It was early last year, much before the Coronavirus pandemic became the stuff of nightmares, when I had spoken about Android superphones. An elevation, a notch above Android flagship smartphones in every single way. The specs and the experience You’ll always pay a premium for Android superphones, as was the case then with the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and then subsequently earlier this, the incrementally improved Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra were launched. Yet, these were the only two superphones till now. The ones that really stayed a step above the other flagships, the “Pro” phones, if you may. But that was that. Here and now, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra becomes the newest addition to the superphones space, and from what I have experienced in the past few days, it absolutely deserves its place in that elite company. The price may really surprise you.
Even more to, and to be fair, it also costs a whole lot lesser than the phones that preceded it. And that really ups the Android superphone stakes. The Mi 11 Ultra is available as the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage spec and is priced at Rs 69,999. In comparison, and that phone also has its own advantages and pulling power, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra still retails for around Rs 1,05,999 before any discounts or deals that you may clock to your advantage. A lot of similarities in terms of the display size and resolution, the processor (albeit on the global version for the Galaxy S21 Ultra—Indian units get a very capable Exynos chip), but there are those differences too which really give the Mi 11 Ultra the sort of visual appeal and personality that’ll allow the phone to be spotted and identified correctly from a mile away. And the camera module on the back has a lot to do with that. Let me get this out of the way nice and early. There will be comparisons between the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, and each phone has its strong points. For instance, while the Mi 11 Ultra definitely has the visual appeal advantage, the Galaxy S21 Ultra more than holds its ground with the large 108-megapixel camera. What you pick, depends on what you need more.
