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. This camera’s secondary cameras are standard fodder. You get an 8MP ultra-wide and a poor 2MP macro. As is the case with all ultra-low-res macros, it takes bad pictures. Sure, you can focus up close, but the detail is rendered at such low fidelity you just don’t get the eye beguiling effect that makes macro photography worthwhile. Video is below average, however. Maximum shooting resolution is 1080p at 30 frames per second. Footage looks shaky even at this level, so if you want a phone to shoot a lot of video, this isn’t it. 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. In typical fashion, the speaker above the screen is less bassy than the one on the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G’s bottom, but there is not a huge volume disparity here. That can make the sound seem lopsided in other phones.

Camera quality was the standout part of the Redmi Note 10 Pro. The Redmi Note 11 Pro is a substantial downgrade in some respects, without getting rid of the most important part: decent primary camera hardware.This nudges the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G closer to the image quality of Xiaomi phones that on paper place much less importance on camera quality – the Poco X3 Pro, for example. Like many expensive smartphones, the Redmi Note 11 Pro combines 9 pixels of its 108 MP sensor into one pixel. The result is pictures that are supposed to be better in quality than a sensor with native 12 MP, according to the manufacturer. This impression cannot be confirmed directly in reality, but the photos of the main camera still make a good impression. With sufficient light, they are crisp and look convincing with rich, but not too gaudy colours. The ace up the Redmi Note 11 Pro’s sleeve here is the provision of a 67W fast charger in the box, which Xiaomi claims is good for zero to 50% in just 15 minutes and 100% in 42 minutes. Unfortunately, I experienced a weird but persistent bug with my test unit that saw the screen powering on almost permanently whenever the phone was charging, which slowed the process considerably. Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G review: Cameras

It’s also good to see that, unlike just about every other manufacturer, Xiaomi can still produce glass phones at this price. The Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G has a Gorilla Glass 5 display cover and an unspecified flat glass rear panel. 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.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G has a stunning 6.6 inch Full HD+ 120Hz screen, so you can text, stream, and edit on a crystal clear display. Budget phones at this price are rarely capable of taking great photos at night, and the Redmi Note 11 continues this tradition: if there's no or very little light available then you probably won't get the photo you're looking for, even with the night mode switched on. If there is a bit of light and your subjects keep still, you might just get something usable. It took a couple of minutes under an hour to get to full, but there may be an explanation. The phone’s screen kept on waking during charging, as the phone switched between “charging” and “fast charging” states – which seems like a bug. Even if the phone decides to switch to slower charging because of battery temperature, a sensible enough move, there’s no need to constantly wake the screen up to do so.

Battery life in the 60Hz mode is noticeably better, enough to get you to 30-plus per cent residual charge by bed time with the same kind of moderate use, without periods of battery-draining gaming. 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 Redmi Note 11 comes with a quad-lens rear camera made up of a 50MP wide lens, an 8MP ultrawide lens, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP depth lens. On the front, there's a single 13MP wide lens which is good enough for straightforward selfie shots and video calls through whatever apps you want to use. Xiaomi hasn’t attempted anything drastically new with its latest premium-affordable phone. We’ve seen 120Hz AMOLED displays before at this end of the market in the Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Poco X3 NFC. The former also squeezed in a 108MP main camera, which remains a highlight in this newer model. Plus, the large battery with 67W Turbo Charging allows you to be on the go in a pinch, with 50% of charge in just 15 minutes.

I think this is likely the case here, too; but even after diving into the menus and singling out these audio apps as ones to be ignored by the battery management software, the problem wasn’t entirely resolved. Camera There’s one big downgrade that we haven’t yet mentioned. Video recording has been dropped to a rather pitiful 1080p at 30fps, whereas the Redmi Note 10 Pro supported 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps.

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G isn’t a full-proof smash of a camera like, say, the Pixel 5a. But it is fun to play around with, and some of the controls are worth exploring. For example, sometimes you’ll get more satisfying results by switching from “Auto HDR” to “HDR.” You can think of the latter as “maximum HDR,” because it almost always takes dynamic range enhancement a step further. It can be useful for high light contrast scenes like sunsets. In practice the two generations, the Note 10 Pro and Note 11 Pro, appear to be on a level in terms of performance. Day-to-day navigation is fairly swift, but with sub-flagship app-load speeds. And gaming performance is mediocre but, ultimately, perfectly good enough for many people’s needs. One feature you don't get here in 5G, which is a shame – the next-gen connectivity tech is showing up on most phones nowadays, even budget ones, and with 5G becoming more widely available (in urban areas at least) it's an omission that might put you off the Redmi Note 11. On the other hand, you might say, we've all been living perfectly well with 4G for the last few years. It would have been nice to get more than a small boost to performance, faster charging and 5G connectivity this time around. Meanwhile, the Note 11 Pro 5G’s camera has actually regressed in certain respects. There are mitigating factors, of course. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G’s screen is lovely, the speakers are good. You can simply get phones much better suited to the job of playing games if that is your top priority. Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G softwareThis places the Note 11 Pro 5G in the same ballpark as the Poco M4 Pro 5G and the Nokia X10 , and just below the likes of the Realme 8 Pro and the Moto Edge 20 Lite.