This is not a regular review of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11.

There are a handful of reasons for this, with the first being that our fully fledged review of the Redmi Note 11 Pro was only published a few weeks ago.

More than this though, we thought it would be more interesting to evaluate the Redmi Note 11 against the backdrop of the swathe of solidly specced and well priced mid-range phones that have hit the local market.

Lay of the land

This device certainly has its work cut out, especially when you consider more established names in the South African smartphone sector, like Samsung, have their own devices comparable to the Redmi Note 11.

As such let’s look at the Redmi Note 11, which retails locally for R5 299 (RRP) and determine whether it is indeed worth considering in an already saturated mid-range Android phone market.

To gauge its worth, we spent the past two weeks with the Redmi Note 11, along with a four other mid-range devices such as the truly impressive (and more expensive) POCO X4 Pro 5G.

A busy few weeks ahead in terms of mid-range phone reviews. First up will be the POCO X4 Pro 5G and Xiaomi Redmi Note 11. We may also be giving away one of these devices (brand new), so watch this space. pic.twitter.com/lJxuMCJL2r

— Hypertext (@htxtafrica) May 16, 2022

What’s on offer

Well for R5 299 (RRP) you are getting quite a bit of phone. Sure some corners have been cut, but not in a way that is to the detriment of the device. There is a plastic back cover for example, but it feels solid and with the matte finish helps the phone feel a bit more premium than most.

Added to this is a fairly generous 6.43″ (2400×1080) display which is bright and crisp enough to enjoy movies and videos. There’s a power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor for biometrics too and a Type-C port for 33W charging. Speaking of the battery, a large 5 000mAh unit is present.

In terms of the internal elements our review model is running a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset, which supports 4G.

While the previous components have all been par for the course of late, here is where things get a little different. This as 5G has begun to filter down to this segment of the market and while 5G connectivity is not ubiquitous in SA, having a device ready to support has become increasingly common.

In this respect then, the Redmi Note 11 is a little out gunned, which is a point we made about the Pro model a few weeks ago, noting that it might be best to wait for Xiaomi to release its 5G flavours of this series locally before buying one of the initial devices.

While 5G phones carry a slightly higher price tag compared to their similar specced counterparts, if we are talking about investing in a phone that will last you more than two years, it has become a feature to consider when buying a phone these days, especially when the margins between devices is so small.

Lack of 5G aside, in terms of performance the Redmi Note 11 is solid. It does not prove overly impressive in this department, but also does not show any signs of strain or lacking in capability.

This mirrored the benchmarking scores, with this phone registering a single-core and multi-core score of 384 and 1 037 on GeekBench respectively.

For comparison the Pro variant got 520 and 1 799, while something like the POCO M3 Pro 5G that we reviewed last year scored 557 and 1 757.

As for the camera performance, that is where the Redmi Note 11 shines. On the rear you will find a quartet of lenses – 50MP wide-angle, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensing.

This sort of mix is fairly standard on mid-range phones these days, but not all have the capabilities of the Note 11 in different lighting conditions. We also enjoyed the 50MP option in the Pro mode of the camera app quite a bit, as it yielded the nuance and detail we wanted while snapping pictures, while also being fairly rapid when needed.

Final verdict

At R5 299 (RRP), the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 is as solid a mid-range phone as you’ll find, with a pleasing design, nice finish, intuitive user interface, economical battery and bright display all ticking the necessary boxes.

The problem is that many other mid-range phones can make the same claim, with some adding support for 5G to the mix to sweeten the deal. Yes, these devices are likely more expensive than the Redmi Note 11, but if we are talking about spending money wisely for the long run, there are better options than this one.

In an increasingly crowded space, the Redmi Note 11 is a good phone. It is simply not as good as some of other devices we have, or are, reviewing of late.