Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite review

Latest Android 11 with familiar MIUI 12

The Mi 11 Lite boots Android 11 with MIUI 12.0.5.0 out of the box. The MIUI 12 launcher has been around for a while, and even if it uses a newer Android 11 base, you can't really tell that as it skins everything thoroughly.

The Mi 11 Lite supports an Always-on display, but it can't be really always-on - it appears for 10s after tapping, and that's it. There is no schedule or true always-on option. MIUI 12 has a ton of AOD themes you can choose from and make it yours. You can customize many of those. The Always-on display also supports breathing light - the curved edges of the display will flash with colors upon new notifications.

Always-on display

You unlock the screen via the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. The reader is easy to set up, blazing-fast, and the accuracy is superb. We advise you to set the unlock method to Press as the always-on reader will often attempt reading your palm and/or other fingers and eventually disable the fingerprint unlock until you input your PIN. A 2D Face Unlock is available, too, but it is far less secure than the fingerprint option.

Security options

The homescreens are business as usual - they are populated with shortcuts, folders, and widgets. The leftmost pane, if enabled, is Google's Discover.

There are no Super Wallpapers on the Mi 11 Lite, unlike on the Mi 11 Lite 5G.

Homescreen

MIUI 12 offers an app drawer, and it automatically organizes your apps into categories. The first is All, meaning it contains all apps. Then follow Communication, Entertainment, Photography, Tools, New, and Business. You can edit these categories or even disable them altogether.

You can disable the app drawer entirely if that's not your thing.

App drawer

Another interesting feature is the Notification shade split into Notification Center and Control Center. Indeed, this is precisely what the iPhones do, and you even summon them in the same fashion - pull down from the left part of the screen for the Notification Center, pull down from the right for the Control Center.

If you are not fond of this new split - you can disable the Control Center, and the shade will revert to its normal looks and operation.

Notification Center • Control Center • Control Center • Options • The old Notification Shade

The task switcher has not changed much. It shows all your recent apps in two columns. Tap and hold on a card for the split-screen shortcut, or just swipe it left or right to close it. There is a new Floating Windows button on top, a new option offered by MIUI 12. You can put a compatible app in a floating state, but you only have one floating window at a time.

Task Switcher • Floating Windows • Floating app • Split screen

Themes are a huge part of MIUI, and they are available on MIUI 12, too. You can download new ones from the Themes store, and they can change wallpapers, ringtones, system icons, and even the always-on display style.

Themes

Xiaomi enhanced MIUI 12 with a couple of additional privacy options. Now, when sharing stuff, like photos and videos, you can opt to remove location info and/or other metadata (incl. device info) and thus protect your privacy better. Neat.

Gallery • Privacy Settings

MIUI also offers a Security app. It can scan your phone for malware, manage your blacklist, manage or restrict your data usage, configure battery behavior, and free up some RAM. It can also manage your installed apps' permissions and allow you to define the battery behavior of selected apps and apply restrictions only to the apps you choose.

MIUI 12 packs proprietary Gallery, Music, and Video player. In some regions, the music and video apps may include paid streaming options. Mi Remote for the IR blaster is available, too.

Security • Security • Music • Video • Mi Remote

MIUI 12 supports Dark Mode, too, and you can even force it on wallpapers or restrict its application on incompatible individual apps.

Dark Mode

MIUI 12 is fully optimized to work on HRR displays, and it looks gorgeous on the Mi 11 Lite. Everything is smooth and fast; animations are unobtrusive yet impressive, the attention to detail is excellent. We did enjoy working with MIUI on the Mi 11 Lite's 90Hz for sure.

Some MIUI ROMs include ads in the default apps; it is a well-known thing.

An ad • how to disable ads

The international ROM version of this Mi 11 Lite does come with baked-in "recommendations" or ads, but luckily - you can disable those even if it's a bit tedious to do it. For example, if you are annoyed by the app scanner's ads, just hit the settings gear and disable recommendations. Ads in the File Manager - Settings->About should do it. Themes - go to Settings and disable Recommendations. It's not ideal, sure, but at least you can get rid of them all.

Performance and benchmarks

The Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite is powered by the Snapdragon 732G chip, the same one inside the Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Poco X3 NFC.

The Snapdragon 732G is a small update over the vanilla S730 and the S730G models. The octa-core processor has two Kryo 470 Gold (Cortex-A76) cores clocked at 2.3 GHz, and six Kryo 470 Silver (Cortex-A55) ones, working at 1.8 GHz. They are all built on an 8nm LPP node.

All S73x chips have the same Adreno 618 GPU. The one on the 730G is clocked 75 MHz higher than S730 and sits at 575 MHz. And the one inside the Mi 11 Lite 4G can go as high as 800MHz.

Finally, the Mi 11 Lite is available with 64GB and 128GB UFS2.2 storage. You get 6GB LPDDR4X RAM for both storage options, but you can also get an 8GB RAM + 128GB storage mode like our review unit here.

So, the Mi 11 Lite SD732G processor is matching the average for this mid-range class but is no match to the flagship-grade Snapdragon 860 (Poco X3 Pro) and Snapdragon 780G (Mi 11 Lite 5G). The one thing we are sure though is that this 8-core processor have proven to be adequate for all sorts of task and is rarely, if ever, responsible for lag.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  2909
• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  1910
• Realme 7 Pro
  1811
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  1796
• Realme 7 5G
  1794
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Poco X3 NFC
  1777
• Realme 7
  1681
• Realme 8 Pro
  1678
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1599
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1577
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  803
• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  643
• Realme 7 5G
  598
• Realme 7 Pro
  576
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Poco X3 NFC
  568
• Realme 8 Pro
  566
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  560
• Realme 7
  536
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  534
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  525
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361

The Adreno 618 GPU is also on par with many of the Mi 11 Lite's mid-range peers - the Redmi 8 Pro, Poco X3 Pro, Realme 7. And it will do okay for gaming, just don't expect to reach high-frame rates or use top-notch graphics settings such as antialiasing.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  67
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  57
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  56
• Realme 8 Pro
  31
• Realme 7 5G
  31
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  29
• Realme 7
  28
• Poco X3 NFC
  27
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  26
• Realme 7 Pro
  25
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  13

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  35
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  17
• Realme 7
  17
• Realme 7 5G
  17
• Poco X3 NFC
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16
• Realme 8 Pro
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  15
• Realme 7 Pro
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  8.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  7.9

The AnTuTu test puts the Mi 11 Lite on par with the Redmi Note 10 Pro, Poco X3 NFC, Realme 8 Pro and Realme 7. It's a well-equipped phone for this class even if Xiaomi isn't making it easy with the in-house competition.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  465534
• Poco X3 Pro
  453223
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  324686
• Realme 7 5G
  318535
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442
• Realme 7
  292828
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  290172
• Realme 8 Pro
  286666
• Poco X3 NFC
  283750
• Realme 7 Pro
  278414
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  261282
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  218788
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  174332

The Mi 11 Lite offers good enough raw performance for this mid-range class. It is one very stable phone - it scored 99.5% stability on 3D Mark Stress Test - and runs incredibly cool.

We had no problems across MIUI and other HRR-compatible apps - everything runs smoothly and lag-free. Gaming is a bit different - few games will be capable of reaching north of 60fps, so if a game is incompatible with its 90Hz screen - it's not a loss.

We compared Dead Trigger 2 side by side on the Mi Lite 4G and 5G and found out that the game runs with about 40fps on the 4G and with jaggy graphics, while it ran with about 90fps on the Mi 11 Lite 5G and looked better there. And that should be the case for many of the modern games - while you get a good experience on the 4G model, if gaming is a hobby of yours, maybe the 5G version will make more sense.