I won’t blame you if you consider the Redmi Note 11 lineup a spam of smartphones, as Xiaomi has flooded the series with six different models while sporting standard features such as high resolution primary cameras, stereo speakers, and high capacity batteries that supports super fast charging speeds, giving hardly any breathing space for competing smartphones priced between RM699 to RM1499.
When Xiaomi sent over the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, I almost simply dismissed it as a slightly faster Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G, which I have reviewed last month, but boy was I so wrong about it, because after using as a secondary phone for a month and a mobile hotspot device during my holiday in Bangkok last week, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is one hell of a smartphone that gives me almost no reason to drool for expensive flagships.
Left – Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, Right – Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G
Aesthetically, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G feels almost similar to the Note 11 Pro 5G with a rather satisfying heft and squarish corners, the only difference that you will be able to tell between the two is their camera bumps, where the former features a chrome finish on its primary lens and not having an awkward bump for the main camera, the body is IP52 rated against water splashes and you still get a 3.5mm headphone jack and IR blaster like its siblings.
Unlike the rest, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G’s stereo speakers are tuned by JBL, they do sound noticeably better than the Note 11 Pro 5G with a warmer sound and stronger bass when you watch movies with them, loudness is about the same and they can easily fill a room with just 80% of volume, the headphone output’s power is decent but lacks the power to drive high powered headphones, which isn’t surprising.
The Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G features a beautiful 6.67-inch Super AMOLED display that refreshes at 120Hz and sports a touch sampling rate of 360Hz, which makes it an extremely pleasant everyday device to use for scrolling your TikTok and Facebook feed with buttery smooth transitions and responsive interactions, I also love the crisp haptic engine that responds to my touches as I type my messages and unlock the phone.
Additionally, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is a Widevine L1 certified device which lets you stream Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in HD, making this a really decent media consumption device.
Strangely, Xiaomi ships the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G with MIUI 12.5 although despite running on top of Android 11, as the other Redmi Note 11 phones runs MIUI 13 out of the box, though the user experience isn’t too different and you might only miss out some tweaks that Xiaomi has improved on its newer skin, I faced no major issues during the review period and like I mentioned in the review of the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G has the same Android Auto bug of not being able to launch music streaming apps properly, which Xiaomi has yet to fix at this time of writing.
Otherwise, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G offers a solid mid-range performance with the Mediatek Dimensity 920 processor, where app launches and switches are reasonably fast if you don’t compare it next to a flagship device, the phone also has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable memory which many should find it sufficient, gaming on the phone is also passable if you don’t push the graphics setting and are not looking at smooth 60 fps gaming.
While the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G sport the same camera setup as the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G on paper, the main 108MP camera sensor looks slightly larger than the latter if you look closely, which explains why photos captured on the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G resulted in slightly better details, though image quality still isn’t quite ‘flagship-level’ with washed out colors when taking photos at indoor and dim lighting, it produces cooler color temperatures and white balance isn’t always accurate even when you have scene recognition turned on.
Xiaomi equips the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G with a dual-cell 4500mAh battery, which might seem like a downgrade from its siblings when it comes to battery capacity, but it is quite the contrary, as I was able to get a full day of heavy use and still have over 10% of battery capacity the next day, it also enables faster and more efficient charging with the provided 120W charging brick as power is being filled into two cells, what I am even more impressed is that the phone will charge at an impressive output of 80W when used with a USB PD powerbank, so things aren’t entirely bad if you don’t always have the power brick with you when you need to juice it up.
Retailing from RM1,499, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is the most expensive mid-range Redmi Note phone to date and despite that, it is still the most affordable and feature packed Mediatek Dimensity 920 powered smartphone in the market. However, with the company’s older yet faster Xiaomi 11T flagship now repriced at RM1,499, the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G becomes a less compelling choice as the Xiaomi 11T is equipped with a faster processor and better camera system, which makes it an almost no-brainer to consider if you don’t mind it being last year’s smartphone, you should probably wait for a price drop if you are keen on getting the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, but until then, there would probably be a new Redmi Note smartphone.
