Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge review: Dull design but a solid package otherwise

India’s leading smartphone brand Xiaomi opened its account for 2022 with a midrange smartphone powered by industry-first 120W fast-charge technology. Named the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge, the smartphone is a successor to the Mi 11i (review). Besides astonishing fast-charge tech, the smartphone brings several other upgrades with respect to design, display, performance, and imaging. On paper, the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge seems to be an all-round package in the midrange segment. Is it? Let’s find out:

Design

This is one area where Xiaomi barely shines, and the 11i HyperCharge is no exception. The smartphone has a dull boxy design with a flat frame and rear cover, both made of plastic. While the use of plastic should not be the reason for concern, the phone’s heavy weight (204g) and unwieldy form factor is. Besides, the rear camera system assembly protrudes overly from the body. The bulging camera assembly makes the phone wobble on flat surfaces and also hinders the overall handling. The only saving grace here is the anti-glare matte finish (review unit: purple mist) on the back cover that is less prone to fingerprints. It might not be as good against accidental damages though because of lack of protective glass cover.

Display and Audio

The Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED punch-hole display of a fullHD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The screen has Gorilla Glass 5 layered on top for protection against everyday mishandling. There are bezels around the display but not thick enough to distract your screen-viewing experience. Speaking of experience, the screen is bright and offers great sunlight legibility. It has a good contrast too, with deep blacks and fine whites – something that comes to notice especially while rendering high dynamic range content. The display is quite responsive to touches, thanks to its 360Hz touch-sampling rate. Moreover, it refreshes at a frequency of 120Hz for a smooth user experience, be it while interacting with the apps, scrolling through feeds on social media, browsing content on the web, or even playing supported games. Unlike its processor, there is no support for variable refresh rate and the screen works at either 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rate.

Complementing the screen is the phone’s symmetrical stereo speakers, supported by Dolby Atmos. The speakers are good, and deliver loud and clear output. The smartphone’s audio prowess extends to wired and wireless audio, thanks to Hi-Res certification. That said, the audio experience is solid and elevates the multimedia and gaming experience of the phone.

Camera

The Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge sports a triple camera array on the rear, featuring a 108-megapixel primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor, and a 2MP macro lens. On the front, there is a 16MP sensor.

Details aside, the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge brings no significant change in optics performance over the predecessor. The primary sensor uses the 9-in-1 pixel-binning to capture frames in 12MP resolution, and there is a dedicated mode to use the sensor’s native 108MP resolution to capture frames. In the default mode, with pixel-binning enabled, the primary sensor captures detailed frames with good colours and a decent dynamic range, as long as there is some light. In native resolution mode, the sensor captures slightly better details but suffers from colour disorientation and weak dynamic range.

In a dark environment, the primary sensor artificially brightens the frame, resulting in visible noise and disoriented colours on the frames. There is a dedicated night mode for low-light imaging and it works fine in most cases, as long as you keep the phone steady. As for the ultra-wide-angle sensor, it captures detailed shots but with distortion and soft edges. Moreover, there is no colour symmetry in frames captured using primary sensor and ultra-wide-angle sensor. The macro sensor is good but lacks auto-focus lenses, which makes it tricky to get the perfect shot. Besides, the lack of megapixels results in loss of detail.

The front camera is good, but not great. It works fine in bright outdoor conditions but softens the frame taken indoors. Though good for selfies, it is not suitable for group selfies because of its narrow field of view.

As for videos, the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge is capable of recording up to 4K resolution videos at 30 frames per second. However, the 4K video can be recorded only through the primary sensor. The ultra-wide-angle sensor goes up to 1080p at 30fps and the macro lens records a 720p resolution video at 30fps. The front camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps. As for the video quality, it is decent at 1080p 30fps for primary, ultra-wide-angle sensor, and front camera. Recording a usable video using macro lens is tricky due to lack of auto focus tech.

Performance

The Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 920 system-on-chip (SoC) with 5G network support, paired with up to 8 GB of RAM (LPDDR4x) and 128 GB (UFS 2.2) of on-board storage. The phone boots Android 11 operating system-based Xiaomi’s MIUI 12.5 custom user interface.

The Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge is a power-packed performer. It works without any hiccups for most day-to-day operations, and handles without hiccups the heavy-duty tasks like gaming and multimedia editing. On extensive usage, the phone warms-up a bit but not to a point where it becomes uncomfortable to hold and operate.

Battery

Completing the swift performance is the phone’s 4,500 mAh battery, which is good for a day of on-battery time with display set to 120Hz refresh rate. The phone comes with a 120W fast-charger, which takes about 20 minutes to replenish a completely drained battery to its full capacity. Surprisingly, Xiaomi has disabled the boost charging speed by default. Once enabled, it takes about 16 minutes for the battery to charge fully from zero. Nevertheless, the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge is the only smartphone across segment to boast 120W fast-charge tech. Therefore, with or without the boost charging speed, it charges faster than any other smartphone.

Verdict

Priced at Rs 28,999 (review unit: 8GB +128GB), the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge is a solid midrange smartphone; albeit, with a rather dull design and unwieldy ergonomics. If the phone’s design and build is something you can compromise on, this is the phone to consider because there is no other parameter where the phone does not impress.