Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G in the Redmi Note 11 Pro series in India earlier. This month as the successor to last year’s Redmi Note 10 Pro series. It was announced earlier this year as the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G. While it retains the 120Hz AMOLED screen and 108MP camera from the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. It adds 5G support, the new Snapdragon 695 SoC and comes with 67W fast charging. Is the price of the phone 50,000 rupees? 20,999? Dive into our review to find out.
Box Contents
- Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G 8GB + 128GB in Phantom White colour
- 67W fast charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Clear protective case
- Screen protector (Pre-installed)
- User guide
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G features a 6.67-inch. Full HD+ AMOLED display with a pixel resolution of 2400 × 1080 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio 2.5D curved glass screen. and a pixel density of around 395 PPI. The display is bright, thanks to 700 nits (HBM) and 1200 nits (peak) brightness. Which is activated when you’re watching HDR content. It supports DCI-P3 wide color gamut, so colors are vivid.
It has a 120Hz display refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling rate, which. When enabled provides a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you’re scrolling. Through the UI and when gaming. It doesn’t have adaptive refresh rate, so it can only switch between 90Hz and 120Hz. It also has HDR 10 support. The phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection.
Under display options, there are various options to adjust color. And contrast based on your preferences. There’s also a reading mode that lets you reduce the display’s blue light emission. So it doesn’t strain your eyes when you’re reading at night. Like other MIUI phones there is dark mode. It doesn’t have DC dimming or an anti-flicker mode. But I haven’t noticed any flickering issues in low-light situations.
The phone has an always-on display option, which can be enabled from the display settings. Since it’s an AMOLED screen, it doesn’t consume much power. But the company says it increases power consumption. So it automatically turns off if the phone is dark for a long time. Or battery saver restrictions are applied. It doesn’t have super wallpapers or live wallpapers.
The phone has a small 2.96m punch-hole that houses a 16-megapixel camera. Which doesn’t bother watching videos as it only occupies a small space. Above the display is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles as a secondary speaker. Xiaomi says it has 1.76 mm ultra narrow side bezels to make it compact.
In terms of button placement, the volume rocker. And power button that integrates the fingerprint sensor are on the right side of the phone. At the top is a 3.5mm audio jack, vents for speakers, secondary microphone and an infrared sensor. The hybrid dual SIM slot, loudspeaker grill. Primary microphone and USB Type-C port are present at the bottom. Since the phone has a polycarbonate frame, you don’t see any antenna cutouts. The phone features a Z-axis linear vibration motor. Which enables custom vibration patterns across the UI for an optimal haptic experience.
Although the phone has a large screen, it is easy to hold as it is 76.1 wide. It is 8.12 mm thick and weighs 202 grams as it houses a massive, 5000mAh battery.
We have the Phantom White color, but the phone also comes in Stealth Black and Mirage Blue. The black and white models have an anti-glare. matte finish that doesn’t attract fingerprints. But have a unique back design with a Mirage Blue color pattern. Xiaomi says it uses toughened glass on the back, but it lacks Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection. The phone has an IP53 rating for splash resistance which you rarely see in other phones in the range.
Camera
- 108MP primary rear camera with Samsung ISOCELL HM2 sensor, f/1.9 aperture, Dual Native ISO, EIS
- 8MP Ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 2MP macro camera with sensor, f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front camera with f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI is familiar with other Xiaomi smartphones running MIUI 13. You get all the features like Pro, Night, 108MP, Short Video, Panorama, Documents, Slow Motion. Time-Lapse, Dual Video, AI Watermark, Long Exposure and Pro. Mode lets you adjust white balance, focus, shutter speed (1/4000 to 15 seconds). ISO (50 to 6400) and the option to select prime. Ultra-wide and macro lenses. You can also shoot in RAW in Pro mode and enable focus peaking. Exposure verification and more options. Xiaomi has enabled Cam2API by default. So you can side-load ported Google Camera APKs for advanced. Editing including RAW capture.
Coming to image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range. After nine-pixel binning technology, you get 12MP output. HDR shots are even better with improved dynamic range. 8MP wide-angle shots are decent. 108MP mode that offers a lot of detail and can go up to 25MB in size. While there’s no telephoto lens, it uses software to offer up to 10x digital zoom. It’s like taking a photo and cropping it up later. Even at 2x zoom, images start to lose detail, so it’s not recommended to go beyond 2x if you don’t want to lose detail. The dedicated 2MP macro sensor is average. Wish the company would have added a telemacro camera, which was present in the Note 10 Pro series. Edge detection on decent portrait shots, though it lacks a dedicated portrait camera
Low-light shots are good, thanks to the 9-in-1 Super Pixel technology. That allows the camera’s sensor hardware to combine 4 pixels into a single 2.1μm large pixel. And Night Mode is even better, brightening up images by offering more detail. Photos with flash are good, and flash is not overwhelming. Daylight front camera shots from the 16-megapixel front camera are decent. But could have been better. Output is 16MP in resolution. Portrait shots have decent edge detection, although this is done using software.
The main limitation of the Snapdragon 695 is that it can record videos up to 1080p at 30 fps resolution. And despite having a 108MP camera, it doesn’t support 4K video recording. It also has slow motion recording at 720p. You can also shoot 1080p video using the ultra-wide and 720p video using the macro camera.
Software, UI and Apps
It runs Android 11 out of the box, with MIUI 13 on top. It has the latest February, 2022 Android security patch. MIUI 13 allows you to uninstall several system apps. The company says it will get the Android 12 update soon, but there is no exact date yet. MIUI 13 builds on MIUI 12.5 to improve features like battery life improvements. And performance improvements and also brings features like sidebar.
Since the phone has an infrared sensor for remote function, it comes with Mi Remote. Which allows you to easily control your home appliances. Out of 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM, you get 7.44GB of usable RAM and around 3.6GB of RAM is free. When default apps are running in the background. This is up to 3GB of memory extension or virtual RAM, which you can disable from the more settings. Out of 128GB, you get around 101.6GB of free storage. It has UFS 2.2 storage, but we got sequential read speeds of around 497MB/s.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps, Google apps. And Xiaomi’s own set of apps. It comes preloaded with Amazon Shopping, Facebook, Prime Video and Spotify apps. It also asks for more app installation during setup, which you can skip. You can easily uninstall these apps. But they come when you reset the phone While all apps have options for personalized ads. During setup and recommendations, you won’t get any ads in the app.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
Although it has an AMOLED screen, the phone has a fingerprint sensor. On the ride side, embedded within the power button. It instantly unlocks the phone by placing your finger on the power button so you don’t have to press it. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. The power button also has gesture features that let you double tap to take a screenshot. Turn on the torch, launch the camera, and more. The phone also has face unlock, but it’s not as secure as fingerprint.
Music Player and Multimedia
Mi Music Player is the default music player. With the usual Xiaomi audio effects and equalizer. It has FM radio with recording. Audio loud through speakers. Since the phone has stereo speakers, the audio is quite loud. But, the back of the phone does not vibrate at high volume which is found in POCO X3 and few other phones. Audio through earphones is also good. There is Dolby Atmos and Hi-Fi audio which enhances the audio performance.
It has Widevine L1 support, so you can play HD content on Netflix. Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps without any issues. It has HDR but it doesn’t work on YouTube or Netflix. Which was a feature available on the Redmi Note 10 Pro and Pro Max models.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 5G and supports 7 5G bands (N1,N3,N5,N8,N28,N40,N41 and N78). It has 4G VoLTE for Reliance Jio, Airtel and other networks. And supports dual 4G VoLTE which offers 4G on both SIM cards at the same time. The phone also supports carrier aggregation. Other connectivity options include Dual-Band Wi-Fi 802.11 ac. It has VoWiFi/Wi-Fi calling support, Bluetooth 5.1 LE, dual GPS/AGPS, Glonass, Beidou, but lacks NFC. It also has USB OTG support that lets you connect USB drives Call quality is good. And we didn’t experience any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud.
Body SAR of Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is 0.583W/Kg (distance 15mm) and head SAR is 0.861/Kg. Which is below the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 gram) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
In GPU performance compared to its predecessor. The phone has up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. We didn’t encounter any issues or frame drops in graphic-intensive games. In BGMI it supports up to HD – high settings, in COD mobile it supports high – greatest settings. It reaches up to 41°C indoors with Wi-Fi, with about half an hour of intensive gaming.
That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see from the benchmarks, the SoC is on par with the Dimension 810. But the Snapdragon 778G and Dimension 900 series are better.
Battery life
In terms of battery life, the phone has a 5000mAh (normal) built-in battery. That lasts 2 days on average usage and even a day on heavy usage, thanks to the optimizations in MIUI 13. I got about 4 hours of screen on time with over two days of use at a 120Hz refresh rate.
It has 67W fast charging which can charge up to 50% in 15 minutes and 100% in around 50 minutes. The phone gets a little warm while charging.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs 20,999, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is a decent upgrade to the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. Significant upgrades to the processor and charging and 5G support are a welcome step. But the Snapdragon 695 chip limits video recording to 1080p 30 fps. And the chip’s overall performance is average.
Alternatives
If you’re looking for a gaming phone, the Realme 9 SE 5G is a good option with the Snapdragon 778G SoC and 144Hz LCD screen. But you’ll miss out on the AMOLED screen and camera. The iQOO Z5 5G also has the same Snapdragon 778G chip and is aimed at gamers. If you don’t need a 108MP camera and can manage with a 64MP camera. You can wait for the POCO X4 Pro 5G which will launch next week as it will be cheaper.
Availability
Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is priced at Rs. 20,999 for the 6GB + 128GB model, while the 8GB + 128GB model is priced at Rs. 22,999 and the 8GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 24,999. It is available from Amazon.in, Mi.com, Mi Home store and offline stores.
