So the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE was quite a surprise release from Xiaomi. Firstly, is that Xiaomi decided to release another smartphone on top of their usual T series, and secondly, there was a previously released smartphone that sounds very similar, which is the Mi 11 Lite.

So the question is, is this new Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE or New Edition release was “just for the sake” of releasing another affordable option, or does the phone have a proper purpose for its release?

Well, in this article, I will be giving you that answer and I will also be answering the questions that you have asked me in my first impressions video as well.

Specs

Now since I have done the unboxing in my first impressions video, here is a quick recap of the specs.

The Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE 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.

The phone comes pre-installed with MIUI 12.5.2 on top of Android 11, but as of the recording of this video, it comes with the MIUI version 12.5.5

 

Build Quality

Now looking at the design and the build of the phone, as mentioned in the first impressions this phone is really light, it is one of the best phones to hold, and even better than the usual Poco F3 that I am used to as well.

The matte and glittering stone-like effect was really sweet to the point of not only just using the phone daily but it was such a pleasure to shoot the phone as well, as the detail is indeed very unique to the phone compared to other smartphones, especially within this price range.

And even though the sides are glossy but because of the matte finish at the back, it kind of balances out everything very well.

So with this, like I have said before and I will say it again that I would give an A+ for the phone design and build quality as well.

 

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. Using the phone daily was an absolute pleasure, especially for a phone with this price range.

I have always mentioned how not all AMOLED screens are created equal and it’s nice that Xiaomi didn’t use a cheap quality AMOLED screen on the phone, yes it’s not as high in quality compared to the likes of a flagship smartphone, but still very good indeed.

The display was nice and flat and the viewing angles were also great when playing games or watching videos on the phone as well.

What’s amazing is the fact that the phone not only has Widevine L1 Full HD playback support but also has Dolby Vision as well, which was super sweet because even the regular Xiaomi 11T didn’t have Dolby Vision support on Netflix and this phone had.

As for your answer @Mohd Faizul Abd Rahman, the phone does support Full HD 1080p of streaming playback on Amazon Video.

And then, as for your question on the Always-On Display @Ervin on whether or not it has a 10 seconds limit, the answer is yes, you can’t turn it on beyond 10 seconds.

So yes, the display on the phone has to be one of my favorite features of the phone.

 

Camera

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
• a 5-megapixel f 2.4 tele macro lens

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

64-Megapixel Mode
Starting from the 64-megapixel, as usual, it looked great and high detail but it looked very similar to the main lenses, so I would just save the storage and use the main lens, unless you really want to crop in.

Ultrawide Lens
The ultrawide shots looked really nice with great dynamic range, even when taking shots during a harsh or a backlit situation.

However, the barrel distortion was present if you look closely at this lamp post on the right or the Armani shop towards the sides, so if you like this kind of shots then it’s fine, otherwise you will need to keep that in mind.

 

Main Lens
As for the main lens, I absolutely loved how the main lenses looked, with almost flagship-level quality, the color reproduction and overall dynamic range was really high in quality once again, making the ultrawide lens image earlier gel well with the amazing quality that the main lens has.

Zoom
While I am not an advocate of digital zoom images, but I have to say that the 10x zoom images on the camera were indeed quite decent, so it is nice that it is there.

Rear Portrait Mode
Then as for the rear portrait mode, the images looked great with really great image processing and the subject to background blur was processed really well especially on the edge detection.

Macro Mode
Then as for the Super Macro Mode, I found that not only focusing was easy but the images turned out great and definitely better than some other Xiaomi phones that I have recently tested without any color shift issues.

Ultrawide (Night Mode)
As for the night mode, what’s funny is that I kinda preferred the night mode shots for the ultrawide lenses as the balance of highlights and the color of the sky was nice and black, with no noticeable noise.

Main (Night Mode)
Because the main lens seems to bring out the highlights too much as seen in these two images over here.

But if there is a good balance of shadows and a decent amount of lights, then it tends to balance out better as seen in this 3rd image.

Regular Selfie
Looking at the regular selfies then, what’s really good to know is that there are absolutely no issues with overexposing the highlights compared to some other Xiaomi or Poco phones that I have tried, where everything was balanced in all in all for the regular selfie.

Portrait Selfie
Then the portrait mode was very consistent with the regular selfie shots in terms of the skin tones and dynamic range, but the edge detection is just decent as the edges of my hair and shoulder can be a little soft but overall was very much usable.

 

Video Recording

Then as for video recording, the rear main camera records up to 4k 30 frames per second, where the quality was great and while the image stabilization was great but if you really look closely and footage peep you can see some tiny little jitters for every step that I take.

Then these little jitters are lessened when using the ultrawide lens because while the stabilization looks a tiny bit better over here, it comes with the expense of a lower resolution of only 1080p.

Then when it comes to the front camera as predicted it can record at a max resolution of 1080p but it can also go up to a higher frame rate of 60 frames per second.

The video footage over here does take some time to adjust the overall exposure and once it does, it looks great and image stabilization over here was really good.

 

Audio

As for the phone’s speakers, you know what, I was really pleasantly surprised with how great it sounded man.

The overall audio output was really good, and I was also surprised when I closed the bottom speaker with my finger, the sound projection for the top speaker was quite loud compared to some other phones that I have tested where the earpiece speakers are usually a bit lower.

The highs and mids were really good with a decent amount of bass even at maximum volume.

Also worth mentioning is that when I connected the phone to my wireless earbuds, the sound output seems to be louder

Compared to Poco F3 and Poco X3 GT even when you turn LDAC on, so this was indeed a very interesting finding.

 

Software

In terms of software, when I first unboxed the phone, the phone came with MIUI 12.5.2 on top of Android 11, but as of the recording of this video, it comes with the MIUI version 12.5.5

From then until now, there were no overheating issues which is an obvious plus and a great thing to know.

So there is your answer @Soronika Biswas on any overheating issues.

Due to the perfect 6 gigs of RAM, there were no signs of stutter, and loading websites were also nice and smooth especially with the high refresh rate using it daily.

The haptic feedback when typing also felt great where you almost would never guess that it came with a very affordable priced phone like this.

But where I felt that it took a little hit, probably on the software side of things is the overall battery, which brings us to the next topic, which is the battery performance.

 

Battery

The Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE has 4250 milliamps of battery, and yes, here is where I found that this was indeed the weakness on the phone as I got an average of almost 4 hours and a little more screen on time, during my daily usage at 10 percent battery.

But I guess Xiaomi was targeting the phone towards the not so power user anyways, and their obvious target was to also keep the device thin and light, which I prefer because I was not a huge fan of the thick and slippery build quality of the 11T series.

So personally for me, I didn’t mind the not so good screen on time because I rather have a nice form factor smartphone, and since the phone has fast charging up to 33 watts that to me balanced out everything well. But yes, it would be nice if I got more screen on time, so let’s hope a software update could improve on that.

And there is your battery life test @Sirius Black, @Raj P and @Cihan Oz

 

Gaming

As for gaming, although the phone is not really built for high intensive games like Genshin Impact, I have decided to test the phone out with that.

And while you don’t get the best experience with high settings, I found that if it is adjusted to low settings, it will be totally lag-free, but it does beat the purpose of having a nicer experience of gameplay.

So switching it at medium settings was better where the gameplay was still very much playable at 60 fps with motion blur turned off.

Then as for PUBG Mobile, as usual, the game was also very optimized for the phone where it performed really well with no overheating issues, just slightly warm after about 20 minutes with graphics set to HDR and frame rate set to Ultra.

But overall I have to say that, because of the overall thin form factor of the phone, it is a really nice phone to game with absolutely no hand strain during a really long gameplay.

So there is your gaming performance review @Jack Frost and @Sirius Black

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have to say that my initial impressions on how I was really going to like this phone were totally true, as based on my test using the phone daily, besides the current weakness of the battery and screen on time, I feel that it is a smartphone that I could totally recommend especially if you are in a budget within this price range.

The Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE is starting at RM1,199 for this 6 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage variant, and I will leave a link below for you to get yourself one.

Because my biggest takeaway on this phone is the amazing build quality, a nice screen, and overall great rear cameras as well. So yes, if these are your priorities among others then you should get the phone.

Get the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE at the link below:-
https://invol.co/cl6qxfm

—

Q&A

Alright, let’s end this by answering some of the other questions asked by you all.

@Saravana Sai Garapati asks:

Q: How many bands of 5G? Does it still have the same virtual proximity sensor?

A: Since it is using the Snapdragon 778 G chipset, it uses the Snapdragon X53 5G Modem, which has support for mmWave and Sub-6 in both TDD and FDD frequencies for Non Standalone and Standalone networks, plus DSS as well.

In terms of the proximity sensor, it does have a virtual proximity sensor, but it is not as new as the AI Virtual Smart Sensor which is available in the 11T Series.

 

@Fallen Jedi asks:

Q: Does it have the same Delta RGB OLED Panel instead of the PenTile one?

A: Great question, no official news on this but based on my research it is using the Delta RGB OLED Panel, so it is not as high quality as the PenTile version, especially due to the price of the phone.

 

@Fhmi Anuar asks:

Q: Does it come with any audio dongle with the box?

A: Based on my previous unboxing video, there isn’t any audio dongle.

 

@Anupam Kumar asks:

Q: There is Dolby Vision on the phone, are there Dolby Stereo Speakers?

A: No buddy, it’s just stereo speakers which as mentioned earlier, but it still sounded very nice and quite loud indeed.

 

@St. Jimmy asks:

Q: Does it have a dedicated SD Card Slot

A: Yeap, it is either you put it at the SIM 2 slot or you can put in a micro sd card over there.

 

Then finally @Golam Rabbani Safwan asks:

Q: Is there any hitting issues

A: Nope, I didn’t get hit….by the phone when I was using the phone daily.