Can the new Xiaomi 11i take on the Realme GT Master Edition?
The premium mid-range segment has boomed since the last year 2021 as we saw many manufacturers like Xiaomi, Realme, Samsung, and other brands launching many smartphones that bring great performance with all other specifications that are almost found on flagship smartphones. In terms of performance, we saw many chipsets come up in this segment that brought flagship performance and gaming capabilities.
Last year Realme came up with its popular GT series out of which the Realme GT Master Edition (Review) was a well-rounded smartphone that came with good specifications like a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 778G chipset, 64MP camera setup, and a 43000mAh battery with 65W fast charging. However, there were some cost cuttings done by Realme to price it aggressively.
Recently, Xiaomi came up with two smartphones that brought some of the innovations in fast charging in the smartphone industry. The Xiaomi 11i and the 11i Hypercharge (Review) are well packaged and bring almost the same specifications like a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset, 108MP camera setup but the 11i Hypercharge has 120W fast charging and 11i gets the 67W fast charging.
So how does the newly launched Xiaomi 11i compare against the Realme GT Master Edition? Let’s find out in the full comparison.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Design:
In terms of build and design, both have a different look and feel as the Xiaomi 11i has a flat design with curves around the sides whereas the Realme GT Master Edition has a curved back and is also curved around the sides. The Xiaomi 11i looks larger compared to the Realme GT master Edition which has a smaller display of the two.
The Xiaomi 11i feels more premium as it has a glass sandwich design with Gorilla Glass 5 protection both at the front as well as the back with the back having a frosted finish that shines when light strikes at different angles. The Realme GT Master Edition has a suitcase-like design, especially the Voyager Gray color but still, it has a polycarbonate back and does not feel as premium as the glass back on the Xiaomi 11i.
In terms of weight, the Realme GT Master Edition though having a polycarbonate back weighs around 174grams which makes it lighter than the Xiaomi 11i weighs around 207grams which is slightly on heavier side. Both have a rectangular camera setup that consists of triple cameras but the camera module on the Xiaomi 11i does protrude more than the Realme GT Master Edition.
As a result, the Xiaomi 11i does wobble when kept on a flatter surface which is not the case with the Realme GT Master Edition. Around the sides, both have the power button with volume buttons and to the top, both have a secondary noise-canceling microphone but the Xiaomi 11i has an additional speaker grille with an IR Blaster.
At the bottom, both have a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, and a primary microphone but the 3.5mm headphone jack is present at the bottom on the Realme GT Master Edition whereas Xiaomi 11i gets it on the top. The back of the Realme GT Master Edition has a P2i coating whereas the Xiaomi 11i has an IP53 rating which makes it splashproof.
If you want a lightweight smartphone, then the Realme GT Master Edition is better, or else the Xiaomi 11i with IP53 rating and a glass back has the better build of the two.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Display:
Both have a punch-hole display on the front with the punch-hole being located at the center on the top of the Xiaomi 11i and is smaller in size compared to the punch-hole located on the top left corner of the Realme GT Master Edition. Both have minimum bezels around the sides. The Xiaomi 11i has a slightly larger 6.67-inches display compared to the 6.43-inches display on the Realme GT Master Edition.
Both these displays are AMOLED with Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) resolution and also have a 120Hz refresh rate which means multitasking and playing games are much smoother. Talking about the refresh rate, both do not have adaptive refresh rates but the Realme GT Master Edition does provide three options- Auto (switches either between 60Hz or 120Hz), standard 60Hz, and 120Hz.
The Xiaomi 11i has two options where either you can switch between the standard 60Hz to save battery life or 120Hz for smoothness. Both these displays have good color reproduction and viewing angles but in some cases, the colors on the display of the Xiaomi 11i look punchier than that of the Realme GT Master Edition.
Both also get a 360Hz touch sampling rate which provides faster touch responses during games. There is support for HDR10 and Widevine L1 on both so streaming HDR content on OTT platforms is a breeze but still, now there is no support for HDR in Netflix on the Realme GT Master Edition whereas the Xiaomi 11i has support for HDR on Netflix.
In terms of display brightness, the display on the Xiaomi 11i can achieve a peak brightness of 1200nits which is slightly better than the 1000nits on the Realme GT Master Edition but still under direct sunlight, you would not be able to notice the difference on both the displays. These displays also cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut.
The Realme GT Master Edition has an in-display fingerprint scanner whereas the Xiaomi 11i has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that is embedded on the power button but it does feel faster than the in-display one of the Realme GT Master Edition. Overall, both these displays are good for media consumption, but the one on the Xiaomi 11i is slightly better.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Performance:
The Realme GT Master Edition is powered by the Snapdragon 778G chipset whereas the Xiaomi 11i is powered by the latest MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset. Both these chipsets are very powerful mid-range chipsets based on the 6nm process. So in terms of performance, whether it is browsing social media, rendering webpages, or playing games, everything felt smoother and faster on both.
In terms of multi-tasking which includes app opening/closing, the Realme GT Master Edition was slightly faster than the Xioami 11i but there is not much difference between both. All heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, BMI, etc. ran smoothly and both can run BGMI with Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates and also HDR graphics with Ultra frame rates.
During the gameplay on both, there are no frame drops or stutters noticed but the Xiaomi 11i does not maintain constant 60fps throughout the gameplay which is not the case with the Realme GT Master Edition. After long hours of gaming, the back of the Xiaomi 11i does feel slightly warmer than that of the Realme GT Master Edition though both have a dedicated vapor cooling system underneath.
Both the Xiaomi 11i and the Realme GT Master Edition are present in three variants- 6GB RAM with 128GB storage, 8GB RAM with 128GB storage, and another 8GB RAM with 256GB storage with RAM being LPDDR4X and storage speeds UFS 2.2 on both. In terms of CPU throttling test, the Realme GT Master Edition could maintain better-sustained performance and throttling was also lesser of the two.
Also when it comes to benchmarks, the Realme GT Master Edition scores slightly better than the Xiaomi 11i whether it is Geekbench 5.1 or Antutu v8. Both have support for 8 5G bands also have good carrier aggregation. So on an overall basis, whether it is gaming or performance, the Realme GT master Edition is the better of the two.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Software:
Both have different user interfaces where the Xiaomi 11i comes with MIUI 12.5 Enhanced version and the Realme GT Master Edition ships with RealmeUI 2.0 and both run Android 11 out of the box. Both these have bloatware present but it is slightly lesser on the Xiaomi 11i. There are a lot of customizations present on both icon shape and size, different wallpapers, and Always-On display.
In terms of software updates, both these smartphones are slated to receive two years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches. However, there are no ads present on each of these but in RealmeUI once or twice ads were present but still you can disable them. So it depends on personal preference whether you like MIUI or RealmeUI but with less bloatware, MIUI is the better of the two.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Cameras:
Both these smartphones have a triple camera setup where the Xiaomi 11i has a larger 108MP f/1.9 Samsung HM2 sensor for the main camera and on the other hand, Realme GT Master Edition gets a 64MP f/1.8 Omnivision sensor for the main camera while the 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and the 2MP f/2.4 macro camera remain similar on both smartphones. On the front, the Realme GT Master Edition sports a larger 32MP f/2.5 camera compared to a 16MP f/2.5 camera on the Xioami 11i.
The images from the main camera come out with good details on both smartphones but the dynamic range is slightly better on the Realme GT Master Edition, on the other hand, the Xiaomi 11i images do suffer from a lot of oversharpening but the colors do look natural compared to the Realme GT Master Edition that does boost the colors quite a lot. However, noise is less on the Realme GT Master Edition.
At night, the images taken on the Realme GT Master Edition have slightly sharper details and better dynamic range than that of the Xiaomi 11i. Though the Xiaomi 11i maintains a natural color in the background whereas Realme GT Master Edition does saturate the colors quite a bit. However, the noise is less on the latter and there is no oversharpening as present on the Xiaomi 11i.
With the dedicated night mode, things do improve slightly for the Xioami 11i with slightly better details and less noise but still suffers from a lot of oversharpening. Xiaomi needs to work on a software update to fix the issue of oversharpening on the Xioami 11i.
The 8MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of dynamic range and details. Both these have a 119-degree field of view but do suffer from distortion around the edges. The noise is also on the higher side on both images but here definitely the Xioami 11i provides natural colors compared to oversaturated colors on the Realme GT Master Edition.
Similarly, at night, the images on both smartphones do suffer from a large amount of noise and details look softer. The details in shadows are crushed on both but Xioami 11i suffers from a lot of oversharpening in the background which is not the case with the Realme GT master Edtion. The 2MP macro camera on both is not so good as you get a lot of noise and washed-out colors.
It is, therefore, better to use the main camera for portraits on both smartphones by applying a 2x digital zoom which would result in images with better details and colors looking well saturated on both with less noise. In terms of portraits, the edge detection is good on both but the Xioami 11i does suffer from a lot of oversharpening, and background blur is not as good as on the Realme GT Master Edition.
On the front, the selfies come out with sharper-looking details and good dynamic range on the Realme GT Master Edition and the noise is also on the lower side on the Xiaomi 11i. The Xiaomi 11i has natural-looking skin tones but doe try to oversharpen things a lot. In terms of portrait selfies, both have good edge detection and details look good but the Xiaomi 11i does suffer from oversharpening a lot.
In terms of videos, both smartphones can record 4K videos at 30fps and the front camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps. The videos from the main camera come out with good details on both smartphones but the Realme GT Master Edition does have a better dynamic range and less noise. However, there is some noise present but still, it is very less compared to the Xiaomi 11i.
The videos come out with better stabilization on the Realme GT Master Edition as it uses EIS at 4K resolution when compared to the Xiaomi 11i which does not provide any stabilization while shooting video at 4K as EIS is enabled only at 1080p. The videos during the night also come out better on the Realme GT Master Edition as it has slightly sharper-looking details and less noise than the Xiaomi 11i.
The ultrawide camera on both smartphones can record 1080p videos at 30fps and the videos have good details but the colors look natural on the Xiaomi 11i when compared to the Realme GT Master Edition that does oversaturate colors. On the front, the videos have better dynamic range, less noise and stabilization is better on the Realme GT Master Edition compared to the Xiaomi 11i.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Battery Life:
The Xiaomi 11i has a larger 5160mAh battery when compared to the 4300mAh battery on the Realme GT Master Edition. In terms of normal usage, both smartphones can easily last for around two days with some charge left with the display being set to 120Hz and with heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI for 3-4 hours, streaming social media, etc., both smartphones last for a single day with the display being set to 120Hz.
However, the Xiaomi 11i has a slightly better battery life as you get around 6-7 hours standard screen on time compared to 5.5-6 hours of standard screen on time on the Realme GT Master Edition. MIUI 12.5 is much better optimized for the battery than the RealmeUI 2.0. In terms of charging, the Xiaomi 11i comes with a 67W fast charger and the Realme GT Master Edition comes with a 65W SuperDart charger.
The Realme GT Master Edition takes around 35-40 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 percent which makes it slightly faster than Xioami 11i which takes around 45-50 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 percent. However, if you want better-charging speeds, then you can consider the Xiaomi 11i Hypercharge that supports 120W fast charging as it charges from 0 to 100 percent under 18 minutes.
Xiaomi 11i vs Realme GT Master Edition Audio Quality:
Here clearly, the Xiaomi 11i holds the edge as it has a dual stereo speaker setup where the sound comes from the top speaker as well as the bottom one compared to the single bottom-firing speaker on the Realme GT Master Edition Both have a 3.5mm headphone jack and audio quality is good on both but it is slightly on the Xioami 11i as it supports Hi-Res audio.
Verdict:
Both these smartphones come with good specifications considering the price segment at which they are offered. The Xiaomi 11i is a good package as it has a glass back with an IP53 rating, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Mediatek Dimensity 920 chipset, a 108MP camera setup, and a larger 5160mAh battery with support for 67W fast charging.
The Realme GT Master Edition, on the other hand, has an eye-catching design (if you consider the Voyager Gray color) though it is polycarbonate, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 778G for performance as well as gaming, a 4300mAh battery with 65W fast charging, and a 64MP triple camera setup.
The Xiaomi 11i comes with a premium build and design, has a better display, better battery life, MIUI has less bloatware compared to the RealmeUI and also you get better audio quality compared to the Realme GT Master Edition. The Realme GT Master Edition, on the other hand, has slightly better performance and gaming, the charging speeds are slightly faster and the cameras are much better than the Xioami 11i.
So it all depends on personal preference but still the Xiaomi 11i holds the edge over the Realme GT Master Edition comparing almost all the factors but if cameras and performance are your highest priority, then the Realme GT Master Edition is worth considering.