looking at the ports and buttons, other than the USB-C down below, there is the SIM ejector slot which supports up to 2 SIMs, then you will find one of the two dual speaker grills over there as the other speaker is at the earpiece area.

On the right, there are the volume rockers and the side power button which also acts as a fingerprint sensor, and this non-concave style of a side fingerprint sensor seems to be the way that Xiaomi is going for the devices, which is something that I do indeed appreciate more and it does unlock very quickly. Then on top, there is the IR Blaster as well.

So overall, I’d give the phone an A+ for the phone’s build, because the phone felt extremely nice to hold, and believe it or not, I prefer it over the higher flagships – the Xiaomi 11T and the Xiaomi 11T Pro, and speaking of which, I have also released my unboxing and first impressions of those phones so do check it out after watching this.

Link to my Xiaomi 11T & 11T Pro First Impressions video: https://youtu.be/6BiQCSwwJ6Q

Display

Now looking at the display, the phone has a 6.55 inch AMOLED display, with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

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And upon turning on the phone’s screen, the screen did look really nice, bright, and vibrant as well.

The display refresh rate goes up to 90 hertz, which was nice, and since it is an AMOLED display, there is the Always-on Display feature as well.

The camera hole punch is towards the top left, and the screen is a nice and flat-screen display, with a nice 10 bit color depth and during my first impressions, watching YouTube and playing back Netflix on the phone was really pleasant.

And what’s extra sweet is that it is not only Widevine L1 Full HD playback compatible but also has Dolby Vision support as well 

So as for the phone’s screen, I’d give this an A for the overall look of the screen, especially for a Lite edition of a smartphone.

 

Cameras

Now in terms of the camera:

• the main rear camera is 64-megapixel f 1.79 aperture
• an 8-megapixel f 2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens, and
• an 5-megapixel f 2.4 tele macro lens

Then the front camera comes with a 20-megapixel f 2.2 camera.

Based on my quick test shots, the front camera’s pictures were great too both for the regular and the portrait selfie as well, especially when the lights are shining towards you, which for a Lite variant phone, it is nice to know.

Then all the rear lenses also looked really nice with almost flagship level dynamic range as well, which of course I am looking to test the camera out further during my full review, so subscribe to this channel in case you haven’t done so.

 

Video Recording

As for the video, the rear camera maxes out at 4k 30 frames per second and the front camera can only record up to 1080p…as usual..at a higher frame rate of 60 fps. Image Stabilization for the front and the rear was really good, and the video quality for the rear lens was excellent in catching high exposed shots.

Specs

Next, looking at the specs of the device, it comes with the Snapdragon 778G Chipset, with the Adreno 642L GPU. And the variant that I have is the 6 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage.

Then as for battery, the phone has 4250 milliamps of battery, which I shall see how it performs during my further daily usage. And the phone has fast charging up to 33-watts where the charger comes inside of the box.

In terms of software, the phone comes pre-installed with MIUI 12.5.2 on top of Android 11, which I shall see how the software performs, so far it has been great during my first impressions.

So as of the recording of this video, there was no official price for the phone that has been announced yet here in Malaysia, so stay tuned for that, where I will let you guys know in my full video review.

So guys, with this, do let me know what you guys would like to know specifically about the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE in the comment section below, and either I will reply to your comments directly down there or I might be answering them when I do a full video review on the phone.