You can mostly fix this by digging into the settings menu and turning off battery life optimization for these apps. However, lots of folks aren’t going to know this is an option. And we still see some occasional unwanted app closures, particularly when the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G battery gets low. We don’t see this effect in the Xiaomi 11T Pro, which uses the same Samsung HM2 sensor. The ISP may be to blame. This is the image signal processor, which is part of the Snapdragon 695 chipset. Its Spectra 346T ISP is weaker than the MI 11T Pro’s and, more notably, the Spectra 350 of the Redmi Note 10 Pro — even though it has a triple ISP to the last-gen phone’s dual ISP. 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.

The Snapdragon 765G was almost a 'flagship' affordable CPU. The Snapdragon 695 is not, and video capture quality is the most significant casualty of this price-cutting status —we’ll cover that in the camera section of this review. Switching to 60Hz, which is an option, will increase battery life a bit. But we’re just too fond of the smooth scrolling of a 120Hz refresh rate to give it up at this point. 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. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G stereo speakers are the part we’ve appreciated most, though. A stereo array is always beneficial for gaming and video streaming, but these speakers also provide solid maximum volume and a decent amount of mid-low frequency substance.

Good for data but less so for photography

For even less cash, the Poco X3 Pro also trashes the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G. However, in person it’s not too bad. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G has an impressive screen, even if it doesn’t set any new standards. A dynamically variable refresh rate is the missing feature, which saves battery. This phone will drop to 60Hz when an app doesn’t support 120Hz, but sits at the higher rate when sitting idle on the home screen. How is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G for gaming? It is far from Xiaomi's best. With this sort of budget you could get the Xiaomi Poco F3. Its Snapdragon 870 5G chipset is one of the best cost-to-performance processors in years. It’s a beast. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 clearly is not a perfect fit for this phone, even if its raw CPU and GPU power are perfectly okay. The power button on the side is also a fingerprint scanner. It has been fast and reliable in our testing: no complaints here.

ISP power needs to be matched with well-designed software processing to get the best results. But even in perfectly lit scenes the Note 11 Pro seems to show noticeably greater noise and lesser mid-tone contrast and edge enhancement than the old Note 10 Pro. This camera is based around the 108MP Samsung HM2 camera, seen in a bunch of phones including the Xiaomi 11T Pro and Honor 50. It’s a solid, but not top-end, camera sensor. We found that while this phone and the old one are reasonably evenly matched, this one seems to deliver less consistent results and struggles in some scene types the old one didn’t as much.We captured a few too many blown-out skies, and it frequently fumbles dusk scenes. The phone has the tools to avoid the primary issues these scenes raise, but the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro doesn’t always seem to use them. The phone doesn't play Ark: Survival Evolved too well with everything maxed out. While there are not too many annoying dips, the frame rate is suboptimal — in the 20s with some descents into the teens. You’ll want to play it at medium graphics with the resolution slider diminished a bit for a smooth experience.

You have three color modes to play around with. These are vivid, saturated, and standard. Xiaomi recommends “vivid,” which changes the color saturation based on the app you’re using. We chose “standard” because it removes the radioactive red effect from your app icons. Plenty of people will love that kind of saturation, though. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G runs Android 11 and has Xiaomi’s MIUI 13 interface. It is, for the most part, pretty inoffensive. Xiaomi should really make the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G’s Night mode more accessible, as dim images shot using Auto can look rubbish at times. It sits in the additional modes section alongside less important things like time the time lapse video feature. 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.The phone can capture good daylight images, a cut above some at the price. It also has a notably fairly effective night mode that dramatically improves low-light images —it’s a proper computational mode, where some at the price have a limited effect. Our testing days with the phone have mostly been pretty heavy, and we almost exclusively used the 120Hz mode. While we didn’t have masses of charge left by the end of each day, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G is suitable for all the heavy users out there. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G’s main camera is decent. Its other two cameras are not. Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 10 Pro won our hearts with three good cameras: the primary, an above average 16MP ultra-wide and a fab little 5MP telemacro that just steamrolled all other macro cameras in its class. It still does. 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.