Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G vs POCO F3 - Smartphone Comparison (with photo samples) By Tech Travel Geeks

Hi there, it’s Lukasz for the Tech Travel Geeks, and this is a comparison video of two recent phones manufactured by Xiaomi - the Mi 11 Lite 5G, released in mid-April 2021, and the POCO F3, released at the end of March. We’ll follow this video up with further content about those devices, including upcoming full reviews, so make sure to subscribe to Tech Travel Geeks to not miss them when they come out. Let’s start with the build and design, as they’re actually quite different. The Mi 11 Lite 5G stands out among many recent phones with the super slick design. It is really thin at 6.8mm and with a rather flat camera unit, and very light at just 159 grams, despite still having a large screen and a large battery. That’s some really impressive design work from Xiaomi.

It’s also very flat and square, and with a matte back. My review unit came in the Truffle Black colour, but if you want to make more of a statement, you can get Citrus Yellow or Mint Green instead. On the other hand, the POCO F3 is a bit more traditional, similar to other phones we’ve seen recently. Its glass back is very reflective and quite prone to fingerprints, unlike its smaller cousin. The back is also curved, and you can feel that it’s more hefty and pronounced, clocking in at 196 grams.

It does feel good in the hands though. My review unit came in the Night Black version, and there’s also the Arctic White version, but the one that stands out is the Deep Ocean Blue, which has some nice gradients and some interesting shapes and shades of blue - it’s probably the version I’d go with if I had a choice. Both devices have glass back, and while the POCO is protected by the Gorilla Glass 5, the Mi 11 Lite sports the latest Gorilla Glass 6. One area they’re similar is the orientation of the elements - brand in the top left corner with the same 5G icon, copyright information below, and the camera units, both with a ring around the main camera, are at the top right. Also, what’s good compared to other devices in the similar price point is that both phones have IP57 dust and splash protection certificates, so you shouldn’t be afraid to use them in the rain for example - very useful here in Scotland.

Both devices have great AMOLED screens on the front. The POCO has a larger panel at 6.67 inches, compared to Mi 11 Lite’s 6.55 inches, but both have the same resolution of 1080 by 2400 pixels. As a result, the Mi has a slightly better pixels per inch ratio, but the POCO has a larger screen to enjoy content on, so your choice will depend on your preferences. Both screens looked great for daily use, and I was really happy with them both. Looking at the spec sheets, it’s quite tricky to decide which is better.

Both support HDR10+, with the POCO offering a brighter screen of up to 1300 nits, the Mi offering up to 1 billion colours, and POCO boasting 120Hz refresh rate, compared to Mi’s 90. Your choice might depend on your preferences, but you won’t be disappointed with either one of them. When it comes to performance, both devices use slightly different, but highly performant processors. The Mi 11 Lite uses the Snapdragon 780G processor, built in the 5nm manufacturing process and a successor to last year’s 765G, compared to POCO’s Snapdragon 870, which is a 7nm chipset - basically an overclocked version of last year’s Snapdragon 865+. Because of that, the Mi 11 Lite should be more battery efficient.

When it comes to the raw processing power, it might depend on the application. In theory, POCO’s 870 should be higher end as it’s in the 8 series Snapdragon chipset, and it has higher CPU speeds of up to 3.2GHz, compared to Lite’s 2.4GHz. So, the win should be on the POCO’s side - which is why the marketing materials, as well as the special packaging which we received, focuses on the “beast” mode. However, in real life, you might struggle to see a real difference between the two. Both offer fantastic performance while using the phone’s operating system and any of the apps, and also great performance in any of the games I tried.

In Fortnite, both worked in highest detail and hovered around 30 frames per second, with occasional slowdowns, but nothing really affecting gameplay. And that’s despite the fact that just after installing Fortnite, I got a notification that it’s not officially supported on the Mi 11 Lite 5G - I don’t think it was the case on the POCO F3. However, the game worked fine on both devices. Call of Duty Mobile actually did offer higher settings on the POCO F3 - you could select very high graphics quality plus max frame rate, but only very high graphics quality + very high frame rate or high quality and max frame rate on the Mi 11 Lite 5G. However, in the game itself, again, there wasn’t too much of a difference between the two devices.

From my experience, it appears that the performance of the POCO is indeed a bit better, but unless you need or expect the very maximum performance from your device, the speed and benchmark numbers shouldn’t matter at this device class - you should be happy with either of those two devices. For memory and storage, they both come in either 6GB or 8GB versions, and both of my review units had 8GB, and either 128GB or 256GB of storage - in my case, 128GB on the Mi and 256GB on the POCO. POCO also comes with faster UFS 3.1 storage, compared to Mi’s 2.2. However, the Mi has expandable storage with a hybrid microSDXC card, so you can extend your storage if you need to. I touched on battery life earlier, but let’s expand on it a bit more.

Both devices come with good-sized batteries - 4520mAh on the POCO and 4250 on the Mi 11 Lite 5G. Both of them performed really well - the POCO thanks to its larger size, and the Mi thanks to the more efficient processor. I had no problems with the battery lasting for the whole day on either of those devices. Also, both offer fast charging of up to 33 watts, which will recharge the batteries in under an hour. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging on either of them - for that, you’ll have to check the Mi 11 or Mi 11 Ultra instead.

Both devices run nearly identical software. Or at least that was the case for the last 6 or so weeks, until a couple of hours before releasing this video. As I was wrapping everything up, POCO F3 got the long-awaited MIUI 12.5 software update, which has a number of new features like new user interface improvements, a brand new Notes app, but more importantly, significant performance updates. I obviously won’t be able to test this right now, but will do for the full review of the device - all of my earlier discussion of performance was before the update. The Mi 11 Lite hasn’t received the new update yet and is still on MIUI 12, but I’m sure it will get it very soon, so this isn’t necessarily an advantage for the POCO, since both will be on the same software soon.

When it comes to the software experience itself, both the Mi and POCO versions of MIUI are very similar. Both allow you to use the app drawer, which I really like, and in both cases it has some extra functionality. One thing you’ll notice is that the icons are round on the POCO, while they’re rounded squares on the Mi, but that’s just cosmetics. You won’t find too many other differences in the software between the two. As I mentioned in both software and setup videos for those two phones, both devices come with a lot of pre-installed apps like Facebook and TikTok, but you can uninstall them easily, so I don’t think it’s a problem.

At the time of writing, at the beginning of June, both devices are still on the April 2021 security update, which is a bit behind the schedule, potentially due to that focus on updating to MIUI 12.5. However, Xiaomi have been really good with software updates, so you can expect the latest patches coming out very soon. Speaking of security, both devices use side-mounted fingerprint scanners. Both are super fast and you’ll struggle to tell a difference between them. I’m really happy, as this is my favourite way of unlocking the phone, so no complaints from me at all.

Thanks to the fact that both phones have high end processors with 5G antennas, you’ll be able to use the latest connectivity technologies to stay online. Whether or not you can take full advantage of that will depend on the network coverage and congestion in your area. While I don’t have 5G access in my flat, I can use it just a short walk away, and it works great on both devices. Actually, last time I went to a nearby hill while filming some shots for this video, I managed to get some decent 5G speeds on the Mi 11 Lite even in the middle of nowhere, so that’s really promising. You also get all the other connectivity options you’d expect - WiFi up to version 6, NFC (depending on your region) and Bluetooth: 5.1 on the POCO and 5.2 on the Mi. Unfortunately, you will either need Bluetooth or a USB converter if you want to listen to music through your headphones, as neither of the two devices have the courage port, or the 3.5mm audio jack. It’s rather unfortunate, as I really got used to having it in my past Xiaomi devices.

Luckily, instead, you do get really good speakers in both cases. They’re especially impressive in the POCO F3, which has stereo speakers facing both sides, and the quality was really good. The phone also offers Dolby Atmos surround effects, which were added in a recent software update. It means that the device will try to simulate the sound coming from all the sides depending on what’s happening in the movie or how the music was recorded and mixed. However, this will only be supported if the app and content you’re consuming also supports it, so you might not always be able to get those benefits.

The speakers on the Mi 11 Lite were also similarly impressive, with maybe a bit less bass, but still really good for a mobile phone. I’d say that while the POCO F3 might have an advantage here, both are really good. Finally, let’s discuss my favourite subject - the cameras. Both devices come with three lenses on the back. The main sensor is a 64MP one on the Mi 11 Lite 5G and a 48MP one on the POCO F3.

Both did really well, but when put side by side, I prefer the images from the Mi 11 Lite 5G, shown here on the left. To me, they’re more pleasing to the eye, with better dynamic range and warmer colours. You can probably achieve some of that effect if you play with the exposure and saturation sliders a bit, but with no edits, I feel the Mi showed the beauty of Scotland a bit more than its bigger brother. The photos here were taken on the default settings, but with HDR switched off, as I think it’s best to be used sparingly. Also, can I just say it again, isn’t Scotland just beautiful? The ultrawide cameras are, by the looks of it, identical - both are 8 megapixels with similar field of view and the same f/2.2 aperture. The results on both were quite similar, maybe with some minor differences due to how the images were processed, plus the photos you see were taken a few minutes apart, with my hands and angles slightly different, so they wouldn’t be identical even if I showed two photos from the same camera.

Both devices also come with 5MP macro lenses, and I did manage to take a lovely photo of a ladybug the other day, so I’m quite happy with that. They also both have autofocus, and I’m quite happy with their performance - definitely much better than the 2MP cameras we’ve seen in the past. Finally, the selfie cameras on both performed quite similarly without portrait mode, but with it enabled, you might end up with some overblown highlights and lost details in the sky, more so on the Mi 11 Lite 5G. Also, the lens is a bit wider on the POCO, so you’ll be able to get more into the picture at once, which might be good for group selfies. Overall, however, I found myself reaching for the Mi 11 Lite 5G more for photos, as I found them more consistent and pleasing to the eye, mostly thanks to better colours on the main camera and great quality of the ultrawide.

But both phones will give you really good results in most situations. When it comes to video quality, both devices offer up to 4K recording in 30 frames per second, and in both cases they’re up to 8 minutes long. Luckily, both offer electronic image stabilization, and I was impressed with it in both cases. The video quality was quite similar on both cameras, so you won’t experience too big of a difference there. One thing I would have liked on the POCO though would be higher resolutions and frame rates - the Snapdragon 870 chipset supports 4K60 or even 120 frames per second, as well as 8K, so it’s too bad it wasn’t enabled here.

Luckily, both devices do offer a number of additional video features like 1080p in 60 frames per second, as well as different slow motion modes, but you’ll notice that 1080p is up to 120 frames per second on the Mi 11 Lite 5G, but up to 960 frames per second on the POCO. To do 960fps, you need to go down to 720p on the Mi instead. Not much of a difference when it comes to front facing cameras though - both offer 1080p in 30 frames per second with or without image stabilization, and 1080p in 60 frames per second without stabilization. To sum up, it’s been quite interesting comparing those two devices, quite similar in some ways, different in others. If you want a slim and slick device with a really good camera, great performance and battery life, you might want to go with the Mi 11 Lite 5G.

However, if the top performance, great speakers or a larger screen talk to you more, you might want to go with the “beast” itself, the POCO F3 5G. Your decision as to which one to get might depend on the pricing. As of early June 2021, the Mi 11 Lite 5G is available on the Mi website for £399 for the 8GB + 128GB package, while the POCO F3 is £349 for the same configuration, and £329 for the 6GB version. So, what are your thoughts about those devices? Are you considering getting either one of them? Which one would you pick and why? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to subscribe to the Tech Travel Geeks to see the upcoming full reviews of those two devices, among others. But for now, thanks for watching!.

Source : Tech Travel Geeks