Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S smartphone review – 90-Hz AMOLED and 108-MP camera for 200 Euros (~$199)

Those who don’t want to spend more than 400 Euros (~$398) for a smartphone will find what they need in the Redmi series from Xiaomi. However, the current Redme lineup starts with smartphones that are even significantly more affordable. You can pick from five mid-range smartphones that officially cost between 170 Euros ( Redmi Note 11 ) and 370 Euros (Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G).

Despite their affordable prices, there is always an AMOLED display. For those who set their price limit at 200 Euros, our Redmi Note 11S test unit might be a good fit. The 6.

43-inch Android smartphone is equipped with the Mediatek Helio G96 and its integrated ARM Mali-G57 MC2 graphics unit. In addition, there are 6 GB of RAM, up to 128 GB of storage, and other features such as a 108-MP camera and quick charging at 33 watts. Our test shows how the Redmi Note 11S fares in everyday operation.

Xiaomi offers the Redmi Note 11S in the colors Graphite Gray, Pearl White, and Twilight Blue. Its matte surface makes the light, 179-gram (~6. 3 oz) Xiaomi fairly impervious to fingerprints.

The case of the Redmi Note 11S impresses with a very good workmanship. Both the frame and back cover are made of plastic, forming a stabile unit together with the AMOLED panel. Although the power key and volume rocker aren’t sitting very tightly in the frame, they still offer a very good pressure point.

However, compared to its Redmi Note 10S predecessor, our test unit lost some of its robustness, since Xiami cut out the IP53 certification for the successor. The manufacturer doesn’t specify the kind of protection for the display glass. A protective foil covers the display in the state of delivery.

Apart from a few details, the exteriors of the Redmi Note 11S and Redmi Note 10S are similar. The display continues to take up around 84% of the front, and the selfie camera is still housed underneath the punch hole in the center of the top display edge. The back holds a quad camera system with a 108-MP sensor as its core element.

You can select from two Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S models with different storage sizes. The smartphone is available in the web shop of the manufacturer for barely 200 Euros with 6 GB LPDDR4X-RAM and 64 GB of UFS 2. 2 storage.

On the other hand, the second version with 128 GB of storage costs exactly the same at the time of our testing, so that you can safely ignore the 64-GB version. Compared to the predecessor, the equipment of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S has hardly changed. It continues to lack 5G support and a notification LED.

At the same time, the smartphone is still very suitable for everyday tasks. In addition to a microSD card reader, it includes a 3. 5-mm audio port, dual-SIM support, a USB-C 2.

0 port with USB-OTG support, stereo speakers, an infrared sensor, Bluetooth 5. 0, and NFC for contactless payment. The equipment of the Redmi Note 11S also includes an always-on function.

However, the display isn’t constantly active but only shows information such as the time and battery level for only 10 seconds after you tapped the screen. The smartphone reaches solid transfer rates with our Angelbird AV Pro V60 microSD reference card. However, the transfer rate drops significantly in sequential reading after some time.

On the other hand, the Redmi Note 11S is almost twice as fast as its predecessor in the copy test. At this point, the Redmi Note 11S runs with Android 12, although it started out with Android 11. This is accompanied by Xiaomi’s MIUI version 13 user interface.

At the time of our testing (end of August), the Android security patches are at the level of June 1, 2022, so they are still fairly current. You can delete all the preinstalled third-party apps such as Facebook, Spotify, and AliExpress. The support of DRM Widevine L1 also allows you to play video streams in HD quality.

The Redmi Note 11S isn’t particularly talented in terms of mobile communication. 5G isn’t supported and there are only 12 supported frequency bands for 4G. However, since band 20 and 28 are also included in the supported bands, you shouldn’t encounter any problems with reception, at least within the European area.

The Redmi Note 11S also communicates via Bluetooth 5. 0, NFC, and Wi-Fi 5. With our Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 reference router, the Xiaomi smartphone achieves very stable WLAN transfer rates.

At an average of about 340 Mbit/s, they fall within the range of what you can expect from Wi-Fi 5. In addition, the Redmi Note 11S is overall slightly faster in the WLAN as our comparison devices. The Xiaomi smartphone determines its current location using the GPS (L1), Glonass (E1), Galileo (E1), and Beidou (B1) satellite navigation systems.

In our test, it succeeded not only quickly but also very accurately in this. With the GPS Test app, the Redmi Note 11S achieved an accuracy of 2 meters (~6. 6 ft) indoors and was even able to increase this to 1 meter (~3.

3 ft) outdoors. The Xiaomi smartphone is also very well suited for everyday navigation tasks. The Redmi Note 11S recorded its route during an approximately 10-km (~6.

2 miles) bike ride just as accurately as the Garmin Venu2 fitness tracker. The dual-SIM smartphone from Xiaomi supports VoLTE and WLAN calls. It delivers a good voice quality in our test.

When calling either landlines or mobile phones, the Redmi Note 11S transfers the voices of both conversation partners clearly and easily understandable. In speaker mode, the communication also succeeds easily, and loud noises are filtered out fairly reliably. In addition to two Nano-SIM cards, the card tray also offers space for a microSD card that can fit up to 1 TB of data.

At 0. 595 W/kg (head SAR) and SAR 0. 936 W/kg (body SAR), the radiation values are comparatively low.

The selfie camera of the Redmi Note 11S offers a 16 MP resolution and records video at up to 30 frames per second in 1080p resolution. It succeeds in taking solid portrait pictures with easily visible details and colors that look natural. You can optimize the images using a Beauty mode.

The 108-MP main camera uses the Samsung HM2 as image sensor (f/1. 9, 1/1. 52″).

Via 9-in-1 pixel binning, it can take 12-MP pictures and is supported by two 2-MP resolution sensors for macro and depth recordings. When comparing the image quality with that of more expensive smartphones, the Redmi Note 11S will of course lose, but it still creates very decent pictures for its price class. Under optimal light conditions, the pictures taken with the 108-MP camera look good, particularly if you compare them with those from the Redmi Note 11.

Due to its larger image sensor and higher amount of pixel reserves, the Redmi Note 11S is able to capture visibly more image details than its Redmi sibling. In addition, the colors are vibrant, and the images are rich in contrast. On the other hand, the main camera only produces muddy details in zoom recordings.

You also have to live with some compromises in night recordings, since they quickly become blurry. The ultrawide angle camera (f/2. 2) offers a viewing angle of 118 degrees and has an 8-MP resolution.

In terms of quality, it is unable to compete with the main camera, since it produces images that are visibly noisy even under the best light conditions and also operates at a fairly low sharpness level. Compared to the Redmi Note 10S , the video characteristics have become worse. In contrast to the MediaTek Helio G95 of the predecessor, the Mediatek Helio G96 of the Redmi Note 11S doesn’t allow recording video in 4K but only a maximum of 1080p at 30 FPS.

While recording videos, switching between the main and ultrawide angle camera is not possible. Our test lab shows that the main camera is able to reproduce colors fairly accurately (maximum Delta-E of 12. 3) under optimal light conditions.

In addition, the picture of our test chart is sharp up to the edges. However, at only 1 Lux of lowlight, none of it can be recognized anymore. Together with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S, a 33-Watt charger, USB cable (Type-A to C), SIM tool, protective cover, and quick start manual are included.

The manufacturer doesn’t offer any special accessories for the smartphone in its online shop. The warranty for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S covers 12 months. Due to its touch scan rate of up to 180 Hz, the capacitive touchscreen of the Redmi Note 11S responds very quickly to inputs, implementing them very accurately.

The refresh rate of 90 Hz makes animations and scrolling through menus and websites comfortably smooth. You can biometrically unlock the smartphone using the fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button. This succeeds quickly and also scores with a high recognition rate.

In good light conditions, authentication via 2D face recognition works just as fast, although as a pure software solution, this is less secure than the fingerprint sensor. The AMOLED display of the Redmi Note 11S offers a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels and can be adjusted to a fixed frame rate of 60 or 90 Hz. There is no adaptive control as with some flagship smartphones.

HDR is not supported. At an average of 435. 9 cd/m², the AMOLED panel achieves a solid brightness, but our test unit neither reaches the brightness of its Redmi Note 10S predecessor nor that of its current Redmi Note 11 sibling model.

Xiaomi promises brightness levels of up to 1000 Nits for the Redmi Note 11S, but we measure a maximum of 577 cd/m² (APL50 measurements) in its display. Without the brightness sensor activated, it is up to 436 cd/m². At the lowest brightness level, the display still produces 2.

42 cd/m². The AMOLED screen uses pulse-width modulation for brightness control. At a display brightness of less than 54%, the PWM flickering occurs at a fairly high frequency range of between 174.

5 and 401. 7 Hz. At a display brightness larger than 54%, the frequency is a constant 90 Hz with a very flat and even amplitude level.

You can select among the “Vivid,” “Saturated,” and “Standard” color presets in the display settings. In addition, you can also adjust the color temperature. You get the best color reproduction when switching from the “Vivid” to the “Standard” preset.

As our measurements with the CalMAN software and a spectral photometer show, the AMOLED panel will then have only minimal color deviations, all of which also fall within the ideal target range. Outdoors, the Redmi Note 11S strikes a good figure. If you avoid direct sunlight, the contents of the display can be read without any trouble.

Due to the high viewing angle stability of the AMOLED panel, this also works from very steep side viewing angles. Since with the ARM Mali-G57 MC2 , the Redmi Note 11S uses a weaker graphics unit than the Redmi Note 10S , the predecessor is faster in the graphics benchmarks. Overall, the Redmi Note 11S only places in the middle of the field here.

In the browser benchmarks, the Redmi Note 11S delivers a good performance. Websites are rendered fairly quickly and can then also be scrolled smoothly. The fairly large advantage to the Redmi Note 10S might primarily be due to the more current browser version.

The Redmi Note 11S achieves the largest performance jump compared to the Redmi Note 10S in the storage performance. Even though with UFS 2. 2, it nominally uses the same storage type, it is significantly faster in the random read and write access.

However, since the sequential transfer rates hardly differ, the load times of apps are about the same. The ARM Mali-G57 MC2 graphics unit used in the Redmi Note 11S is able to display games smoothly, as long as the graphics details aren’t set too high. For example, in PUBG Mobile constant 30 FPS are possible in the HD/High setting.

In graphically simpler games such as Armajet and Subway Surfers, the frame rates even range around 60 FPS. However, the varying frame rates in Armajet also show that the SoC already hits its performance limits here. We measure the games’ frame rates with our Gamebench test tool.

When running, the Redmi Note 11S never gets more than hand warm. Evern after an hour-long constant stress test, we measure a maximum of only 36. 3 °C (97.

3 °F) on the surface of the Xiaomi smartphone. It is able to use its full SoC performance at almost any time. The performance drops that we measure in the 3DMark Wild Life stress test are so small that they are meaningless.

The equipment of the Redmi Note 11S includes stereo speakers, which is the exception for the price range up to 200 Euros (~$199). As typical for smartphones, the dual speakers sound rather thin but are still able to reproduce voice fairly well. Bass, however, is rare.

On the other hand, the audio port sounds clean and free of noise, with the signal-to-noise ratio at a good 93 dBFS. You can connect external audio devices with the Redmi Note 11S using the 3. 5-mm audio port or Bluetooth 5.

0. The usual Bluetooth audio codecs such as AAC, SBC, LDHC, aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive are supported. The Xiaomi smartphone can be recharged quickly using the included 33-Watt charger.

In our test, it took 37 minutes to charge the 5000-mAh battery from 0 to 80%. The battery is then fully charged after 52 minutes. Interestingly, the charging is hardly any faster with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G sibling model at 51 minutes, even though that smartphone uses a 67-Watt charger.

Although the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G charges faster in the beginning, the charging curve then drops fairly quickly, ending up at almost the same charging time. The power consumption of the Redmi Note 11S is inconspicuous. Its 5000-mAh battery contributes to the good battery life of the Redmi Note 11S.

In our simulated web surfing, the smartphone lasts for around 12 hours, and when playing videos, slightly longer than 16 hours. However, with the same battery capacity through the bank, all the comparison devices still last significantly longer, including particularly the Redmi Note 10S predecessor. With the Redmi Note 11S, Xiaomi offers a good smartphone of the lower mid-range.

At an official price of 200 Euros (~$199), those who can live without 5G will get a smartphone that offers good workmanship and a solid performance in everyday operation. The Mediatek Helio G96 and 6 GB of RAM ensure that most applications run without any problems and delays become the exception. For 200 Euros, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S offers a lot of smartphone for little money, including an AMOLED screen with 90 Hz.

In some respects, however, it is worse than its predecessor. The Xiaomi smartphone becomes particularly interesting with its AMOLED screen that ensures an attractively smooth operation with its refresh rate of 90 Hz. In addition to the display, the Redmi Note 11S also scores with stereo speakers, a decent battery life, and a 108-MP camera that succeeds in taking good pictures under optimal light conditions.

The 33-Watt charger can recharge the smartphone quickly. The Redmi Note 11S hardly distinguishes itself from its Redmi Note 10S predecessor, offering hardly any advantages besides the more current version of Android and support of DRM Widevine L1. In addition, our test unit isn’t any better in some regards: with the change to the MediaTek Helio G96, the graphics performance is weaker, and instead of 4K, now only Full-HD video recordings are supported.

The battery life is also worse, and the IP53 certification was removed. An upgrade from the predecessor is therefore not worthwhile. Alternatives to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S are, for example, the Nokia G21 and the Samsung Galaxy A22 4G , which are even more affordable with a similar performance and equipment and also offer a 90-Hz screen.

However, only the Samsung also includes an AMOLED screen. At the time of our test, the 128-GB version of the Redmi Note 11S is available for example from Amazon for $246 . The web shop from Xiaomi also lists the smartphone, but without giving any purchase option in the US .

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