Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge / Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G review

Triple camera on the back, on at the front

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G features a similar triple camera as seen on the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G. There is a 108MP primary, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro. A 16MP selfie shooter sits on the opposite side of the phone.

The primary camera is the same across all Redmi Note 11 Pro phones - it relies on a 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2 1/1.52" sensor with 0.7µm pixels and 24mm f/1.9 lens. The color filter is Nona-Bayer, meaning 9 sensor pixels are combined into one 2.1µm, and the output resolution is 12MP. PDAF is available. Night Mode is available, too.

The ultrawide camera uses an 8MP Samsung S5K4H7 ISOCELL Slim sensor with 1.12µm pixels behind a 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity. There is Night Mode here as well.

The macro camera utilizes a 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1 sensor behind an f/2.4 lens. The focus is fixed at about 4cm away.

The selfie camera utilizes a 16MP Sony IMX 471 1/3" sensor with 1.0µm pixels and f/2.4 lens. The focus is fixed, naturally. It appears that this camera uses a Quad-Bayer sensor.

The camera app is a rather straightforward implementation, though it does have its quirks. First, basic operation for changing modes works with side swipes (on the black bezel!), and you can also tap on the modes you can see to switch to those directly. Up and down swipes don't work for switching between the front and rear cameras; only the toggle next to the shutter release does that.

You can add, remove, and rearrange modes in the main rolodex by going to the More tab and navigating to the edit button, and you can access that from the settings menu as well. The unused modes will still be in that More tab, but you can switch to a (less intuitive) pull-out pane that's summoned from a line next to the shutter release.

The hamburger menu at the far end is where you'll find additional options, including the Super Macro mode (why here and not a mode in the rolodex?), plus the icon to access the settings. Next to that hamburger menu, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, a shortcut to Google Lens, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters.

On the near end, you have the camera zoom switch that operates in one of two fashions. The first one is simply tapping on one of the three dots that represent the ultra-wide, primary, and 2x digital options. Or you can tap on the active magnification and slide sideways to reveal even more zoom levels - 2x and 10x, plus a slider for intermediate magnifications.

Camera app

There's a nicely capable Pro mode, where you can tweak the shooting parameters yourself. You can use the primary, the ultrawide and even the macro cameras here. You get to pick one of 4 white balance presets or dial in the light temperature with a slider, there's a manual focusing slider (with peaking as an option, particularly useful for the macro), and shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s/15s/0.25s for main/ultrawide/macro) and ISO control with the range depending on which camera you're using. A tiny live histogram is available, and a toggle for zebras can be found in the hamburger menu.

As expected, there's a host of extra modes, including Long Exposure with its own set of different presets - moving crowd, neon trails, oil painting, light painting, starry sky, and star trails.

Night mode is available for the main and the ultrawide cameras. There is Auto Night mode in the advanced Settings, too.

Daylight photo quality

We were disappointed by the photo quality we observed on the Redmi Note 11 Pro and Pro 5G. It was notably worsened since the Note 10 Pro. We had hoped for the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G to right this wrong, and surprise, surprise - it did!

The Redmi Note 10 Pro used the same HM2 sensor, and it has one incredibly balanced processing. That is also the case with the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G - the quality of the main camera is a match to the Note 10 Pro.

The 12MP default photos from the 108MP camera are excellent - the detail is plenty, while the noise has been proficiently cleaned, and there are no visible noise or noise artifacts. The photos show good contrast and balanced dynamic range, and while the HDR was set to Auto - HDR did not trigger for any of the scenes.

The white balance also deserves a praise, and the colors are realistic and true to life.

Finally, the sharpening is not over the top, and the photos look nicely balanced. We are glad the image processing is not as on the other Redmi Note 11 Pro phones and has instead returned to the previous generation's roots.

Main camera, 12MP

There is a 2x toggle on the viewfinder but don't expect high-quality or lossless zoom. If you shoot 2x photos, you will get the most basic digital zoom done by crop and upscale. The photos look good on the phone's display and when compressed and resized for social networks, but their detail is rather poor if you pixel peep at them.

Main cam 2x zoom, 12MP

You can shoot in 108MP, too, and you won't get an upscaled 12MP photo. Instead, there is some processing magic happening in the background, which yields a photo with excellent contrast and colors, tolerable though sometimes smeared noise, and good dynamic range.

The detail is average and best, and areas of random detail don't look so good.

Main cam, 108MP

You can use the 108MP photos if you want to extract the best possible detail from the camera - if you resize a 108MP photo to 12MP you will get flagship-grade detail and sharpness.

The 108MP images are also helpful if you need high-quality 2x zoomed images - just crop the center and resize it down to 12MP - the photo will have much more detail than what the simple digital zoom can offer.

108MP-to-12MP • 12MP default • Crop and resize from 108MP • Default 2x zoom

The 8MP ultrawide photos are outstanding for this class and this type of camera. Their detail is above the average you'd get with other 8MP UW shooters, the colors are lively and accurate, the contrast is good and the dynamic range - exceptional.

The automatic distortion correction does an excellent job straightening the corers and keeps those sharp and looking natural.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 2MP macro camera has been downgraded since the Note 10 Pro and its 5MP telemacro cam. Fortunately, once you get the handle of its fixed focus, it will give you pleasant and sharp closeups with a good amount of detail, excellent colors, tolerable noise and acceptable dynamic range.

Macro camera, 2MP

There is no depth sensor on the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, but you can shoot portrait photos, of course. The subject separation is good enough, and the blur looks nice. The colors in the photos are accurate, and the dynamic range is excellent.

Unfortunately, the subjects are with poor detail that was wither smeared by an extreme noise reduction or an overly aggressive HDR processing. We cannot be sure, but we've grown to like the Xiaomi portrait mode, and this one is not the best implementation we've seen, sorry.

Portraits, 12MP

The 16MP selfie camera offers excellent photos - they are of high contrast, accurate and lively colors, and good dynamic range. This camera appears to use a sensor with a Quad-Bayer filter, which should be saving 4MP snaps instead of 16MP. This means the 16MP selfies are upscaled, but they are indeed good even if they are not that sharp because of this.

Overall, the images look excellent on the phone's screen and when posted on social networks, so we won't hold the upscaling against Xiaomi for sure.

Selfies, 16MP

You can shoot portrait selfies, of course, but the subject separation is not that good. The blur is convincing enough, though. Other than that - the subject rendition is a match to the regular selfies'.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

Low-light photo quality

The Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is the only model of the series that has Auto Night Mode, and it is enabled by default. Theoretically, the camera app should decide when and where to use Night Mode and its exposure time.

Well, it turned out that the main camera used the Night Mode once (the castle photo) across the eight scenes we shot, and it decided to trigger HDR in last of the bunch. It does nothing for the ultrawide camera.

So, the Auto Night Mode photos taken with the main camera on the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G are looking good. They are colorful and contrasty, with good exposure and dynamic range. The noise is mostly low, and the detail is acceptable. The noise reduction is a bit aggressive and smears some fine detail in the process - that's why some of the images have this slightly smudgy look.

Still, we are happy with the photos, and the quality is okay for the mid-range class.

Main cam Auto Night Mode, 12MP

As we said, the Auto Night Mode used the actual Night Mode only once (castle photo). So, what we said for the Auto photos applies to those taken without Night Mode. They are good, and while there is room for improvement, we think most people will be perfectly fine with them.

Main cam NM Off, 12MP

The Night Mode is rather conservative and improves the photos without turning them into daylight-like. The photos taken with forced Night Mode offer improved exposure, higher dynamic range with restored clipped highlights and developed shadows, and slightly better color saturation. The resolved detail is on par with the regular images or sometimes - even less - but they are still worth it in many cases.

Main cam NM On, 12MP

The 2x zoomed photos are good for upscales and share all qualities of the default ones, but for the love of everything, do not use Night Mode on them as it makes them even less detailed.

2x Auto NM • 2x NM Off • 2x NM On

2x Auto NM • 2x NM Off • 2x NM On

The Auto Night Mode photos from the ultrawide camera are the same as the regular Night Mode Off photos. While the colors are kept saturated, these photos are incredibly noisy and dark, and the best we can say is that you can see what's happening there... Probably.

Ultrawide cam Auto NM, 8MP

Ultrawide cam NM Off, 8MP

The forced Night Mode on the ultrawide camera helps big time - it drastically improves the exposure, and all images are brighter. The noise is cleaned well enough without destroying the resolved detail, which is nice. And the color saturation stays true to life. Finally, the dynamic range gets a boost with no clipped highlights and more detail in some shadows.

Of course, the ultrawide Night Mode photos are soft, but they are much better than the default ones and very much usable.

Ultrawide cam NM On, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G against Realme 9 Pro+ 5G and the Galaxy A52s 5G in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G is the only Redmi Note 11 smartphone so far that is capable of 4K@30fps video capturing with its primary camera. The ultrawide camera maxes out at 1080p@30fps, while the 2MP macro supports 720p@30fps. Finally, 1080p at 60fps is available only on the main camera.

There is an always-on electronic stabilization working on all 1080@30fps modes.

Here we've encountered one issue that we thought Xiaomi has left in the past. The camera app always lowers the video resolution of the main camera down to 1080p if you switch to ultrawide and then back to primary.

On the positive side, the audio in all of the videos is captured at 256Kbps, stereo, and sounds good.

The 4K videos shot on the main camera are great. There is a lot of resolved detail and balanced sharpening, the noise is extremely low, and everything else is superb - smoothness, colors, dynamic, and even contrast. The high video bitrate that is north of 50Mbps surely helped, of course.

The 4K low-light clip we took at night is looking good even if it's a bit noisy, provides good colors and exposure, and it's better than your average mid-ranger.

The 1080p videos from the ultrawide camera is good - the colors are excellent, and so is the dynamic range, the contrast is okay, and the resolved detail is, well, enough, though it was hurt by the electronic stabilization. The footage is a bit noisy, too.

While this is not the best ultrawide footage in the mid-range, we'd say it's slightly better than the average despite the soft picture.

Finally, here is the Redmi Note Pro+ 5G in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G against Realme 9 Pro+ 5G abd the Galaxy A52s 5G the in our Video compare tool