Xiaomi 11T Pro review

Triple camera on the back with a 108MP primary eye

The Xiaomi 11T Pro borrows its rear camera setup from the Mi 11i, but we've seen this trio before that, too - on the Redmi Note 10 Pro and even on the original Mi 11 though its ultrawide camera was of higher resolution. Anyway, the 11T Pro offers a 108MP primary snapper, an 8MP ultrawide cam, and a 5MP telemacro shooter. A LED flash is also around.

The main camera employs a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2 1/1.52" sensor with 0.7µm pixels and f/1.75 7P lens. The color filter is Nona-Bayer, meaning 9 sensor pixels are combined into one 2.1µm, and the default output resolution is 12MP. PDAF is available, though there is no optical stabilization. This camera supports Night Mode.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor behind f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity. Night Mode is supported on the ultrawide cam, too.

The macro camera relies on a 5MP Samsung S5K5E9 1/5" sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind 50mm f/2.4 lens. Autofocus is available on this camera and it works for distances between 3cm and 7cm.

The selfie camera relies on a 16MP 1/3.06" OmniVision OV16A1 sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor is behind an f/2.4 aperture lens that has a fixed focus.

Camera app

The camera app is a rather straightforward implementation, though it does have its quirks. First things first, basic operation for changing modes works with side swipes (on the black bezel!), and you can also tap on the modes that you can see to switch to those directly. Up and down swipes don't work for switching between the front and rear cameras; only the toggle next to the shutter release does that.

You can add, remove, and rearrange modes in the main rolodex by going to the More tab and navigating to the edit button, and you can access that from the settings menu as well. The unused modes will still be in that More tab, but you can switch to a (less intuitive) pull-out pane that's summoned from a line next to the shutter release.

The hamburger menu at the far end is where you'll find additional options, including the Super Macro mode (why here and not a mode in the rolodex?), plus the icon to access the settings. Next to that hamburger menu, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, shortcut to Google Lens, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters.

On the near end, you have the camera zoom switch that operates in one of two fashions. The first one is simply tapping on one of the three dots that represent the ultra-wide, primary, and 2x digital options. Or you can tap on the active magnification and slide sideways to reveal even more zoom levels - 2x and 10x, plus a slider for intermediate magnifications.

Camera UI

There's a nicely capable Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself, and you can access each of the three cams, including the macro. You get to pick one of 4 white balance presets or dial in the light temperature with a slider, there's a manual focusing slider (with peaking as an option, particularly useful for the macro), and shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s/20s for macro) and ISO control with range depending on which camera you're using. A tiny live histogram is available, and a toggle for zebras can be found in the hamburger menu.

As expected, there's a host of extra modes, including Long Exposure with its own set of different presets - moving crowd, neon trails, oil painting, light painting, starry sky, and star trails. There's no Supermoon.

Night mode is available on the main and ultrawide cameras, as well as at the 2x zoomed-in level. Auto night mode is a toggle in settings, enabled by default, and it lets the phone decide whether to use Night Mode or not. It would display a pop-up with the projected duration of the shot only for the main camera, something you don't get in the actual Night mode. Xiaomi does not offer exposure settings for either Night Modes.

There's also Dual video mode which can record a 50-50 split between the selfie cam and the main camera on the back. Finally, the Movie Effects mode reveals the special Hollywood modes that Xiaomi is so loud about - they include Magic Zoom, Slow Shutter, Time Freeze, Night time-lapse, and Parallel world. We covered those in detail on the vanilla Mi 11.

Finally, thanks to the three mics around the Xiaomi 11T Pro, you can enable optional Audio Zoom when capturing videos. This way you can focus better on a particular subject, say a speaker or a singer.

Photo quality

The Xiaomi 11T Pro's main camera saves 12MP photos by default, and the ones we took in broad daylight are good for this class though not the best we've seen. There is enough resolved detail, the dynamic range is great (auto HDR did not trigger), the contrast is good, and the colors seem accurate. Noise is non-existent across all images.

But there are issues we cannot ignore, not when we've seen this particular 108MP sensor on other Xiaomi phones doing better.

For starters - the sharpening is a mixed bag - some areas are excessively sharpened, others are fine. This is most noticeable in areas of high complexity such as grass, buildings decorations, gravel - these spots suffer the most from the sharpening process.

Then there are the colors - they seem a bit punchier and cooler than they should be. This is not a thing you can notice right away, but if you've shot a couple of unprocessed 108MP images, it becomes rather easy to notice.

Long story short, the 12MP photos are solid and look great no matter if you are exploring them on a phone's or a computer's screen, but we expected more as they look a bit artificial because of over-processing.

Main camera, 12MP

And you can have more! If you shoot in 108MP resolution and then downsize the photos to 12MP. This means you are eliminating Xiaomi's processing from the equation, and you get to enjoy better white balance with accurate colors, more high-frequency detail and way more balanced sharpness.

This is how the default photos should have looked like and we hope Xiaomi tones down its processing with a future firmware update.

Here is another example.

The 108MP images are plenty soft, overrun by various artefacts and not usable for anything other than downsizing for better 1x or 2x photo quality.

Main camera, 108MP

And speaking of 2x zoom, there is a 2x toggle on the viewfinder, so we expected somewhat like lossless zoom. It would have been a nice touch and a good substitute for a missing telephoto. Alas, there is no such thing. The digital 2x zoom is not bad as it appears some processing is at play to smooth jagged areas, but other than that - it's obvious this is still a rather simple zoom done by cropping and upscaling.

Main camera 2x zoom, 12MP

By the way, the usual AI trigger is available on the Xiaomi 11T Pro and it works as always - "improves" your photos by saturating the colors and boosting contrast depending on the scenes - skies, greenery, buildings, etc.

AI main camera, 12MP

Finally, we are wrapping the main camera quality with the portraits. The subjects are nicely detailed and sharp and their separation rom the background seems proficient. We don't expect stellar results with more complect haircuts, though. Lastly, the simulated blur is rather convincing, too.

Portraits, 12MP

Moving on to some ultrawide photos now. Those are surprisingly detailed for such an average ultrawide camera, even outside the center. The noise is notably low, the dynamic range is good, and the corners are incredibly proficiently straightened. We are glad Xiaomi did not go overboard with the sharpening here - the images are all natural-looking.

The colors are not that accurate and look a bit desaturated, washed out even - they could benefit from a small saturation boost.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

We always appreciate proper macro cameras, and it seems Xiaomi is the only one to be making such for now. The 5MP macro camera is rather unique - it has a 50-ish mm focal length equivalent and autofocus. That's why the images are rich in detail with sharp center. The colors are great, contrast, too.

Because of the 50mm tele lens, the depth of field is so shallow that you're likely to often end up with blurry shots anyway, despite the available autofocus. Moving subjects are a hard no-go, too - even the slightest movement results in the subject not being at the same distance the camera is focused on.

Finally, while we did like the out of focus areas - the bokeh is really nice, they can look a distracting for some.

But we are really nitpicking here. The truth is that the Xiaomi 11T Pro has one of the most usable macro snappers on the market and shoots detailed and colorful 5MP closeups. It is easy to use, and the focus helps a lot, and it sure trumps any 2MP or 5MP fixed focus macro cam we've seen. And will surely spice up your Instagram or similar social profile.

Macro camera, 5MP

The Xiaomi 11T Pro, just like most of the recent MIUI phones, supports Auto Night Mode - a feature that premiered with the Mi 11 flagship. It is turned on by default as the maker wants you to use it - like Apple does. In fact, it is similar to Apple's Auto Night Mode - the camera app decides when and where to use Night Mode and its exposure time. You have no say in any of this (you don't even get a say about the exposure time even in the Manual Night Mode though).

At first, we thought that only the main camera is affected by the Auto Night Mode, but for the first time that is not the case. Even if the ultrawide camera doesn't give any indications of using Night Mode, it sure does. We will get to back to this in a bit.

When Auto Night mode is triggered, it uses 2s exposure time and the image processing is faster than in Manual mode. For the ultrawide camera the exposure time is faster and the processing instantaneous - that's why we thought it is not working. In contrast Manual Night Mode takes about 3-4 seconds per shot, so they are not applying the same processing.

Now, it's time to look through some low-light photos.

The Auto Night Mode triggered for all photos below but the fourth one. It used 2s exposure and the photos we got are outstanding. They have offer nicely balanced exposure, excellent sharpness, the detail is rich as far as night shots go, the color saturation stays true to life, and the noise was cleaned proficiently. The dynamic range is good, too, the highlights are developed on almost most scenes and the shadows are not all unnaturally brightened.

Overall, these are some solid samples. Sometimes, say one of four times, they may come out blurry due to handshake, so we'd suggest taking two photos at each scene just in case. OIS would have solved this, probably.

Auto NM main camera, 12MP

If you want brighter than reality night photos, then Manual Night Mode is the way. It usually takes between 3s or 4s to capture a photo and another 2s for processing it. The photos are noticeably brighter, some of them - even sharper with a tad more detail. More detail is revealed in the shadows, too, while the noise still remains as low.

The colors are more popping in this mode. In fact, the Manual Night Mode photos look amazing. The one thing they are not - as accurate as to the real scene. But we know a lot of people looking for this effect, so it's nice you can have it both ways - the real shot with Auto Night Mode and the brighter one with the Manual Night Mode.

Manual NM main camera, 12MP

Finally, let's look some photos taken without Night Mode. Those are okay - there is average detail and tolerable noise, considering ISO of 6,000 or 10,000 or more! The colors are not washed out, which rarely happens without extra processing.

There are lots of blown highlights, soft corners and overall, the images are darker, with low dynamic range. We'd suggest keep the Auto Night Mode on and enjoy good photos.

NM off main camera, 12MP

And here is the difference between the three different modes in one photo.

The Auto Night Mode doesn't seem to be working when shooting in 2X. You can use it in Manual mode, though. The images are brighter and more detailed, though the upscaling is the softness from the digital zoom are quite evident.

Auto NM 2x • Manual NM 2x • NM Off 2x

Auto NM 2x • Manual NM 2x • NM Off 2x

The photos taken with the Auto Night Mode on the ultrawide camera are what you'd from ones taken without Night Mode. They look okay - the detail is satisfactory, the noise reduction smears some fine detail, but not all of it, and the colors are kept natural. The exposure corresponds to reality and the photos look natural.

Upon a closer inspection we noticed the highlights are well developed, which means there is some advanced processing at play even and it's not HDR, we checked. So, even if it doesn't look like Night Mode is triggering - there is no exposure time notification and no visible lag due to post-processing, something is happening in the background.

Auto NM ultrawide cam, 8MP

The Manual Night Mode offers the best results for the ultrawide camera - the photos are with balanced exposure, richer in detail and sharper, and the noise is lower than on Auto. The colors are pleasant, though there is no improvement over Auto's.

Manual NM ultrawide cam, 8MP

And now, let's talk about the ultrawide shots taken without Night Mode. These are often horrendous - unbearably dark with low dynamic, incredibly soft with poor detail - all of it was smeared by the noise reduction and yet we can see noise leftovers.

NM off ultrawide cam, 8MP

And here is an illustration of the three different modes in one picture.

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Xiaomi 11T Pro. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Xiaomi 11T Pro against the Xiaomi Mi 11i and the Realme GT Explorer Master in our Photo compare tool

The Xiaomi 11T Pro has a Quad-Bayer 16MP camera that saves full-res 16MP photos instead of the expected 4MP ones. This leads to soft selfies, but they are still good. The sharpness is acceptable, the noise is tolerable, and the selfies have good colors and contrast. Plus, they look great on the phone's screen.

Note that if the light isn't ideal, the selfies will turn out quite soft and/or blurry.

Selfies, 16MP

Selfie portraits are available, and you'd be getting some okay ones even if not that detailed. The subject isolation is so-so but more often good than messy, and the background blur is pleasant.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

Video recording

The main camera of the Xiaomi 11T Pro can do 8K recording at 30fps, as well as 4K and 1080p at both 30fps and 60fps. The ultrawide and macro snappers max out at 1080p at 30fps.

Note that switching to any of the non-primary cameras will lower the resolution of the main camera and you will need to manually adjust it every single time.

There is optional electronic stabilization available for all resolutions, frame rates across all cameras but 8K and macro. It comes at the expense of some FoV loss and a bit of added softness.

Then there's the Steady Mode shot with the main camera - it focuses more on stabilization rather than quality, as an action camera would do. Optional Audio Zoom is available if you'd like to focus better on a talking (or noisy) subject.

The video bitrate is 128Mbps for 8K, 50Mbps for 4K (both 30fps and 60fps), and 20Mbps for 1080p clips, while audio is always recorded in stereo at high 320kbps bitrate.

The first video was shot in 8K@30fps with the main camera. There is a limitation of 6 minutes, in case you were wondering. It looks good - with commendable colors, contrast, stunning dynamic range, and great-looking foliage. But the detail is average and the picture is soft - it looks like upscaled from 4K. We see no point of using this 8K mode, but after some playing around - we can confirm it can yield a bit more sharpness when downscaled to 4K.

The 4K videos from the main camera are brilliant - the resolved detail is a lot, and the sharpness is just right for a very balanced and natural looking picture (unlike the stills). There is no noise in these 4K clips, the white balance is spot on and the colors accurate and lively. The dynamic range is outstanding.

Shooting a 2x 4K video doesn't offer lossless zoom and is done by crop and upscale, but the clip still looks good when watched on a phone, PC or even TV.

The low-light videos from the main camera are with average detail due to the aggressive noise reduction and with poor dynamic range. Noise is still present. The only good thing there is the lively color saturation.

The 1080p videos from the ultrawide camera seem very good. The image is sharp and detailed, the noise levels are low, and the dynamic range is wide. The colors are bit punchier than they needed to be, and maybe the contrast could have used a small boost, but still - these 1080p ultrawide videos are better than the majority we've seen.

Finally, here is the Xiaomi 11T Pro in our video comparison database.

2160p: Xiaomi 11T Pro against the Xiaomi Mi 11i and the Realme GT Explorer Master in our Video compare tool