The Redmi Note 10 series was one of the most hyped budget smartphones last year, and now we have the Redmi Note 11 series. With this new addition to their series, will they be able to carry the same hype as last year?
Pros
Great minimalistic design
Excellent battery life
Decent camera
Cons
Doesn’t have a 4k video recording
Tons of bloatware applications
Build & Design
They did some tweaking to their design last year, instead of a glossy finish they added a matte feel to it in addition to its squared edges and chassis that resembles the current iPhone. Although the camera bump is still protruded, they manage to organize the camera sensors, unlike other smartphones. Taking a good look at it it gives a simple yet astonishing design on its back. It is clean and it also feels comfortable on the hand.
Taking a closer look at its camera module, it’s quite protruded since the main sensor has its own module on top of the actual camera module. It is equipped with 3 lenses 1 LED flash and an AI text.
Around its frame, It is equipped with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated into its power button, and alongside that are the volume rockers. Underneath is the USB-C port, sim-tray, and a speaker grille, and up top is an infrared scanner, secondary mic, and another speaker grille.
Display
Last year, one of the highlights of the Redmi Note 10 series was their display, Well this one boasts pretty much the same display. A 6.67-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED display, a 120hz refresh rate, 1200nits of peak brightness, and still carries the same corning gorilla glass 5 protection. One thing that we noticed is that it doesn’t have HDR10 support which is quite a bummer considering their differences in price.
In terms of quality, It works great for binge-watching, gaming, and other entertainment use. It has thin bezels, and a not that thick chin, the color is impressive as always, and just like I mentioned earlier it has a peak brightness of 1200nits so using it outdoor won’t be a problem.
For its display settings, we have the option to change its color scheme based on our preference, it also has a dark mode, reading mode, and even a VR option. Although it doesn’t have an adaptive refresh rate so it’s either you pick the 120hz or the 60hz. Either way, AMOLED is power-saving so it can pretty much carry the burden of a standard 120hz.
Camera
Moving forward to its cameras, The Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G is equipped with a triple camera setup. A 108MP primary snapper, 8MP ultrawide, and 2MP Macro. While the punch hole cutout in the front houses a 16MP selfie camera. I think the only takeaway here is that they could have opted for a different sensor rather than the 2MP one and that for its price, it lacks 4K video recording.
In terms of quality, the 108MP main cam outputs decent colors and vibrancy. There are soft spots, but oftentimes the output tends to have an under-exposed image that changes the color tone. It has some decent clarity and a wide dynamic range. Sometimes you get deep blacks but it depends on the subject.
Taking pictures in low light and turning night mode on, doesn’t give justice to the subject. It has a noisy output, although it does pop out some details in exchange for a warmer tone. Although taking picture of a subject that has a decent amount of light source gives an impressive overall quality. Sharp, detailed, and a more stable white balance.
As for its macro, there are no visible grains but we do get a lot of soft outputs. It does show some impressive details and vibrant colors. For this kind of price point, I think they can pretty much sell their device without having a 2MP macro, they can add a different lens, which would contribute to the 108MP sensor for better quality.
As for the 16MP selfie, it outputs a true-to-life skin tone, it also gives impressive color to its background giving an impressive overall image quality. You can add beautification to make your face clearer but not too drastic. Nonetheless, selfie images are sharp, detailed, and have good colors.
It doesn’t come with tons of camera features, but you pretty much have the basic ones, like the long exposure shots, time-lapse, slow motion, 108MP mode, dual video, and panorama. One of the takeaways here is that it can only shoot up to 1080p@30fps which is quite a bummer considering its price. Although it does have some impressive camera results but still lacking.
Performance
Under the hood, the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G is powered by a 6nm Snapdragon 695 5G paired with Adreno 619 GPU. Although last year’s chipset has a higher CPU clock speed, this one has a smaller transistor for saving battery, and it also shows higher benchmark scores. Our review unit comes with 8GB of ram which is expandable via the storage, and 128GB of internal storage.
We uploaded a full gaming review of this unit on our YouTube channel, Click here if you want to watch the full gaming review.
Software
For its software, it still runs on Android 11 which is a bit of a bummer, since Android 12 is starting to pop out on some of the smartphones we have. Its Android 11 is slapped with an MIUI 13 OS also the 120hz shows a smooth transition and animations to the MIUI 13 OS but the problem is it comes with tons of pre-loaded applications and bloatware.
Battery
In terms of battery life, we put the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G’s 5000mAh battery through its paces for two hours of nonstop gaming. Our battery dropped from 100% to 79%, which is already an impressive result. Even tho we set the refresh rate to 120Hz it doesn’t drain our battery that fast thanks to the 6nm chipset and the power-saving super AMOLED panel. Juicing up the device with its 67W fast charging only took us a full hour, so if you are always on the go, you just plug it in for a quick minute and you can pretty much use the device again.
Verdict
So for the price of Php 15,999, it offers capable performance, long battery life, a smooth and sharp Super AMOLED screen, and a whopping 108MP main sensor, the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G pretty much carries the same vibe as last year, but it lacks the hype. Although you will get what you paid for if ever you want to purchase this device, it just lacks the value that it offers like last year’s Redmi note 10.
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