Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra - “No, no, no. No no"

Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra – “No, no, no. No no”

May 30, 2021

There is no camera module on this phone. There is a telephone on the camera module. If smartphones could get cancer, the abscess on the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra would be an unusually malignant tumor, writes Ny Teknik’s Peter Ottsjö.

A tumor that, in addition to the large sensors, also has its own small screen. It is symptomatic of how an upstart like Xiaomi, in its eagerness to make a premium phone in class with the Iphone 12 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, has fallen for overdesign.

Double-click on the rear mini screen and you can see what time it is, date, battery percentage or notifications. The number of people who requested that opportunity? Zero.

However, it is not really that pointless. If you manage to figure out how – Xiaomi has hidden the function in its maze to interface – then you can use the screen as a viewfinder and take selfie pictures with the main camera. There will undoubtedly be selfies with higher quality, but on the other hand there is no portrait mode, which detracts from some of the points. Without bokeh, you can not make life appear more beautiful than it is.

Det går att ta selfies med hjälp av den bakre skärmen. — You can take selfies using the rear screen. Photo: Peter Ottsjö

Since the Mi 11 Ultra is in many ways identical to the Mi 11 – which I had very positive to say about recently – I will not repeat everything here. But Ultra has a completely different camera set.

Read more: Test: 5 popular smart watches – they are so good

The main camera has, compared to the Mi 11, exchanged many pixels for a larger sensor and for the most part captures reality remarkably well, in both light and dark.

The strange but fun telemacro lens on the Mi 11 has been replaced by a periscope lens with 5x optical zoom and 10x hybrid zoom. It is often so good that I can hardly see any difference in quality compared to the main camera. It is also possible to zoom up to an extreme 120x digitally, but good luck capturing something meaningful with that magnification.

Nej, det ser inte klokt ut. — No, that does not look wise. Photo: Peter Ottsjö

All in all, it is a much more useful camera for most situations. But will the results be so good that it can offset the grotesque size of the camera module? Really not. I can take just as good pictures with a Samsung Galaxy Ultra S21, whose lens is equipped with a very elegant design.

Read more: Test: Xiaomi Mi 11 – “If Mi 11 cost a few thousand bucks more, no one would have protested”

Compared to the Mi 11, Ultra also does not have a price trump card to use. Ultra costs around 13,000 kroner. Sure, you get an IP68 rating and an insanely fast 67-watt charger on the purchase, but at such price levels, it’s more appropriate to look at a Samsung or Apple phone.