The Be aware 11 Professional 5G comes with above common audio system, show high quality and construct. Nevertheless, the handset’s cameras aren’t pretty much as good as these included with its predecessor, plus efficiency doesn’t match as much as that of another Xiaomi telephones on the similar stage.

Introduction

The Xiaomi Redmi 11 Professional 5G is the successor to what would possibly simply be my favorite telephone of final yr, the Redmi Note 10 Pro.

This can be a strong handset, however it stands little likelihood of changing into one of many best phones of 2022. The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional good points 5G however has a lower-grade processor, all issues thought of, and a considerably weaker digital camera array.

Xiaomi launched a number of stand-out reasonably priced telephones final yr, such because the surprisingly highly effective Poco X3 Pro and the glass-reared Redmi Be aware 10 Professional, with its low-bloat digital camera array. The Xiaomi Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G has little of this “stand out” character.

It excels in show tech, with the 6.67-inch 120Hz OLED unlikely to be considerably bettered at this worth.

And that worth? It prices $329 within the US and €299 in Europe, more likely to equate to at the least £279 within the UK. That is for the mannequin that comes with 64GB storage; the 128GB model reviewed is more likely to price a bit extra.

It’s a strong deal, then, and there are many issues to love right here. Nevertheless, it does really feel considerably as if a lot of Xiaomi’s price range dynamism is draining away, significantly when on the within the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G is near-identical to the Xiaomi Poco X4 Pro.

Design

• Flat glass again
• Massive, however not excessively chunky
• Good stereo audio system

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G seems to be fairly totally different to its predecessor – and nearly each different current price range Xiaomi telephone. Final-generation comparable Androids had been massive, curvy slabs that felt huge. Too huge for some, maybe, however largely match for an viewers on the lookout for a big-screen Android providing higher worth than a extra crowd-pleasing Samsung.

Curves are out this yr, changed by straighter sides and a boxier really feel. Whereas I desire the Redmi Be aware 10 Professional’s curved glass rear, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G does really feel barely trimmer than some price range Xiaomi telephones because of its pretty svelte 8.1mm thickness.

It’s additionally good to see that, not like nearly each different producer, Xiaomi can nonetheless produce glass telephones at this worth. The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G has a Gorilla Glass 5 show cowl and an unspecified flat glass rear panel.

When a glass kind isn’t specified you could be positive it’s a less expensive, much less resilient kind than the current era of Gorilla Glass. Nonetheless, the again of this system feels considerably higher than the plastic rear of the step-down Redmi Be aware 11 – the “non Professional” model.

The rear glass has a clean matte end, with a delicate light-reactive layer – though Xiaomi’s pictures recommend the blue model is a bit more eye-catching.

The edges are plastic, however the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G construct is all-round a reduce above a lot of the competitors. Xiaomi features a case within the field, and you must in all probability use it; however it can disguise the handsome rear end.

There’s no factory-applied display screen protector this time round, which is a disgrace. Whereas these are at all times easy sheets of plastic, they do at the least keep away from you by chance scratching the display screen earlier than you’ve even determined whether or not to go bare or play it protected with a display screen protector.

Different elements to the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G are typical Xiaomi. The telephone comes with excellent stereo audio system for a price range Android. Most quantity is powerful, the tone isn’t skinny, and together with drivers on the backside and above the display screen is at all times a profit for panorama video and gaming.

An IR blaster sits on the highest, too. The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G can operate as a common distant, utilizing the preinstalled Mi Distant app. There’s a microSD card slot within the SIM tray, however a few of you could be barely disenchanted to be taught that this blocks the second SIM. You possibly can both use two SIMs or one SIM and a reminiscence card.

Water/dust-resistance is IP53, enough to protect in opposition to a bit rain – however not submersion in water. It’s sometimes strong stuff of the sort I anticipate to see from a Xiaomi system at this stage, and the audio system are a real spotlight of the telephone.

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G show might be its high characteristic, regardless of being extraordinarily much like the display screen in last-generation’s Be aware 10 Professional.

It’s a 6.67-inch OLED panel with a 2400 x 1080 decision and a most refresh charge of 120Hz. In particular person, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G show compares at the least pretty properly with any telephone at any worth.

Need the ultra-rich color OLED is famend for? Properly, you possibly can have it within the Saturated display screen mode. Color could be tamed for extra relaxed-looking tones by choosing the Customary mode.

The peerless distinction of OLED is evident to see once you watch movies late at night time or in dimmed rooms. There’s not one of the black luminance of the still-excellent IPS-level LCDs utilized in another reasonably priced Xiaomi telephones, no seen backlight glow when the display screen is seen off-axis.

Xiaomi says the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G display screen’s peak brightness is a flagship-grade 1200 nits. Nevertheless, what you’ll see in observe is round 700 nits, the declare for the Excessive Brightness Mode (HBM).

In direct daylight the calibration of the display screen shifts to enhance visibility, enjoying with color and distinction for the perfect end result. It’s an amazing characteristic to have in a lower-cost telephone.

There’s no dynamic refresh charge right here, nevertheless. After utilizing the Developer Choices mode to get a read-out of the refresh charge, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G seems to make use of 120Hz persistently other than in apps that don’t assist 120Hz, then dropping to 60Hz. Some higher-end OLED panels can dynamically shift refresh charges to enhance battery life.

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G additionally seems to lack assist for HDR video. HDR clips on YouTube will play on the outdated Be aware 10 Professional, however solely run at customary dynamic vary on the brand new telephone.

Efficiency

• Weak, if environment friendly, processor
• Not nice for gaming
• … at the least it has 5G

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G runs Android 11 and the MIUI interface. It comes with a number of additional apps put in, together with a small handful of video games that few house owners are more likely to need. However you possibly can uninstall them in a minute or two.

In the event you personal a Xiaomi from the previous couple of years, the drop-down menu model is one thing new to which you’ll need to turn into accustomed. Older Redmi telephones make you swipe down as soon as for notifications, twice for characteristic toggles. The brand new model sees you swipe from the left or proper of the display screen to decide on which you need.

All different elements of the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G interface are enterprise as traditional. Xiaomi helps you to select whether or not or to not use an app drawer. Traditional smooth keys and gesture navigation are choices, too.

On the telephone’s centre, you’ll discover a Snapdragon 695 processor. It’s one of many newest in a rising line of Qualcomm chipsets meant to let producers produce 5G telephones at an affordable price.

It’s an improve over the last-generation Snapdragon 732G that featured within the Be aware 10 Professional in some instances, a downgrade in others – letting us as soon as once more see the “worth of 5G” in motion. In Geekbench 5, the Be aware 11 Professional 5G scores 2014 factors to the 1500 of the final era. It’s a wholesome achieve, because of a swap from 4-series Kryo cores to 6-series ones.

There’s a lot much less of an enchancment within the GPU, its 3DMark Wild Life rating of 1213 representing a lower than 10% enhance during the last era. As such, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G is miles behind performance-led Xiaomi fashions such because the Poco X3 Professional and Poco F3.

Proper now, you should purchase the Poco F3 for lower than the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G, and the Snapdragon 870 will completely flatten the Snapdragon 695 for gaming.

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G can nonetheless play demanding video games properly sufficient, although. However Fortnite is proscribed to fundamental graphics settings at 30fps, and titles that really allow you to use settings outdoors the potential of your telephone –  ARK: Survival Advanced, for instance – will chug if you happen to make the visuals look too good.

In observe the 2 generations, the Be aware 10 Professional and Be aware 11 Professional, look like on a stage by way of efficiency. Day-to-day navigation is pretty swift, however with sub-flagship app-load speeds. And gaming efficiency is mediocre however, in the end, completely adequate for many individuals’s wants.

So why, in some senses, is the Snapdragon 695 worse than the Snapdragon 732G – regardless of delivering higher CPU efficiency and marginally higher GPU energy? Because it introduces restrictions not seen within the earlier era. No HDR assist in YouTube? That seems to be a Snapdragon-related reduce.

The digital camera’s ISP, picture sign processor, can be inferior. As we’ll cowl within the digital camera part, it leads to far worse picture high quality than its predecessor and a tough restrict of 1080p/30fps video recording. These elements thought of, the Snapdragon 695 begins to appear to be a price range processor reasonably than a mid-range unit.

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G additionally has one irritating behavior that I didn’t discover within the Be aware 10 Professional. It closes down apps operating within the background, even when they’ve energetic processes, reminiscent of audio streaming, operating. That is often the results of over-enthusiastic energy administration, the telephone figuring out an app as a power-sapping pest.

I believe that is seemingly the case right here, too; however even after diving into the menus and singling out these audio apps as ones to be ignored by the battery administration software program, the issue wasn’t fully resolved.

Digicam

• Triple rear digital camera array
• Disappointing digital camera processing
• Produces boring pictures too typically

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G has three rear cameras, a 108-megapixel most important digital camera that makes use of the Samsung HM2 sensor, a fundamental 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a remedial 2-megapixel macro.

As with all macro cameras of this decision, you would possibly as properly fake it isn’t there. Picture high quality is poor, and Xiaomi doesn’t appear too pleased with it both. The macro shortcut doesn’t seem in the primary mode choice display screen; it’s within the less-used settings space, the place you turn gridlines on and off, or choose a delay earlier than the shutter fires.

The macro makes up the numbers. Loads of reasonably priced telephones have these filler cameras, however it stands out right here as a result of the Be aware 10 Professional had a much better 5-megapixel telemacro with autofocus, which is much extra helpful.

The ultra-wide 8-megapixel digital camera is serviceable – however, once more, delivers a giant drop in high quality from the 16-megapixel ultra-wide of the Be aware 10 Professional. Its pictures are softer in good lighting, and each much less detailed and noisier in poor lighting; there’s way more of a drop off in integrity on the corners of the body within the Be aware 11 Professional 5G, too. The place the Be aware 10 Professional 5G had a notably good collection of secondary cameras, plus a tertiary depth sensor that the brand new telephone lacks, the Be aware 11 Professional 5G appears bog-standard for its class.

Sadly, this carries by means of into the primary digital camera, despite the fact that the 2 telephones use the identical 108-megapixel Samsung HM2 sensor. It may take good photographs, positive, however side-by-side with these of the Be aware 10 Professional, the 11-series’s pictures are noisier and fewer detailed. This turns into all of the extra apparent on the edges of the body.

Brickwork in homes that appears fairly clear and properly outlined by means of the lens of the older digital camera is fuzzy and fizzy within the Be aware 11 Professional 5G, at occasions obliterating the excellence between one brick and one other. These kinds of variations are the sort I would anticipate to see when evaluating a telephone with a bigger sensor with that of a smaller one. However right here the problems have to be a results of the processing, on condition that each telephones use the identical sensor line.

This nudges the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G nearer to the picture high quality of Xiaomi telephones that on paper place a lot much less significance on digital camera high quality – the Poco X3 Professional, for instance.

Half-failing the pixel peeping take a look at is one factor, however the HDR efficiency additionally lands under expectations frequently. A point of HDR processing is used – in the way in which I shoot photograph, at the least – with virtually each single photograph. It’s there to keep away from overexposed blocks of white in clouds, and boring, obfuscated shadow areas.

Too typically throughout testing I’ve seen pictures with overexposed sections, dull-looking foregrounds, and mid-tones the place element has been misplaced within the fuzz. This doesn’t at all times occur; I’ve additionally seen the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G enhance scenes dramatically with HDR. But it surely’s as if dynamic vary enhancement has too few gears from which to pick out, and the telephone doesn’t at all times decide the fitting one. Auto HDR isn’t good nor efficient sufficient.

The odd factor is that you could typically obtain higher outcomes by utilizing the HDR mode over Auto HDR. Noise is lowered, element typically improves, and dynamic vary will increase. Nevertheless, it isn’t the perfect resolution. Auto HDR modes exist as a result of generally pictures will look higher with out full-bore HDR processing. I’ve been capturing pictures in each modes for any scenes I would wish to share with buddies, seeing which produces the higher end result – which isn’t very best.

Fortunately, the Evening mode right here does have a worthwhile impact on photograph high quality. Photos in very low gentle look poor when shot in Auto. The Evening setting takes roughly 1.5-2 seconds to seize a picture, decreasing noise fairly considerably. Color improves and elevated dynamic vary results in superior element, too.

Whereas we’re not wherever near reasonably priced low-light king, the Google Pixel 5a, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G’s effort does at the least stack up okay subsequent to its equally priced friends.

Video is under common, nevertheless. Most capturing decision is 1080p at 30 frames per second. Footage seems to be shaky even at this stage, so if you’d like a telephone to shoot quite a lot of video, this isn’t it.

The Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G’s selfie digital camera has a 16-megapixel sensor that, after all of the above complaining, does a wonderfully respectable job. It may seize an honest quantity of facial element in good lighting, and doesn’t get embarrassingly smooth indoors, both. Do take note of the facial smoothing, although – by default our telephone was set to clean out pores and skin and make your face look thinner.

Battery Life

• Good battery life, significantly at 60Hz refresh
• Quick charging
• Some unusual charging behaviour as you close to 100%

Finally, this telephone’s digital camera and processor are a tad disappointing contemplating how a lot better different Xiaomi handsets at an identical worth carry out in these areas. Nevertheless, there aren’t any such points for battery life.

There are two choices right here. Within the 120Hz mode, the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G ought to comfortably see you thru a full day of reasonably enthusiastic use, with some YouTube streaming and hours of audio streaming.

Sometimes I discovered that there wasn’t plenty of cost remaining by the top of a day, maybe 15-20%, however it was enough for me to go together with the choice to largely use the telephone at its 120Hz mode. It actually helps the smoothness of scrolling, and is troublesome to surrender when you’ve began down that street.

Battery life within the 60Hz mode is noticeably higher, sufficient to get you to 30-plus per cent residual cost by mattress time with the identical form of average use, with out durations of battery-draining gaming.

There’s a option to keep away from having to make this choice, although. Depend on a fast top-up once you want the Redmi Be aware 11 Professional 5G to final by means of an evening out as an alternative. The telephone helps 67W charging, which is a lot better than the 33W speeds of its predecessor.

Xiaomi says it could possibly get you from flat to 50% in quarter-hour; a full cost takes 42 minutes. In our exams, we reached 48% in quarter-hour, which is shut sufficient given it could hit 50% earlier than the 16-minute mark.

It took a few minutes beneath an hour to get to full, however there could also be an evidence. The telephone’s display screen saved on waking throughout charging, because the telephone switched between “charging” and “quick charging” states – which looks like a bug. Even when the telephone decides to modify to slower charging due to battery temperature, a smart sufficient transfer, there’s no must continuously wake the display screen up to take action.

You don’t get wi-fi charging right here, however it isn’t but an anticipated characteristic at this stage.

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