The Xiaomi 11T Pro has a lot of winning qualities. It has a blazing fast 120W charging speed, it offers fast performance courtesy of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset, it has a bright and vibrant 120Hz AMOLED display, and most of all, its sheer value for money is almost unbeatable.

That being said, given that this is a relatively affordable phone, the 11T Pro does have a number of shortcomings. But if all you care about is flagship-class performance at almost half the price, the 11T Pro is an excellent choice.

What It Is

There’s no doubt that the 11T Pro offers most hardware you’d typically find on a flagship smartphone, such as a Snapdragon 888 chipset and a 120Hz AMOLED screen. While its camera system isn’t quite as sophisticated as a high-end phone, it can still capture some good-looking shots – go further down this review for a more detailed look.

Of course, the fast 120W charging speed of the 11T Pro is worth a mention too. According to Xiaomi, this allows the 11T Pro to be fully charged in only 17 minutes – let’s talk about this in the next section.

The Good Stuff

So…can the Xiaomi 11T Pro really be fully charged in only 17 minutes? Well, not quite. In my testing, the phone “only” got up to 90% from completely empty within 17 minutes of charging; I repeated this test several times to make sure.

Still, this charging speed is very impressive. In fact, I don’t even have to remember to charge the 11T Pro before I go to bed. I just need to plug it to the 120W bundled charger in the morning – yes, the charger comes with the phone – go about my morning routine, and I’ll have a fully charged phone before I head out.

Speaking of which, the battery life of the 11T Pro is equally impressive. On average, I can effortlessly get between six to seven hours of screen on time out of the 5,000mAh battery. Throughout my time with this phone, I never had any issue getting through a typical work day with it. If you’re a lighter smartphone user, I reckon you can get up to two days of use.

Aside from that, the 11T Pro is also a fast, fast phone. The Snapdragon 888 allows me to multitask effortlessly, and it’s an absolute joy to play Genshin Impact on this phone. This fast performance, paired with the equally fast 120Hz 6.67-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display, really makes for an enjoyable the gaming experience.

The AMOLED display of the 11T Pro is quite pleasant to look at too. Though it’s not quite as stunning-looking as the AMOLED screens found on Samsung’s flagship phones, it still has all the winning qualities of an AMOLED panel. These include deep, true blacks, vibrant colours, and a good level of brightness.

I’m also happy to report that the software experience of the 11T Pro has improved immensely with MIUI 12.5. Xiaomi has always struggled with delivering a good software experience, but that’s no longer the case (for the most part) with this phone. It’s not mixing up notifications from different apps anymore, and apps are not randomly crashing either.

Now, let’s get to the triple camera system of the 11T Pro; more specifically, the 108MP primary shooter. Though it has a tendency to oversaturate images, you do get very pleasant-looking images in most shooting conditions. It struggles a little in low light conditions, but you can still get reasonably good results. Judge for yourself with these sample shots.

But that’s only for the 108MP main sensor of the 11T Pro; it’s a different case for the other two rear cameras. I’ll elaborate in the following section.

The Bad Stuff

Unfortunately enough, the Xiaomi 11T Pro’s 8MP ultra-wide angle camera and 5MP telemacro lens are not quite as good as the primary sensor. The ultra-wide shooter, for one, doesn’t have good detail preservation (especially in less than ideal lighting), and it has difficulty getting the right exposure too.

As for the 5MP telemacro sensor, it’s…decent. It can definitely get quite near to a subject without losing focus, but the image quality is just…well, not up to par. Of course, these two shooters can still take good-looking shots with some effort, but don’t expect it to perform on the same level as the primary 108MP camera.

Although the software experience of MIUI 12.5 on the 11T Pro has improved quite a bit, there are still some minor niggles. I don’t like the fact that it forces dark mode for apps that are not designed for it, and there were a couple of times where certain apps (such as YouTube) felt sluggish, though I haven’t been able to replicate this issue.

Is It Worth It?

Even though its camera performance and software experience need some work, the Xiaomi 11T Pro is still an easy phone to recommend. This is especially so if you don’t mind these shortcomings, and all you want is just a phone that offers flagship-class performance for half the price of a typical high-end phone.

Plus, there aren’t many devices – especially at this price point – that can match the blazing fast 120W charging speed of the 11T Pro. In my opinion, this is an absolutely huge selling point for this phone; you won’t have to use your phone while it’s connected to the charger anymore with the 11T Pro.