After much speculation, Xiaomi is finally here with its global Redmi Note 11 series. The company brings four smartphones in total, and they also are marginally different from what the Redmi Note 11 series brought to China. There are devices that play with the premium mid-range segment, as well as traditional mid-range smartphones. The company starts its lineup with the Redmi Note 11 and the Redmi Note 11S. These two are the starting devices for the series, but bring a decent set of specifications like Snapdragon 680 SoC and a 108 MP camera. Without further ado, let’s dive into these devices’ specs.
Redmi Note 11 and Note 11 specs and features
Both the Note 11 4G and Redmi Note 11S share the very same 6.43-inch AMOLED displays. There are just some small differences between the two. Both have the same Full HD+ resolution and 90 Hz refresh rate. It’s not 120 Hz, but still, that’s a significant upgrade over the Redmi Note 10 and Note 10S from 2021. The touch sampling rate is 180 Hz, and the typical brightness stands 700 nits which are high for a mid-range phone. In terms of protection, the device has Gorilla Glass 3 and an IP53 rating.
In terms of camera, we have the first significant differences between the two devices. The Redmi Note 11 has a primary 50 MP camera, an 8 MP ultrawide snapper with a 118-degrees field of view, and two 2 MP macro and depth snappers. The Redmi Note 11S flies higher with a 108 MP ISOCELL HM2 camera with 9-in-1 pixel binning. The remaining sensors are exactly the same as the Redmi Note 11. The Note 11S has a 16 MP selfie snapper whereas the standard has a 13 MP camera.
The chipsets are also different. The Note 11S gets the MediaTek Helio G96. To those unaware, this chipset is nearly identical to its predecessor but has the capability to withstand high refresh rates. This chipset also has ARM Cortex-A76 cores which are more capable than the ARM Cortex-A73 cores inside of the Snapdragon 680 SoC. The Snapdragon processor boasts the Redmi Note 11 and is mainly focused on efficiency. It boasts a 6 nm fabrication process versus the old 12 nm in the Helio G96.
Both smartphones run Android 11 with MIUI 13 running on top. We expect Android 12 to come in a near future for these handsets. The Note 11 has a base variant with 4 GB / 64 GB and a higher with 6 GB / 128 GB. The Note 11S is slightly better with 6 GB / 64 GB and 8 GB / 128 GB versions. Both devices bring micro SD card slot for further memory expansion. Curiously, this is something that the Pro variants are lacking.
Both handsets have side-mounted fingerprint scanners. Redmi decided to go with this solution for another generation rather than bringing in-display scanners. Both devices have IR Blasters, NFC (region dependent), stereo speakers, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
In terms of battery life, we have 5,000 mAh for both devices with 33 W fast-charging.
Pricing and Availability
The Redmi Note 11 and Note 11S will reach the market later this month and, as usual, there is an “early bird” pricing. The Note 11 starts at $180 for the base variant and goes up to $230 for the higher. The Note 11S is costlier at $250 and goes up to $300.
