So much for the promise of making affordable gadgets. We totally understand the premium price tag of Mix Fold, but a premium price on a regular smartphone from Xiaomi? It’s debatable.
This is the all-new Mi 11 Ultra and in case you don’t know, the starting price is 1,299 yuan (US$198) more than the Mi 10 Ultra’s starting from last year. For a grand 6,499 yuan, you get a camera… no, I mean a phone with a lot of promises in the imaging department.
Speaking of imaging, this device has one of the biggest camera module we have ever seen and possibly the most interesting one.
Alongside the Samsung co-developed 50 MP 1/1.12” sensor camera, 48 MP super zoom telephoto (120x periscope telephoto) and 48 MP super wide-angle cameras, there is a small “smart window” display.
This display can show important notifications and lets you take or reject calls so that you, well, don’t need to turn your phone around to do so (if it is facing down). Having said that, the phone should be perfectly fine being placed face down – thanks to the Corning Gorilla Glass Victus.
The small display can also show battery status and other fun stuff. It can, of course, serves as monitor for composing selfie/wefie with the main camera.
However, the most intriguing use for this so-called “smart window” is, it can help stretch your phone’s 10% battery life up to 55 hours. That means, when your phone is low on power, you use this small screen to read time and make and receive important calls.
No turning on the main display means power saving. However, there’s a huge disclaimer from Xiaomi. The 55 hours from 10% is based on turning the small screen on once per hour only and each time, the screen will automatically turn off after 30 seconds. I guess it could be useful if your survival depends on the phone during an emergency.
Other spec sheet details are pretty standard for today’s flagship. These include Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platform, LPDDR5 memory, UFS 3.1 storage, 120 Hz 6.81-inch 2K AMOLED display, 480 Hz touch sampling rate, 8K videoing capability, Harman/Kardon stereo sound speaker, IP68 rated, a 5,000 mAh battery with 67 W fast charging – both wired and wireless, 10 W reverse wireless charging, and support for QC4+, QC3+ and PD3.0 fast charging standards.
The Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra Smartphone is offered in a choice of 8 or 12 GB memory and 256 or 512 GB storage.
Xiaomi is currently accepting pre-order for the device in China for the aforementioned starting price of 6,499 yuan (about US$990).
Images: Xiaomi [CH].