Cameras are amazing (Video slowmotion at 720p 960fps) 😋
IP68 dust/water resistant
120 Watt Charger
Mediatek Dimensity 9200+ (Claimed to beat Snapdragon 8 Gen 2)
4 generations up to Android 17 Android upgrades and 5 year security support
Obviously It has all the expected sensors and features.
The corners that were cut to get the price down are pretty few IMO:
Gorilla Glass 5 instead of Victus.
Plastic instead of Alu edge.
No Wireless charging
Here (Denmark) the Xiaome 13T Pro is cheaper than One Plus 11, and it beats it in every aspect. It's almost (but not quite) as good as the Samsung S23 Ultra. To me this seems by far the best option in the price range.
The non pro is $100 cheaper, and you get a slightly less powerful SOC, 67 Watt charger instead of 120, less RAM/Storage, although there are ranges for both.
Edit PS
09. Oct. 2023
Just ordered the pro version with 12 GB Ram and 512 MB storage for € 669,- including tax or USD 565,- excluding tax.
I was waiting for our Solar panels to go online, and that was finally finished today.
I originally planned to buy the One Plus 11, but the curved screen and opposing power/volume buttons turned me away from that.
I'm extremely excited as my current phone is a very cheap older budget phone (Moto G9 power). It has served me surprisingly well, considering it was sub $200 including tax.
The SOC is supposed to be very good, especially the one in the Pro version, it's a bran new SOC that is supposed to beat the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is currently considered the best for Android on the market.
I can't find comparing benchmarks yet, but for sure it's better than the older gen, since it's now based on the latest gen Arm, and the Pro has a way more powerful GPU.
Edit PS:
I found this Geekbench test, where it's slightly faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Only Adreno 740 (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) and Apple m1/m2 beat it in 3DMark. I saw a review that showed it maxes the frame-rate in all the games they tested. Unfortunately I can't remember which, because I've basically seen all there are on YouTube yesterday.
Edit PPS:
The GPU is actually faster than iPhone 15 Pro Max!!
That's because the iPhone throttles already after 2 minutes, and runs at only 65%, while the Xiaomi 13T Pro maintains 95% performance after ½ an hour of GPU intensive gaming.
Maybe, I don't think government officials should use Chinese phones. But for me personally, I don't really think they do much spying on private citizens. What would be the point? In that regard I think Google and Apple are equally big concerns, but unfortunately you either have to live with that, or jailbreak your phone.
I used to do that, using Android AOSP without Google apps. As free as it gets. But honestly I can't be bothered anymore. I wish there was a free option that has full functionality, but there isn't, because the security features in everything official like public services and banking relies on the proprietary security features of either Google or Apple to work.
So unless our government gives a shit about this, I just have to accept the sorry state of lousy security our technology in general is in.
They spy on everything always regardless of the target. You may not know things personally, but you know someone that does and your device gives access to others. It's about being everywhere always.
Take Xiaomi phones with a pinch of salt. I've got the Mi 10t Lite 5g, and while it's fairly decent, it's got its share of problems too.
Every time the Xiaomi browser updated, it asks if it can be the default viewer for pdfs, no matter how many times you set your default as something else. I've uninstalled it now, but I'm pretty sure that it was happening with the video player too. Both would open a 'Open with' dialogue with the software as the preselected option, and 'other' for the second option, but pressing other would just launch a random selection from the list.
The camera is awful too. Using it in bright sunlight is ok, as long as you don't want to zoom in. If you do, everything is blotchy? It looks as if it's been zoomed in by an algorithm that got it wrong, and guessed what the pixels should look like. If you try to use the zoom while taking the photo, you sometimes get random blurred spots in the image. I took what would have been a great photo of my kid with their grandfather, but parts of the photo were randomly blurred.
They might have improved with the newer models, but I would want to see one in the flesh before I spent any money on one.
IDK about the software, I know there is bloatware, but it should be possible to uninstall. The new MIUI 14 should be pretty good reviewers say.
The camera is absolutely amazing, no doubt about that. Just look it up on YouTube. Absolutely amazing night shots, and very good tele and macro too, although not as good as Samsung S23 Ultra.
I was able to remove some of the bloat using the Universal Android Debloater. If you do the same, remove a few things at a time and test in between. Removing the Xiaomi phone app stopped my dialler from putting the overlay on top of everything else.
The Mi 10t Lite camera looked great in reviews too. Like most reviews, the photos were taken under ideal conditions. It's very rare to see real world photos, like trying to get a photo of a kid or a pet running around in poor lighting.