This is a solid handset, but it stands little chance of becoming one of the best phones of 2022. The Redmi Note 11 Pro gains 5G but has a lower-grade processor, all things considered, and a significantly weaker camera array.

And it’s an excellent screen in all but one respect, which I’ll get into in a moment. It covers 95.4% of the sRGB gamut with a volume of 95.8%, meaning it displays a full range of colours in an accurate and vibrant way. Though it’s OLED technology, it still reaches a quite respectable 428cd/m², meaning it should be readable on all but the brightest of days. Being OLED tech, contrast is perfect, too. Thankfully, the Night mode here does have a worthwhile effect on photo quality. Images in very low light look poor when shot in Auto. The Night setting takes roughly 1.5-2 seconds to capture an image, reducing noise quite significantly. Colour improves and increased dynamic range leads to superior detail, too. The Redmi Note 11 has specs befitting its price: under the hood you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor, 4GB or 6GB of RAM, and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage. We recommend going for the 128GB option, although there is a microSDXC card slot as well for expanding the amount of room you've got for apps and files.

Solid Performance

The Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G display is probably its top feature, despite being extremely similar to the screen in last-generation’s Note 10 Pro. When we put the phone through the Geekbench 5 benchmark test, it returned a multi-core score of 2,175, which puts it in line with those other handsets we mentioned. It’s more powerful than a budget phone, but not as snappy as a true mid-ranger - which is exactly what you’d expect for a phone that sits between those categories in terms of price. Given the strong core componentry that sits at the heart of the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G, it’s a spec that more than holds its own among such company. Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G review: Design and key features The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro Plus is fairly powerful for a phone of its price - sure, you’re not getting flagship power, but we were impressed by the performance.

The undersaturation problem is present on selfies taken by the Redmi Note 11’s 13MP (f/2.4) front-facing camera too. I assure you I’m not pale in real life, and the closest representation is the picture on the left with all beauty features turned off. The middle one is the default setting, and the one on the right is the result of turning beauty all the way up (so much for being in the eye of the beholder – sorry about the nightmares.) The only distraction is the punch-hole camera in the center of the screen up at the top, which mostly stays out of the way. As we've said, the bezels are nice and slim, with the bottom chin the only real giveaway that this isn't a screen on a more expensive mid-range or even flagship smartphone. ISP power needs to be matched with well-designed software processing to get the best results. But even in perfectly lit scenes the Note 11 Pro seems to show noticeably greater noise and lesser mid-tone contrast and edge enhancement than the old Note 10 Pro. This has very much been a review of two halves: on the one hand, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11’s design and screen are truly top-notch and a great example of how you make a phone on a budget. But its performance is inconsistent in benchmarks and it offers underwhelming 3D gaming potential compared to its rivals. Its cameras are okay, but you can do better for the money. The camera’s ISP, image signal processor, is also inferior. As we’ll cover in the camera section, it results in far worse image quality than its predecessor and a hard limit of 1080p/30fps video recording. These factors considered, the Snapdragon 695 starts to look like a budget processor rather than a mid-range unit.Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 clearly is not a perfect fit for this phone, even if its raw CPU and GPU power are perfectly okay. The 4,500mAh battery will last you for a day, easily, but won’t stretch to a full second day - you’ll find yourself having to power up after about a day and a half if you’re ready to run your battery all the way down to zero. Want the ultra-rich colour OLED is renowned for? Well, you can have it in the Saturated screen mode. Colour can be tamed for more relaxed-looking tones by opting for the Standard mode.