Being a Pro isn’t enough these days. You have to be an Ultra or a Max to leave some impact. Well, the Mi 11 Ultra does leave some impact. It is Xiaomi’s first ever flagship smartphone in India and the name itself is enough to suggest who it aims to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. Yes, there are also the OnePlus 9 Pro and Vivo X60 Pro Plus around the same price point but, it’s Samsung that has been ruling the flagship Android world for many years now largely because of almost no competition.

Just like OnePlus and Vivo, Xiaomi too has gone aggressive on the camera, hoping to make some positive noise. The Mi 11 Ultra packs world’s largest camera sensor on any smartphone accompanied by two other high-resolution sensors that complete a really impressive system. And yeah, there is a secondary display at the back which might not be too useful, but looks cute.

Xiaomi has launched the Mi 11 Ultra in India in a single 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant (priced Rs 69,999) but, interestingly, hasn’t announced the availability of the phone. Nevertheless, it’s as good as any another Android smartphone on paper. How does it perform in real life? Well, it’s time to find out.

Mi 11 Ultra review: Design

I recently interviewed Xiaomi India chief Manu Kumar Jain who jokingly said that Mi 11 Ultra is a DSLR that can be used to make calls. I say this is a large camera module with a phone attached to its back. The camera bump is genuinely massive, difficult to unsee and certainly polarising for a lot of users. It runs through almost the entire width of the phone and houses three lenses two large ones for normal and wide shots and a periscope for telephoto. There is also an LED flash and a small rear-facing display.

You can still understand the width of the window given that it houses a 1.1-inch AMOLED display but, it is equally thick which will further isolate few users. The only positive I can derive out of this camera bump is that it stops the phone from wobbling, unless pressed at extreme corners.

If and when you are able to take eyes off that camera module, you will realise that the rest of the rear panel is made up of ceramic. It’s beautiful, in Jose Mourinho voice. The phone comes in Black and White colour options. I had the White colour variant for review which looks gorgeous. It’s also different from the other flagship Android smartphones. It does catch few fingerprint smudges but is not as bad as glass backed phones like OnePlus 9 Pro.