Xiaomi Mi 11i Charging review: Testing the 120W HyperCharge
The Xiaomi Mi 11i HyperCharge is a mid-range smartphone with a 120-watt fast charge – that’s five times faster than the Samsung Galaxy S21 and six times faster than the iPhone 13. It had been raining hard, so I carefully took the charger out of its box before plugging it in. Was this going to be as fast as everyone was promising? We have to see. Follow Matt on Twitter and YouTube.
What is the phone number?
The Mi 11i, another affordable phone launched in India, is actually just a relabelled Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus (Chinese edition) that saw the light of day at the start of this month for less than $360. The Mi 11i claims the fastest charging phone award Today, Xiaomi has also brought some of the latest tech to the mid-range instead of limiting this to the high-end market, making it the better option.
In fact, the Mi 11i (or it’s the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus China) is not the first or the only Xiaomi phone to get 120W speed charging. Its flagship killer: The actual flagship series that Xiaomi has, the Xiaomi 11T Pro came in September 2021 and introduced 120W power for the company. And now with the 12 series (red carpet event of Xiaomi 12 in 2021) we have also entered the flagship category.Xiaomi 12 series Its subbrand Vivo has 120W on the iQOO 7 but that’s China-only.
How did we test
As we do that for this review, we will put the power of the Xiaomi Mi 11i’s 120W HyperCharge technology through four different charging scenarios shown below to evaluate its resistance to the loads of streaming an HDR video in 4K HDR, or playing a graphics-demanding title that can (or cannot) impact how a phone quick-charges. Finally, we will also analyse the battery temperature fluctuations to verify the claims of Xiaomi about what could be considered as the most important features of the charging circuit, that make 120W charging safe for day-to-day life, for your device and for you. Above all, the streaming scenario is obligatory for thorough testing of mobile components as it shows how quickly the phone can charge despite the power-consuming process of decoding the rendered video, especially in high-quality HDR video, with a CAST encoding.
We note that the tests were done in winter at a temperature of about 18 C (about 65 F). On heating when charging (due to the loss of energy, resulting in slower charging) The reported experiment would hence be different at higher temperatures.
Mi 11i HyperCharge/Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus 120W charging test
Charging Scenario to 50% to 90% to 100%Time ⅒ ⅙ 15/16 ¼ ⅓ ⅝ ⅞ ¾ 14/15 2 Time ⅕ Time ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ¾ Time ⅗ ½ ⅖
Charging without case Phases: 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 15 19Time (min:secs): 6: 8 15: 8 19: 45
Charging with silicon case 6 minutes, 19 seconds 16 minutes, 19 seconds 20 minutes, 50 seconds
Watching 4K video at full resolution and brightness 7 minutes, 11 seconds 17 minutes, 55 seconds 21 minutes, 38 seconds
Fig 5Time taken to charge while playing Genshin Impact. In-game hero health shown in Fig 4 is 4476.The data in Fig 5 was acquired from this study, which that showed playing the game while charging prolongs your game time. The complete charge in Fig 5 was achieved after 9 minutes and 6 seconds, but this is without the game being run. The fastest time for a full battery was at 25 minutes and 46 seconds, which means playing Genshin Impact for 26 minutes and 12 seconds. Lastly, the battery was completely charged after 30 minutes, 8 seconds.
Charging speed test without a case
The first test is charge profile – at first glance it is a curve depicting a typical smartphone charging process. Using my Battery Log app to determine how long it took to charge the 5,000mAh battery with the boxed in 120W charger – our HyperCharge Mi 11i with the 120W charger. As seen in the pictures below is a measurement of the charging speed with the case in the box. The phone has been on hand for the duration of charging.
The Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi suggests the phone can achieve the 100 per cent rating in as little as 15 minutes. However, the results come from the artificial world of an academic lab, not reality. To emulate real-world use-scenarios for the test, the phone’s Wi-Fi and Always-On Display (AOD) are set up to run all the time during charging.
Xiaomi Mi11i HyperCharge
Our tests show that our results which the Xiaomi Mi11i HyperCharge increase from 5% to 90% about a few seconds feels like more that 15 mins to reach 100%. It will take around 5 minutes to reach 100% level, so, the length of time to charge the phone from 5 to 100% about 20 minutes. This will not work like the Xiaomi claims but the result are tremendous. We can connect the phone to the cable for roundabout 10 minutes and you will reach over 65% battery that will take charge for many hours of heavy use.
The green curve represents the level of the battery changes over time.The yellow one depicts the variation of temperature and time as is indicated on the X-axis in the bottom of each graph.
The battery levels is indicated by the Y-axis to the left, while the bottom temperature is on the Y-axis to the right, and it is measured in Celcius.
By looking at various temperature variations of the battery over the the time of the test for charging We can noticed that the battery reached the maximum of approximately 40 ° Celsius (104 °F).Its temperature at start of charge is 24, Celsius (75 degree Fahrenheit) but it is increasing until reaching the highest in 6 minutes which is the point it reach 50 % of the capacity of the battery.The battery’s temperature begins to start coming down after the battery pass the 90 %, as the battery is entering to trickle charging course.After finish the battery with charge cycle its temperature will be around 36° Celsius (97 °F) which is not over-heat but if you will use your smart phone on charging you will feel the heat.
Speed test of charging using the silicone case
Our next test is charging the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge with the clear case included in the box in the picture above. It is crucial that such a test should be done because many users will want to put cases that can fit their phone on their device to prevent them from damage by impacts. As heat is an insulator by nature, it will completely enclose the heat created during the time the handset is charging, preventing the phone from the optimal ability to expel heat into the ambient air. Xiaomi relies on the multiple design features, including several battery cells and the 50-50 split, to minimise the output of heat.
When testing, we follow the same rules, i.e. the phone’s Wi-Fi and AOD are on, but we do not use your phone for the entire duration of the charging time. The phone’s temperature is three degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher – ie, 27° Celsius (81 degree Fahrenheit) when the case is on your phone as opposed to the phone without. However it never exceeds the maximum temperature of this case. In fact it is less than 1 degree Celcius (34 degree Fahrenheit) and is at 39 ° Celsius (102 degree Fahrenheit) at the maximum – and even though it is hitting the maximum temperature later, at the 40 per cent mark.We also saw the faster drop, beginning at about 80 per cent battery charge and, at the close of testing, the battery showed 36 ° Celsius (97 degree Fahrenheit).
Next we look at the time it takes for the Mi11i HyperCharge to charge the battery. Its time requires 16 minutes to charge it from five percent to 90% which is an extra 11 minutes compared with the above test. It requires an extra five minutes to make it to 100 percent and the Mi 11i HyperCharge completes its cycle in just 21 minutes to give the battery charge.
Although you can see the 1-minute difference between the two cases, it is still going to be hardly noticeable by users who use their phone on a daily basissince 10 hours the smartphone’s battery level is 62 %.
Charging speed 4K video streaming
While the difference between our first test and second test is small, and therefore easy to miss The following situations put Xiaomi’s Mi 11i HyperCharge through more stress. Because we charge the phone while watching four-channel HDR movies on YouTube and at its highest brightness. Xiaomi promises maximum brightness at 700nits on the Mi11i’s AMOLED screen, so there may be a bit of drain here – if the phone stays in the case, that is.
Our battery test.
Temperature The phone’ 27,0 degrees Celsius (81 degree Fahrenheit).
The temperature is about 38 ° Celsius (100 degree Fahrenheit) marked at 40.
Temperature increase in two inches Celcius (36 °F) in 50%, then about 40 ° Celsius (104 °F). Because the display is on 100 %, the temperature keeps 40 degree Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) until the battery is charge to 92 % . Then, the trickle charge characteristics makes the temperature decreased slightly.
When the battery rose to 100 %, it’s only 38° Celsius (100 °F) which is slightly warmer than the previous tests.
It takes a little less than 18 minutes to get from 5 per cent to 90 per cent, and a little more than 22 minutes to get all the way to 100. (A minute longer than in our last test, but two minutes quicker than the first time around – what slim pickings we have to complain about, if we really consider it slow to take all that extra one per cent.)
It reaches around 55 per cent in 10 minutes charging using the 120W brick for the Mi 11i HyperCharge.
Charging speed gaming
With 120W superfast charging supported on the Mi 11i HyperCharge, we imagine most users to feel the safeguards in place by the brand so that the smartphones on hand don’t overheat. Especially if you’re in the middle of a gaming session and are not interested in low battery levels setting in and ruining your gaming spree already. So we want to see how well these safeguards negotiate with the quick-charging tech to send power to the phone while gaming on it unrestrictedly, for a duration. In our case, we felt that Genshin Impact is the apt game to use for our testing. Genshin Impact is one of the most graphics-heavy games on Android. So, we start this play session on the Mi 11i HyperCharge. Soon enough, the phone started heating up. We decided to ditch the case so that we could feel the heat (literally) as the temperature of the phone increased.
We utilised GameBench to see how the Mi 11i HyperCharge’s gaming performance changes as combined heat generation during charging while gaming. There is a lot of throttling algorithms written in the code that code in the Chips – CPU and GPU. These throttling algorithms are in place which does not allow the system to heat up way too much when we perform a very demanding task like Gaming. To fend off the too much heat generation and to not allow the temperatures to rise further, these algorithms come to place and limit the performance of the CPU and GPU. GameBench which is the benchmark tool we used gives us a fair idea about the throttling due to heat generated while we play Gaming coupled with the heat generated while we charge the Mi 11i HyperCharge phone using the 120W fast charger.
Looking at the temperature graph first, the battery of Mi 11i HyperCharge starts to heat up once the charger is plugged in at 22 degC (72 degF). After about four minutes, owing to the high use of graphics in Genshin Impact, it begins to peak at 40 degC (104 degF) level, where the float in temperature between 39 degC (102 degF) and 40 degC (104 degF) until the charging is complete.
Differentiating from the first three cases where the charging curve was close to flat (meaning a near-constant flow of charge into the battery where the stressors are of no concern), the charging rate starts to decrease once the phone hits its peak temperature (possibly as a preventive measure to avoid too much thermal runaway in the charging circuit itself). The reduced charging rate translates to extending the charging duration, with the Mi 11i HyperCharge taking a bit more than 26 minutes to reach the 90 per cent mark and another five to bring in the last charge to charge the phone to 100 per cent. Therefore, the phone takes a few seconds more than the prescribed 30 minutes while gaming.
As for gaming, the Mi 11i HyperCharge gets Genshin Impact up to 25-30 frames per second (fps), though there was some occasional frame-skipping when the warrior’s weapon rises into the air for a battle – the frame rate dropping to about 15 fps. On top of that, as the phone becomes warmer, you see more and more frame rate drops while the chipset – the Mi 11i HyperCharge’s MediaTek Dimensity 920, with a Mali-G68 GPU – struggles to cope with relentless stuttering. While these frame-rate drops do not make gameplay unplayable (because of the open-world single-player nature of the game), they could be a frustration factor in online, fast-paced multiplayer gaming. Take, for instance, PUBG Mobile.
Final verdict
In actual use-scenarios, the superfast charging time on the Mi 11i HyperCharge wildly varied but the results were, mostly, good. At no time did the charger do what Xiaomi said it would: finish the charging in 15 minutes, 17 minutes or 19 minutes. But we were alright with that. More importantly, the Mi 11i HyperCharge excelled in its heat management, not exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) — not even when the device was playing a graphics-heavy game and fast charging at the same time. Yet another advantage to the device is that the 120W charger inside the box you get can be used to fast charge any other compatible device. I used the Mi 11i HyperCharge charger to fast charge my 13-inch MacBook Pro 2020. The Xiaomi charger is smaller in size compared with the 61W Apple charging brick that came with my MacBook Pro, but I managed to charge up faster than my Apple charger.
However, the activity was fully satisfactory on the Mi 11i HyperCharge, though the scalling severely impacted on the overall gaming performance and hardened gamers won’t agree on the experience when playing with the phone plugged in the wall. I guess this is the deal with the great heat management: the device experienced massive performance throttling which is quite a gall. To be fair to Xiaomi, the Dimensity 920 is the weakest culprit here but ultimately the moral of the story is that the smartphone might not be the best device to game on.
Is the Xiaomi Mi 11i HyperCharge worth buying?
In fact, the Mi 11i HyperCharge is a good midrange smartphone – a competitor for today’s leading devices, including the Samsung Galaxy A52. 108MP triple cameras, beautiful colours and the 120W fast charging that will keep it competitive for years to come more than make up for the formidable weight, which probably wouldn’t sit well with everyone. However, it isn’t a gaming smartphone, especially not if you plan to top up the battery while playing.
Though it is currently available only in India and China, the Xiaomi Mi 11i HyperCharge (and the twin sibling, the Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus) has entered into our review lineup.Note that Xiaomi also sells another phone, too, the (Mi 11i in Europe ) but that is a completely different beast than the one here – another casualty of the madness that is the Xiaomi naming scheme in the various marketplaces Xiaomi sells smartphones in.
