Since reviewing the Xiaomi Mi 11, I have been thinking a lot about this new flagship device. The reason for this? It may be the first smartphone to get macro photography right, something many other phone makers struggle with.

Macro lenses often seem like an afterthought feature added to smartphones that can't afford more sophisticated cameras. However, this is not the case with the Mi 11. The macro lens captures good-looking close-ups without the usual problems encountered with other phones that have dedicated macro cameras.

Perhaps what helps the Mi 11 is that its macro camera is more accurately a "telemacro" camera, short for telephoto macro; the Mi 11's lens allows close-ups to be taken from farther away, keeping the subject bright and not scaring off bugs and other wildlife that you want to photograph This is useful for.

Most cell phone macro cameras want to get within 2 inches of the subject, which is often close enough that they cannot help but cast shadows on the subject or block light altogether. In contrast, the Mi 11 can comfortably take macro shots from a distance of about 4 inches. While not a huge difference in terms of size, there is a huge difference when it comes to framing the shot.

The macro camera on the Xiaomi Mi 11 uses a 5MP sensor. When shooting such small subjects, you need as many megapixels as you can get to show off the details and make the image bright enough to appreciate. Many phones with macro cameras use 2MP sensors instead, which makes the problems we have already seen even more obvious.

Taken together, the Mi 11's macro camera's excellent sensor and wide shooting range lead to some great shots, like this photo of coffee beans. Although the edges of the bean are out of focus, the texture on the side near the bean and the papery texture in the center are wonderfully detailed.

Or this image of my desktop buddy, Smithson the lion. The frayed fur and even the texture of the dull eyes can be seen in amazing detail; I tried to get a comparable shot with the Mi 11's 108MP main camera, but the sensor was unable to focus at this close range. Sometimes a cell phone's main camera can take better pictures than a dedicated macro camera, but not in this case.

One of the classic subjects for macro photography is flowers, but most phones I tested struggled to capture such shots. Even with professional-grade cameras, it is difficult to get the focus right and capture all of the plant heads.

The Mi 11 does better here than the other phones, but even then it is hard to say that all of the flowers are in focus. This is a limitation that occurs partially even with proper macro photography due to the limited depth of field required to bring small subjects into focus.

While we have been critical of the macro cameras on the phones we have reviewed previously, we have recognized that if they take decent pictures, macro cameras can be a valuable addition to a phone's camera array Xiaomi has proven how valuable a cell phone can be in providing a macro camera Xiaomi has succeeded in doing just that. [and we hope to see telemacro cameras like this one on other flagships as well.