Xiaomi is not one of the fastest manufacturers when it comes to Android updates. The biggest negative example is the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, which has been running in Europe for over a year on Android 12 and MIUI 13 with the security patch from June 2022. Xiaomi had already released MIUI 14 in October 2022. And before the end of the year, the first rollout schedules for the new firmware and various Xiaomi cell phones came. So where is the update?
After more than a year of waiting, we assume that it will not come anymore because Xiaomi made a mistake. The European markets may have simply been overlooked. But maybe there are simply too few cases for the combination Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and Europe, since the best camera phone at the time was only sold directly through Xiaomi in Europe.
Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra: Region settings bring Android 13 and MIUI 14
So we tried a trick. In the settings under Region we have set our Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra to India. India is the largest Xiaomi market to get the global version of MIUI 14 and not the Chinese ROM. And the global version also contains all language versions in its 4.5 GB download, of course.
A few seconds after changing the region, our Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra already displayed the first, smaller update. After downloading and installing, neither Android nor MIUI version changed. Immediately afterwards, however, the next update notification came – MIUI 14 based on Android 13 was ready for installation. The new firmware has the version number 14.0.4.0 and also contains the Android security patch from May 2023. Although the patch is no longer entirely up-to-date, it is at least a year more up-to-date than before.
According to Xiaomi, MIUI 14 is completely new software with a new system architecture. The firmware size has been significantly reduced, as has the memory usage, which should lead to a 60% higher working speed. The big question is whether future updates, if any are planned, will come automatically again. We will inquire in India at regular intervals.
