That smartphones still have enough room for innovations is the highlight of Mi 11 Ultra, which is presently the most talked about phone. OnePlus tried to win customers with marketing but somehow the 9 Pro aimed for the moon and ended up in the kitchen garden. Vivo has done a fair job with the X60 series but there are holes that can be plugged. And here’s Xiaomi, which has decided to throw in everything it has got into a smartphone. The Mi 11 Ultra doesn’t only try to be the best phone but it’s also a great deal.

The highlight of the phone is unmissable — the cameras on a big bump. Let’s be honest: Don’t go by pictures of the phone; the camera bump is something one becomes used to after a couple of days of usage. It has benefits and perhaps a nothing-too-big drawback. Anyway, let’s dive in.

Wider, faster, sharper

With this Xiaomi phone, into the garbage bin disappears the macro shooter, which is a needless addition to most devices. On the Mi 11 Ultra, it’s useless to say that here’s the main camera, here’s the ultra-wide, and so on because each of the three snappers are primary and each has its set of benefits. Xiaomi has done away with everything that’s redundant.

Shots taken on the Mi11 Ultra have a natural colour profile. Picture: The Telegraph

The sensor size on the 50MP wide-angle camera is a massive 1/1.12 inch, which is huge and incredible. What you get are pictures with a certain look — high in details and there’s a shallow depth of field without you having to move into portrait mode. The processing gives naturally sharp images with plenty of details for you to zoom in. The colours are on the natural side while HDR works very well. Each time you take a close-up shot, the background gets blurred out naturally. The massive sensor comes in good use while taking photos at night. It lets in an amazing amount of light, so you end up with shots that are almost free of noise. Shots taken in the evening can match the level of an iPhone 12 Pro Max while the focus is up to scratch.

In portrait shots, the subject gets separated from the background effortlessly. Picture: The Telegraph

The ultra-wide camera too is a source of wonder with its 128-degree field of view. Yes, 128 degrees, which is the highest you can get on a phone at the moment. Once again, good amount of details, flat colours and great HDR. It’s handy to have the flexibility to capture everything in one shot.

Mi11 Ultra has the widest field of view on a smartphone, allowing users to capture a lot in a frame. Picture: The Telegraph

The 48MP telephoto camera has some good tricks to offer. First, there is 5x optical zoom, which is enough for most people. I mean, you won’t take a phone to capture the wild, right?! Beyond 5x it’s all digital zoom, which I must say is amazing up to 30x, beyond which everything is in the realms of gimmick. I know 120x is the highest you will find on a smartphone but what will you do with it? And at 120x photos are unusable. Like on Samsung phones, a viewfinder appears on the screen to show which part of a photo you have zoomed into but then again, 120x photos don’t help.

Though the phone has 120x zoom, pictures come out reasonably well using up to 30x zoom. Picture: The Telegraph

Xiaomi has also worked in the video department, allowing 8K (at 24fps) capture on all the snappers, complete with HDR 10 support. Advice: Stick to 4K@30fps (or 60fps) with support for HDR10+. As you move from one lens to another, colours remain more or less the same and the change is almost seamless. It hasn’t reached iPhone level yet but this is the best video performance on an Android phone.

If there is any issue, it has to do with the animation on the shutter button. At times, the shutter speed seems to slow down. Actually, it’s the animation on the shutter speed that slows down and it doesn’t affect pictures at all. It’s more of a software issue, which can be easily ironed out.

The bump

First, having a camera module bump across the phone can be the mark of confident designing; it doesn’t want to please everyone. Going from one side to another ensures there is no wobble when you keep it on the table. Second, your finger will naturally rest below the bump and not on the cameras. Third, it has given Xiaomi a way to pack in some glitz in the form of a small screen on which you can read the time, battery status or have an image or text quote. You can also use it as a mini viewfinder to help with selfies that can be taken with the big cameras on the back.

Should you get it?

This is a flagship phone in which Xiaomi has put in everything. A 6.81-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 1,700 nits peak brightness? Check. Stereo speakers from Harmon Kardon? Check. Snapdragon 888 with 12gigs of RAM? Check. The list goes on. What we like most is the charging speed. You can use a 67W fast-charger which can fuel up in no time. And that’s not all, you can also buy a 67W wireless charger from the company. It’s one of those rare phones with very few drawbacks. Mi 11 Ultra looks sharp, works as sharp as a razor and camera performance is as sharp as a tack. In other words, a very sharp dude here!

Device: Mi 11 Ultra

Price: Rs 69,999 (12GB+256GB)

High notes

• All three cameras work seamlessly

• Excellent charging speeds

• Brilliant display and audio

• Looks absolutely different from rival devices

Muffled notes

• Video recording can be improved

• Slight animation delay on the shutter button