Which is the better pick? Xiaomi 11i or Realme 9 Pro Plus?
The premium mid-range segment has been popular ever since manufacturers launched their smartphones in this segment thus providing fierce competition to each other. Some smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Realme, Samsung, and OnePlus have gained huge momentum with each of their newer series. Xiaomi and Realme have always been neck to neck when it comes to any smartphone within any price segment.
This time around both smartphone manufacturers are quite closer to each other but both have smartphones that do cater to different people. From Xiaomi, we have the newer 11i series which consists of the Xiaomi 11i and the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge (Review) where Xiaomi has given the focus towards a newer design philosophy and most important charging as the 120W fast charging got introduced in the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge.
Realme, on the other hand, has been quite popular with its both number and GT series and is now offering something that is quite different from Xiaomi. Now they have the newer Realme 9 Pro Plus (Review) which is their first smartphone to have OIS which has created hype for a premium mid-range smartphone.
So how do the Xiaomi 11i and the Realme 9 Pro Plus compare and against each other and which is the better pick of the two. Let’s find out in the full comparison.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Design:
In terms of design, both smartphones have a premium glass sandwich design with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. The difference lies when you look at them from the back as Xiaomi 11i has a flat panel back which is slightly curved around the edges. The camera module is rectangular that houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight and this module is slightly protruded.
The back has a smooth frosted finish that does not catch any fingerprints and provides a good grip also. The Realme 9 Pro Plus, on the other hand, has a newer look at the back especially if you consider the Sunrise Blue color which changes colors like red, orange, and blue when you take it under direct sunlight and Realme calls this the “Light Shift” design with the back having small glitters that shine when light strikes at it.
The back of the Realme 9 Pro Plus has a smooth matte finish which is glossy and does catch a lot of fingerprints. Here also there is a triple camera setup with a LED flashlight but this module does not protrude much as that of the Xiaomi 11i. The back of the Xiaomi 11i has an IP52 rating which makes it somewhat water-resistant whereas the Realme 9 Pro Plus gets only P2i coating at the back making it splash resistant.
The Xiaomi 11i weighs around 207grams which makes it slightly heavier than the Realme 9 Pro Plus which weighs 182grams and is lighter. To the sides, both the smartphones have a power button with volume buttons but the frame around the Xiaomi 11i has an aluminum frame whereas the Realme 9 Pro Plus has a polycarbonate frame around.
At the bottom, both smartphones get a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, and a primary microphone. The Xiaomi 11i also gets a dual SIM card slot at the bottom whereas Realme 9 Pro Plus gets it on the side. The Realme 9 Pro Plus gets a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom which the Xiaomi 11i lacks. Both lack support for microSD cards for storage expansion.
On the top, both get a secondary noise-canceling microphone but Xiaomi 11i provides an IR Blaster also. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display on both smartphones with minimum bezels to the sides but the Realme 9 Pro Plus has a thick bezel at the bottom which does look slightly awkward. Overall, the build quality is good on both but the design is a personal preference.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Display:
On the front, the Xiaomi 11i has a larger 6.67-inches display compared to the 6.43-inches display on the Realme 9 Pro Plus but both these displays are Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) AMOLED displays. Since both these smartphones have AMOLED displays, the color reproduction and viewing angles are great. Both these displays have high refresh rates also.
The display on the Realme 9 Pro Plus has a 90Hz refresh rate whereas the Xiaomi 11i has a 120Hz refresh rate so you get smooth scrolling between webpages, multitasking between applications, and also while playing games. However, you would not find any such difference between a 90Hz and a 120Hz display but still, the higher refresh rate display does feel slightly better.
But on the Xiaomi 11i, you can either switch between standard 60Hz or higher 120Hz only whereas on the Realme 9 Pro Plus you get three options – standard 60Hz, higher 90Hz, and an Auto-Select option which when turned on either switches to 60Hz or 90Hz depending on the application in usage. Both do also get a massive 360Hz touch sampling rate which makes touch responses faster during gaming.
In terms of brightness, the display on the Realme 9 Pro Plus can achieve 1000nits of peak brightness whereas the display on the Xiaomi 11i can go as high as 1200nits while watching content in HDR and under direct sunlight, both these displays are equally bright and have good visibility. Both these displays support Widevine L1 and can stream HDR on Youtube.
But still, you cannot stream HDR content on Netflix on Realme 9 Pro Plus as of now whereas the Xiaomi 11i can do, and hopefully, Realme fixes this issue in a future software update soon. The Realme 9 Pro Plus gets an optical in-display fingerprint scanner whereas the Xiaomi 11i gets a side-mounted one. Both are equally fast and responsive. Overall, the display is slightly better on the Xiaomi 11i.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Performance:
Both the Realme 9 Pro and the Xiaomi 11i are powered by the latest MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset which is a powerful chipset in the premium mid-range segment. All tasks like rendering videos, scrolling through web pages, or switching between applications felt smoother without breaking any sweat. All heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc. ran smoothly on both smartphones.
BGMI can easily run with HDR graphics with Ultra frame rate and you can also set to Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rate also. After long hours of gaming, the back of both smartphones did not heat up much as both get a dedicated vapor cooling chamber to dissipate heat faster. However, the Xiaomi 11i camera module did feel slightly warm to touch after playing BGMI for around 4 hours continuously.
Both do also get good carrier aggregation but in terms of 5G bands, the Xiaomi 11i gets around 8 bands of 5G whereas Realme 9 Pro Plus gets around 5 bands of 5G. In terms of CPU throttling tests, both achieved a peak or sustained performance of around 75-80 percent which is good but in benchmarks, though both smartphones sport the same chipset, the scores were slightly better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus compared to the Xiaomi 11i.
Both have 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB storage which are of UFS 3.1 speeds. So in terms of performance, both smartphones are good and can handle things easily.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Software:
The Realme 9 Pro Plus runs on RealmeUI 3.0 with Android 12 out of the box which gives it a slight advantage over the Xiaomi 11i that runs on MIUI 12.5 EE with Android 11 out of the box. So both these smartphones are slated to get another 2 years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches, so clearly Realme 9 Pro Plus gets an extra Android update so it can be updated to Android 14.
In terms of both user interfaces, there are a lot of features and customizations available where you can set the icon shape and size, different styles for Always-On display, and much more. Other than this, both have bloatware present but it is lesser on the MIUI 12.5 compared to RealmeUI 3.0 and all these can be uninstalled easily.
Both do also get a lot of notifications from some third-party applications and browsers also. So overall, it all depends on personal preference whether you like MIUI or RealmeUI but if you want the latest AndroidOS, then consider the RealmeUI or else with slightly less bloatware, MIUI is better.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Cameras:
Both the smartphones sport a triple camera setup where the Xiaomi 11i has 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 Realme 9 Pro Plus, on the other hand, has a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX766 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. Both do get a 16MP f/2.5 camera on the front.
The images from both cameras come out with a good dynamic range and details look sharper on both. The noise is slightly less on the Realme 9 Pro Plus and the colors look oversaturated compared to the natural colors present on the Xiaomi 11i. However, the images taken from the Xiaomi 11i lack contrast, and even in HDR shots, the colors do not pop out well which is not the case with Realme 9 Pro Plus.
In low-light images, the dynamic range is good on both but here Realme 9 Pro Plus has the clear advantage as it gets OIS which helps in reducing noise in the background, and also the images capture more light, so they look brighter whereas, on the Xiaomi 11i, the images lack contrast and also have a lot of noise present.
Using the dedicated night mode, the images from the Xiaomi 11i do improve in terms of dynamic range, noise is also very less and contrast does improve but still, the images look better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus as the details in shadows, exposure, and dynamic range is very well handled without any noise present in the background. However, the colors still look natural on the Xiaomi 11i.
The 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of dynamic range and the details look good but are on the slightly softer side. There is a lot of noise present around the edges on both but colors as said above look slightly natural on the Xiaomi 11i. The same goes for the night as both have a considerable amount of noise but you do get a dedicated night mode on both that does reduce some noise.
Both have 2MP macro cameras and the images come out with an average dynamic range, the colors look washed out and the details look soft. Other than this, you can always use the main camera by applying a 2x digital zoom and it can get all the details to look much better with very less noise. The portraits come out with good edge detection both but the background blur and details are better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus.
On the front, both get a 16MP camera and the details come out sharper on both but the dynamic range is slightly better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus and also the colors look more saturated on it whereas the Xiaomi 11i maintains a natural-looking skin tone. In portrait selfies, the edge detection is better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus but by a very slight margin.
In terms of videos, both the smartphones can record 4K videos at 30fps and the dynamic range and contrast are good on both. The colors do look natural on the Xiaomi 11i compared to the Realme 9 Pro Plus which tends to oversaturate colors a lot. The noise is clearly less on the Realme 9 Pro Plus as you get much-stabilized videos both 4K and 1080p and this is due to the OIS which is not present on the Xiaomi 11i.
During the night, the videos come out better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus as you get OIS which results in no noise, excellent dynamic range but colors remain oversaturated. The videos on the Xiaomi 11i, on the other hand, do have a large amount of noise, and details look very soft but with the night mode, it does improve but clearly low-light videos are better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus.
The videos can be recorded up to 1080p at 30fps from both the ultrawide cameras and the videos have good dynamic range but some of the details look soft and also there is a considerable amount of noise present. You do get Ultra Stable Mode that does stabilize the videos on both and videos also come out decent on both during the night.
On the front, both cameras can record 1080p videos at 60fps and the footage is slightly better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus with slightly better dynamic range, the noise is slightly less but skin tones do look artificial whereas this is not the case with Xiaomi 11i which maintains a natural skin tone. So overall, the Realme 9 Pro Plus has better cameras when compared to the Xiaomi 11i.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Battery Life:
The Xiaomi 11i sports a larger 5000mAh battery which is slightly larger than the 4500mAh battery on the Realme 9 Pro Plus. Both smartphones can easily last for around two days with normal usage that includes casual web browsing, playing games for an hour or two but when it comes to heavy usage which includes heavy multi-tasking, playing BGMI for 3-4 hours, etc then the Xiaomi 11i lasts slightly more than the Realme 9 Pro Plus.
The Realme 9 Pro Plus achieves a standard screen-on time of around 6-7 hours which is good and is slightly lesser than the 7-7.5 hours of screen-on time on the Xiaomi 11i. The battery optimizations are slightly better on the MIUI compared to the RealmeUI and plus the Xiaomi 11i gets another 500mAh more battery capacity than the Realme 9 Pro Plus.
In terms of charging speeds, the Realme 9 Pro Plus ships with a 60W SuperDart charger that can take the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent within 45 minutes which makes it slightly faster than the Xiaomi 11i which ships with a 67W fast charger that charges it completely from 0 to 100 percent within an hour. So clearly battery life is better on the Xiaomi 11i but charging speeds are better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus.
Realme 9 Pro Plus vs Xiaomi 11i Audio Quality:
Both the smartphones sport a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear and also has a clear bass level with good loudness. However, the Realme 9 Pro Plus gets a 3.5mm headphone jack which simply the Xiaomi 11i lacks. Both do get Dolby Atmos support for enhanced sound output.
Verdict:
Both the Realme 9 Pro Plus and the Xiaomi 11i are very good premium mid-range smartphones and have a lot to offer as both have some things in common like an AMOLED display, a glass build, and design, powerful Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipsets, good battery life with faster charging. But there are certain differences between the two.
In terms of build and design, both have a glass back but the design is slightly different, the display on the Xiaomi 11i has slightly better brightness levels and refresh rate compared to the Realme 9 Pro Plus, performance is equally good on both, software experience though being good on both, there is some amount of bloatware present which can be uninstalled, the camera performance is slightly better on the Realme 9 Pro Plus compared to the Xiaomi 11i and battery life is slightly better on the Xiaomi 11i and both smartphones support fast charging speeds also.
So clearly, if you want a better display, a good-looking design without any flashy stuff, a better display, good performance, and battery life, the Xiaomi 11i is better. But if cameras are your highest priority and you want a good build and design, the latest Android version, and good battery life with slightly faster charging, then the Realme 9 Pro Plus is the better option.
