If you figured 2020’s smartphone releases were over, you reckoned without the Xiaomi Mi 11, which is the first to feature the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor.

Beating the Samsung Galaxy S21 range to the punch, Xiaomi gives a debut to 2021’s flagship SoC alongside a 120Hz 6.81-inch AMOLED WQHD and HDR 10+ support.

Alongside that flagship processor comes a max of 12GB of RAM supported by 256GB of storage along with dual SIM 5G connectivity and an under-display fingerprint sensor.

The phone doesn’t ease off when it comes to camera specs either. The main camera is a 108-megapixel wide-angle camera with optical image stabilisation. That’s joined by a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera with a 123-degree field of view.

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Rounding things off is a 5-megapixel macro camera, which Xiaomi says can focus on subjects just 3mm away from the lens. We’ll be interested to see this feature in action, because it sounds quite tantalising on the face of things.

Speaking of on the face of things, on front of the display we’ve got a 20-megapixel punch-hole camera for all of your selfie delights. The phone will run on Android 11 as well as the new MIUI 12.5 user interface.

Another thing to note is Xiaomi has become the latest phone maker to nix the charger from the box, following Apple’s iPhone 12 lead. Xiaomi also cites environmental reasons for the change.

Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi, says: “In response to the call of technology and environmental protection, the included charger is cancelled from the box. Hope to get your support. Is there a better solution between industry practice and environmental protection? Next Monday night, at the Mi 11 press conference, let’s talk.”

Pre-orders for the phone have already commenced in China, while there’s no news yet on UK availability quite yet. If it makes it to UK shores in the next few weeks, we’d expect the phone to cost around the same as the £799 the company charged for the Mi 10 handset.

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