Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE review

Battery life

Having the same 4,250 mAh battery on board and running a similar chipset, we were expecting little to no difference in the battery tests between the "Old Edition" and the "New Edition". However, we were met with rather big discrepancies, mostly in the screen-on tests and the 3G call runtimes.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

The new variant seems to be doing a lot better than its older sibling in this regard and we are inclined to attribute this to the SoC change. Although very similar at first, the newer SoC could have been optimized a bit better and the difference in the manufacturing process (5nm Samsung vs 6nm TSMC) could play a part in all of this as well.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.

In any case, we are quite impressed by the runtimes achieved with a smaller than average 4,250 mAh battery and the overall decrease in performance might be worth it after all. The Snapdragon 778G clearly overtakes the Snapdragon 780G in terms of power efficiency.

Speakers

The Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE has a stereo speaker setup of the hybrid kind - there is one dedicated speaker at the bottom, while the front-facing earpiece acts as the second speaker. That doesn't mean they are not well-balanced, though. Loudness from the two speakers didn't vary much. Loudness is identical to the original 11 Lite 5G and so is sound quality. Mid-tones sound nice and so do the vocals but higher-pitched sounds are not ideal. The handset also leaves more to be desired in terms of bass and overall fullness, although that's usually the weak spot for most smartphones.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Performance

The Snapdragon 778G (Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE) is supposedly almost identical to the Snapdragon 780G (Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G) on paper, but in reality, they are quite different SoCs. And we are not talking about the difference in the manufacturing process. While their model designations sound quite similar, there are differences in the CPU configuration and GPU performance between the two.

Even though the GPU models - Adreno 642 and 642L - suggest little to no difference in the GPU performance, it's evident from the benchmarks that the Snapdragon 778G's GPU is sensibly less powerful.

What makes things a bit more complicated, however, is the CPU configuration. Now, according to Qualcomm's official website as well as Wikipedia's list of Qualcomm SoCs, they should employ the same octa-core CPUs in 1+3+4 configuration running the same clock speeds. But that's not really the case.

A quick check using CPU-Z reveals that the SD778G is actually running largely different clock speeds. Qualcomm says we have 1x 2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 (Kryo 670 Prime) + 3x 2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 (Kryo 670 Gold) + 4x 1.9 GHz Cortex-A55 (Kryo 670 Silver) on both chipsets. CPU-Z reads the following on the Snapdragon 778G - 4x 2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 + 4x 1.8 GHz - pretty straightforward, although some additional testing confirmed they are indeed clustered in 1+3+4 core configuration. It's just that the CPU core 1 (the Kryo 670 Prime core) and CPU cores 2, 3, and 4 (the three Kryo 670 Gold cores) are all clocked the same in contrast to the Snapdragon 780 config.

The Snapdragon 780G is as advertised - only the main Cortex-A78 (Kryo 670 Prime) boosts up to 2.4 GHz while the other three Cortex-A78 cores (Kryo 670 Gold) tick at 2.2 GHz. The Cortex-A55 (Kryo 670 Silver) are as listed on the Wikipedia page running at 1.9 GHz.

So one would expect the Snapdragon 778G to perform a bit better in CPU-heavy workloads. However, our tests revealed that the two chipsets trade blows in compound system loads and pure CPU-bound tasks. The actual real-world difference is in fact rather negligible.

The real difference between the Snapdragon 778G and 780G lies in the graphics department and the Snapdragon 780G takes a clear lead in graphically intensive tasks.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  3555
• Realme GT Master
  2917
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  2909
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  2832
• OnePlus Nord 2
  2792
• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  1820
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  1337

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  1139
• OnePlus Nord 2
  814
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  803
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  787
• Realme GT Master
  785
• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  636
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  574

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  810433
• OnePlus Nord 2
  598022
• Realme GT Master
  529263
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  527663
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  522490
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  386474
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  373168

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  112
• OnePlus Nord 2
  75
• Poco X3 Pro
  75
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  65
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  56
• Realme GT Master
  56
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  37
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  32

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  67
• Realme GT 5G
  60
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  57
• OnePlus Nord 2
  57
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  49
• Realme GT Master
  46
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  33
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  28

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  65
• OnePlus Nord 2
  46
• Poco X3 Pro
  45
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  40
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  33
• Realme GT Master
  33
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  19

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  55
• OnePlus Nord 2
  38
• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  35
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  28
• Realme GT Master
  27
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  19
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  16

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Realme GT 5G
  5872
• OnePlus Nord 2
  4224
• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  3136
• Realme GT Master
  2481
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  2477
• Google Pixel 5a 5G
  1674
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  1107

In the charts above, we've also included a couple of similarly-priced phones running the higher-tier Snapdragon 888 and 870 along with MediaTek's Dimensity 1200 SoC powering up the OnePlus Nord 2. Of course, the Snapdragon 778G can't keep up against those three. On the other hand, other phones in the same price range employing the Snapdragon 765G and 750G are providing lower overall performance than the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE's SD778G so it still remains competitive.

As for the memory configurations, they remain untouched from the old model for the most part - 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB and 8GB/256GB. The difference, this time around, is that the 8GB/128GB variant is considered to be the main one and launches at the same price as the original 6GB/128GB MI 11 Lite 5G. The 6GB/128GB version will still be available but only in select markets and at a lower €369 price tag.