Xiaomi Mi 11X gaming review: Flagship performance at an affordable price

Xiaomi's gone big this year with the launch of its latest flagships, the Mi 11 series. The series brings with itself three new phones, including one truly premium device, the Mi 11 Ultra. The other two — the Mi 11X and Mi 11X Pro — are slightly less flashy and offer flagship-like specifications, but without increasing the price. 

In fact, the Mi 11X sets new standards of affordability as it has been priced in India at Rs 29,999 for the 6GB+128GB model and Rs 31,999 for the 8GB+128GB option. This is an extremely aggressive price point for a device, that goes up against the likes of the OnePlus 9R — a phone that offers similar core hardware as the Mi 11X, but at a slightly more expensive price point of Rs 39,999.

But as we explained during our review of the OnePlus 9R, it is a phone that offers immense value to justify its price tag. So, now the question is, will the Mi 11X be able to bring similar value and justify its price tag? Read our performance and gaming review of Xiaomi's Mi 11X to find out.

Xiaomi Mi 11X: Specifications

Let's start off with the specifications of the Mi 11X. Xiaomi has launched the new Mi 11X with some really impressive specifications. This includes powerful core hardware and a gorgeous, fast refresh rate display that improves the gaming and overall experience of using the device. 

This is a 6.67-inch E4 AMOLED FHD+ panel with support for a 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch response, and a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera. However, what's underneath is more interesting. Under the hood, the Mi 11X comes powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB storage that can be further expandable via a microSD card. 

Although not as powerful as the Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 870 used to power the Mi 11X still brings all the bells and whistles that you'd expect from a flagship chipset. This is because the Snapdragon 870 offers the same features as the previous-generation flagship chip, the Snapdragon 865 Plus — save for some tweaks here and there. The major change the Snapdragon 870 brings over the 865 and 865 Plus is a higher clocked prime Kryo 585 core running at 3.2GHz. 

The Snapdragon 870 is a 7nm chipset with an external X55 5G modem and three performance Kryo 585 cores running at 2.4GHz along with four power-efficient Kryo 385 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. This chipset also brings support for Bluetooth 5.2 — as opposed to the 865 and 865 Plus which support Bluetooth 5.1. 

Apart from this, the Snapdragon 870 5G chipset also brings with itself an Adreno 650 GPU with support for Snapdragon Elite gaming features. To make the best of this chip, Xiaomi has used the Android 11-based MIUI 12 custom skin out of the box. 

Xiaomi Mi 11X: Gaming and overall performance

The hardware and software on the device come together to provide an almost flawless experience with both apps and games running like a breeze on the device. The phone feels snappy to use regardless of what you run on it. In our time with the Mi 11X, we tested its performance using a number of benchmark tests and also a few demanding games. 

While gaming, the Mi 11X gave us nothing to complain about as its hardware easily handled titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9 Legends. Using Gamebench service, we found both these games ran at a median FPS of 60 frames and that too at the stability of 100 per cent. That's quite impressive, to say the least. Interestingly, this is the same level of performance we previously achieved with the OnePlus 9R which also impressed while gaming as it also achieved a high median frame rate but at such high stability levels. 

The gaming performance of the device is further enhanced by the presence of the phone's gorgeous E4 AMOLED display, which not only hits high peak brightness and accurate colour notes but also supports a high refresh rate and even higher touch response rate. 

Gamebench: Call of Duty Mobile

Moving on to benchmarks, the performance here was again good. However, the phone did score less than the competing OnePlus 9R in both AnTuTu and PCMark Work 2.0 tests. For the former, the Mi 11X threw up a score of 591680 points — compared to the 603500 points of the OnePlus 9R. PCMark Work 2.0 also saw the Mi 11X lagging a little behind with the phone scoring 9916 points as opposed to 10,066 points scored by the OnePlus 9R. 

Mi 11X: Is it worth your money?

Starting at Rs 29,999, the Mi 11X is worth every rupee if you're looking to invest in a new phone to play games and run other performance-intensive apps. Thanks to its powerful chipset, the Mi 11X offers more than enough juice to handle all that you throw at it, and to top it all, Xiaomi has also thrown in a dedicated Game Turbo mode to enhance the gaming performance of the device. So, if you're looking for a new phone to play all the latest games on, but are on a tight budget, our recommendation would be to go buy the Mi 11X.

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Sushant Talwar

Sushant Talwar is a full-time foodie who reviews cool gadgets and binges on TV shows when he is tired of playing video games. He is also in love with football and thinks Manchester United is a religion View Full Profile