Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge Review: Is the fast charging speed enough to define this well rounded offering from Xiaomi?

The Xiaomi Redmi and the Mi series have been very popular in Indian and global markets with their mid-range and budget offerings with the Note lineup being the major ones for sale and coming with good specifications. We also have the Mi series that provide the flagship experience in almost all aspects. Last year we saw the Xiaomi Mi 10i which proved to be a solid package from Xiaomi.

Now we get the successor in the form of two smartphones – Xiaomi 11i and 11i Hypercharge. The Xiaomi Mi 10i (Review) had some very good specifications like a unique build and design, 120Hz IPS LCD display, Snapdragon 750G chipset, and also bought in the 108MP camera setup. But the Xiaomi 11i and the 11i Hypercharge bring in some very good upgrades.

Starting off with both of them is the new build and design, a newer and powerful Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset, 120Hz AMOLED display, 108MP camera setup, and what catches the attention is the faster-charging speeds offered on both. Well, we have seen Xiaomi providing the 33W fast charger with almost all of its smartphones in past and now also.

The Xiaomi 11i has support for 67W fast charging which is very fast but Xiaomi has gone a huge step above other manufacturers by providing a whopping 120W fast charging support for the 11i Hypercharge which is claimed to charge the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent under 18 minutes. So today we will have a look at the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge and is it worth buying? How efficient is this fast charging?

Let’s find out in the full review.

The Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge sports a newer design with a flat edge design which is similar to the one found on the iPhone 12 launched last year. There is a glass sandwich design with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. The smartphone is slightly curved around the edges but the flat design does look premium with a frosted finish which means it will not catch any fingerprints.

The back has a large rectangular camera setup almost similar to last year’s Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max (Review) and the newly launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 11T 5G (Review) that includes triple cameras with a LED flashlight and this camera module protrudes quite a bit which means the smartphone cannot rest flat on the table. The Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge is available in four different colors – Camo Green, Stealth Black, Purple Mist, and Pacific Pearl. 

The Pacific Pearl color looks most attractive and the back does show different colors like white, blue, and silver especially when light strikes at the back. The camera module on the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge is quite good when compared to the circular camera module on the Xiaomi Mi 10i while the cameras on both remain the same which we would be discussed in the camera section. 

The Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge weighs around 204grams which makes it slightly heavier compared to other smartphones and is 8.3mm thick. Around the sides, there is an aluminum frame that houses the power button with the volume buttons on the right whereas the left side remains clean. On the top, there is a speaker grille, a secondary noise-canceling microphone, an IR Blaster, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The bottom houses the primary microphone, USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grill, a dual SIM card slot that accepts two SIM cards only and there is no slot for a microSD card for storage expansion. The back has an IP53 rating which makes it splash resistant. Overall, the build and design do feel premium on this smartphone.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge sports a larger 6.7-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) AMOLED display which seems to be a good upgrade over the IPS LCD display on the Xiaomi Mi 10i. This display has a single punch hole and is very smaller in size compared to the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. The bezels are also thinner around the sides and like the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max, it also has a 120Hz refresh rate.

Combined with the 120Hz AMOLED display, there is a massive 360Hz touch sampling rate also. This provides faster touch responses during gaming and also while switching between applications. Though there is a 120Hz refresh rate, it is not the adaptive one (where the display switches between different refresh rates depending on the application in use) as we saw on the Xiaomi Mi 10i and even the Redmi Note 11T launched this year so you are restricted to either standard 60Hz or 120Hz only. 

As this is an AMOLED display, you get very good viewing angles and the colors look vibrant. This display has good brightness as under direct sunlight it can achieve around 800nits and can go as high as 1200nits while watching content in HDR. You can set the display tone between three different modes – Standard, Saturated, and Vivid. You can also change the color tone from warmer to cooler tone. 

There is support for HDR10 and Widevine L1, so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms and Netflix does support HDR content which is good to see. Though this is an AMOLED display, there is no in-display fingerprint scanner present instead you get a fingerprint scanner embedded on the power button which works accurately and is very faster. Overall, the display is great for media consumption.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge sports the newer Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset which is based on a 6nm process and is an octa-core chipset that has: 2×2.5 GHz Cortex-A78 cores and another 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores coupled with a Mali-G68 MC4 GPU. This chipset seems to be a good upgrade over the Snapdragon 750G chipset found on the Xiaomi Mi 10i.

The daily performance feels good and all tasks are handled without breaking any sweat. All heavy games like BGMI ran easily at Smooth graphics with an Extreme frame rate without any stutters or frame drops and you also run the game at HDR graphics with an Ultra frame rate. After long hours of gaming, the back did not feel warmer as there is a dedicated vapor cooling system that can dissipate heat easily.

There is support for 8 5G bands and good carrier aggregation present. There are two variants present – 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB storage which has UFS 3.1 speeds. The Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset has good sustained performance as throttling was very less and also in terms of benchmarks, it scores well. Like other Xiaomi smartphones, there is 3GB virtual RAM present for enhanced multitasking.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge runs on MIUI 12.5 Enhanced version which is based on Android 11 which seems to be slightly disappointing as most of the smartphones launched in 2022 ship with Android 12 out of the box. In MIUI 12.5, there is very minimal bloatware present and you can uninstall most of the applications easily. There are no ads present but the presence of GetApps does provide constant notifications.

You get all the MIUI features like Control Center which shows all the quick toggles, Google stock applications are present and there are a lot of customizations present where you can change the icon shape and size, wallpapers, and also the Always-On display. In terms of software updates, you are slated to get another 2 years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches.

So if you like the look and feel of MIUI, then the software experience is good but if you do not want bloatware, better look for either Stock Android or OxygenOS.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge sports a similar camera setup as that of the Xiaomi Mi 10i that consists of a 108MP f/1.9 Samsung HM2 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. The front of the smartphone has a 16MP f/2.5 camera. This is the same camera setup found on the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max also.

The images from the main camera come out with good dynamic range and details look a tad sharper but there is a considerable amount of noise present and colors do look oversharpened. The colors do not look natural and even in low-lighting conditions, the noise is very much present, details look softer and the dynamic range is good. 

Turning on the dedicated night mode does reduce noise and also improves the dynamic range. It brings out the details in shadows much better. The ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of dynamic range and details look slightly softer with a large amount of noise. There is some distortion around the edges but colors do look natural without any oversharpening taking place.

The images from the ultrawide camera during the night come out with good details but do look softer and the dynamic range is also average. There is a lot of noise and colors do look washed out. The 2MP macro camera feels a slight letdown Xiaomi has not provided the 5MP macro camera that also doubles up as a telephoto camera as found on the Xiaomi Mi 11X (Review) and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max.

The macro images come out with a very average dynamic range, the colors look washed out and there is a lot of noise present. However, it is better to use the main 108MP camera by doing a 2x digital zoom by going close to near a subject as the images taken have better details as well as dynamic range also. In terms of portraits, the colors look natural and you get good edge detection with proper background blur. 

The human skin tones look natural and while zooming into the portraits, the details look adequately sharper but do need some improvement. The selfies come out with a good dynamic range and details look sharper with less noise in the background. At night, the selfies come out good with sharper details but there is a large amount of noise but with the dedicated night mode, the noise reduces.

The portraits from the selfie camera come out with good details and proper edge detection. There is slight oversharpening taking place in the background which needs to be improved though. In terms of videos, the main camera can record 4K videos at 30fps which has a good dynamic range, but details look slightly softer and there is a larger amount of noise. However, you do get a larger field of view.

The videos taken during the night come out with decent dynamic range and have a large amount of noise but turning on the dedicated night mode improves a lot in the videos as noise gets reduced to a large extent, details look slightly sharper, and also exposure is much better. The videos from the ultrawide camera can be recorded at 1080p at 30fps that has a decent dynamic range and good details.

But there is a considerable amount of noise and you do get Ultra Stable Mode which works with EIS to help reduce noise and improve the dynamic range slightly. The videos from the front camera max out at 1080p at 30fps which results in a good dynamic range and details looking sharper but in portrait videos, there is a lot of oversharpening but still, the edge detection is good. Overall, the cameras are good.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge sports a 4500mAh battery which is smaller than that of the Xiaomi Mi 11i which has a larger 5160mAh battery. The battery on the Mi 11i Hypercharge can easily last for one single day with heavy usage that includes playing games for 3-4 hours continuously, streaming social media and other tasks, etc. though the display is set to 120Hz.

With normal usage, the battery can typically last for two days with some charge left as MIUI 12.5 kills most of the background tasks thus saving battery life. However, Xiaomi has been the segment-first among all smartphones in the world as they have come up with the fastest charging speeds and Mi 11i Hypercharge becomes one of the first smartphones to get 120W fast charging.

Talking about fast charging, as it has a 4500mAh battery but Xiaomi has divided two batteries each of 2250mAh each where the charger can simultaneously charge two batteries at the same time and since 120W charging generates heat, Xiaomi has provided 34 protection features which include TUV Rheinland Certification for safe fast-charging and there is also graphene for instant cooling.

And the great part is that the 120W fast charger is bundled inside the box which when plugged in takes the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent in 18 minutes which is the fastest charging speed currently. However, this 120W fast charging only works fully when the Boost Mode is turned on which is present in the battery section in settings. 

If you turn on the Boost Mode, then there is a 120W Max charging animation yellow in color shows but if you turn off the Boost Mode, there is just 120W charging animation, and the smartphone charges at 100W by default thus completely charging the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent in under 30 minutes. The standard Mi 11i ships with a 67W fast charger that is also very fast. 

So the battery life though being good, the charging speeds are excellent.

The Mi 11i Hypercharge sports a dual stereo speaker setup that includes speakers on the top as well as at the bottom, these speakers sound very good with clear bass and have good clarity but it does need some improvement in terms of loudness which does feel muffled at times. And Xiaomi also has provided a 3.5mm headphone jack which has good output. On top of it, there is Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound.

The Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge is a complete all-rounder that proves to be a good product as it brings almost all the necessities required like a solid build and design, a 120Hz AMOLED display for media consumption, good performance in daily tasks as well as gaming with the newer Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset, good 5G connectivity, good battery life, and the standout feature is the crazy 120W fast charging.

However, in some areas, the Mi 11i Hypercharge does fall short, especially the cameras where low light performance is not so good and the image processing needs some improvement, though the Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset is powerful, competitors like the OnePlus Nord 2 (Review) / Xiaomi Mi 11X provide slightly powerful Mediatek Dimensity 1200/Snapdragon 870 chipsets. MIUI though provides a lot of features and has been improved from before still has some bloatware present. 

The biggest hype has been the 120W fast charging which makes it the fastest smartphone to charge from 0 to 100 percent so when compared to the Xiaomi Mi 11i which brings almost the same specifications, is a good deal only if 120W fast charging is your priority or else the Xiaomi Mi 11i is a perfect buy and brings a slightly slower 67W fast charging but you do get larger 5160mAh battery here.

The Xiaomi Mi 11i is also cheaper compared to the Mi 11i Hypercharge but definitely, the latter seems to be a worthy upgrade over the Xiaomi Mi 10i. So if you want a smartphone that packs the best of everything and on top of it the crazy charging speeds, then the Mi 11i Hypercharge is worth considering in this highly competitive premium mid-range segment.