Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S review

High-res primary camera, budget companions

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S has the same camera setup as the Redmi Note 11 Pro. It also packs the same trio of cameras we saw on the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and Note 11 Pro+ 5G but adds an additional depth sensor.

So, the Redmi Note 11S offers a 108MP primary, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro camera, plus a 2MP depth sensor. There is also a single LED flash.

The selfie is also the same 16MP camera we saw across the Redmi Note 11 series.

The primary camera is the same across all but the vanilla Redmi Note 11 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, which means 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 has an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor behind a 16mm f/2.2 lens. Some units may come with an 8MP Samsung S5K4H7 sensor instead of Sony's IMX355. Either way, the focus is fixed at infinity. There is no Night Mode for this camera.

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

The fourth and final camera on the back is a 2MP OmniVision OV02B1 depth sensor.

The selfie camera uses a 16MP Sony IMX471 1/3" sensor with an f/2.5 lens. The focus is fixed.

Camera app

The camera app is a rather straightforward implementation, though it does have its quirks. First, basic operation for changing modes works with sideswipes (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 and the ultrawide 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), and shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s/15s for main/ultrawide) 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 camera only. There is no Auto Night mode as on previous Xiaomi models.

Photo quality

The main camera saves 12MP photos by default, and unlike on most of the Redmi Note 11 models we've reviewed so far, these ones turned up excellent. They show a high amount of resolved detail, balanced sharpness and accurate white balance and color presentation.

One of the major problems we saw with the other 108MP Redmi cameras - the noise - is absent here. In fact, the noise reduction seems incredibly proficient, and the daylight photos are nicely clean.

Finally, the 12MP shots have high contrast and adequate dynamic range. They were shot with HDR set on Auto, but it never chose to use HDR.

Overall, the Redmi Note 11S seems to be offering a similarly good photo quality as the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G, and much better than the Redmi Note 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro 5G. Go figure!

Main camera, 12MP

There is a 2X zoom shortcut on the viewfinder. Quite expectedly, it offers a simple digital zoom achieved by cropping and upscaling from the center of the 12MP default output. The images look good on the phone's screen and when resized by the social networks, but pixel peeping on them will reveal their poor detail.

Main cam 2x zoom, 12MP

There is also a 108MP mode, and you can use these artificially upscaled photos for two things - achieve even sharper 12MP images, or for high-quality 2x zoom by cropping and resizing their center. None of these can be easily done on the go - you will need a computer and an image editing software, but still.

Other than that, the 108MP photos are good - they have excellent contrast, colors, good dynamic, and tolerable noise levels. The resolved detail is somewhat average, and random detail is often a mixed bag. As we said, these are better used to extract more detail in regular or zoomed shots.

Main camera, 108MP

The 8MP ultrawide photos are okay - the resolved detail is acceptable, the noise is kept low enough, the colors are good, and so is the contrast. The dynamic range is a bit low but still acceptable for this type of camera.

These photos are nothing impressive, really, but they will do for the occasional ultrawide snap you may want to take.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

There is a 2MP depth sensor on the Redmi Note 11S, and it assists the main camera when shooing portraits. And these photos are pretty good - the subjects are developed well, sharp with a lot of detail, good colors and exposure. Their separation from the background is not ideal, but it will be good enough if your haircut is not too complex. Finally, the simulated blur looks good, and we are sure most people will be happy with the Redmi Note 11S portraits.

Portraits, 12MP

The photos we took with the 2MP macro camera are alright, provided you learn to shoot from exactly 4-5cm away. Their detail is good, and so is the contrast; the colors are lively, and the noise is low. If you are deadest on shooing a bug or a flower that close, you can do it. Just take at least 5 photos by changing the distance a bit - this way, you will get at least one with the correct focus.

Macro camera, 2MP

The 16MP selfies are pretty nice - they exhibit accurate colors, good exposure and contrast, and the noise is quite low.

The selfies aren't that sharp as the camera uses a Quad-Bayer filter, but instead of 4MP images, it saves 16MP shots. They do look good on the phone and on the social networks and apps, which is the whole reason for the existence of the front camera in the first place. So, we'd say the Redmi Note 11S offers good selfies.

Selfies, 16MP

You can shoot portrait selfies, too. The separation is okay, the subjects are a bit softer than in the regular selfies, but otherwise - the photos are good. The exposure is great, the colors seem accurate, the contrast is good, and the noise reduction does a good job, too. The detail is average at best, but that was to be expected.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

Moving on to low-light photo quality. The photos we snapped with the main camera at night are good. They are detailed enough and not that smeared - this means there is a good balance between sharpness and noise reduction. The color saturation is kept accurate., the contrast is good, and the dynamic range is not bad.

Main camera, 12MP

The primary camera supports Night Mode, and we strongly recommend using it. It saves very natural-looking photos, which have more resolved detail, the noise is cleaned more proficiently, the contrast is better, and so is the color saturation. It also restores clipped highlights where it matters.

It takes about 2-3s to take such a photo, but it is worth the wait.

Main cam Night Mode, 12MP

The 8MP ultrawide photos we took at night are usable, but that's the best we can say about them. There is acceptable detail, and you can see what's on them, but you can also clearly see the photos are quite noisy, and the colors are somewhat desaturated.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Redmi Note 11S. 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 11S against Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Galaxy A52s 5G in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 11S supports up to 1080p@30fps video capturing on its primary, ultrawide and selfie cameras. The 2MP macro camera is limited to 720p@30fps.

The Redmi Note 10S and its Helio G95 chipset offered 4K video capturing, while the newer Helio G96 has no 4K support. Some of our readers have expressed doubts about the necessity of 4K video capturing on phones with 1080p screens - our experience shows that 4K videos look much better when shown at 1080p resolution, be it on the phone, tablets, PCs, TVs. Meanwhile, the 1080p clips are not always that good, and they look even worse when shown at full resolution.

Electronic stabilization is available across all cameras, except for the macro; it is always on and does a good job at stabilizing the picture when necessary.

The video bitrate is about 20Mbps, while audio is recorded in stereo at 256kbps bitrate.

The main camera captures good 1080p videos - the resolved detail is plenty for a Full HD video, the colors are accurate, the contrast is high, while the dynamic is realistic.

The 1080p low-light videos are of poor quality - the clips are soft, and the noise reduction smears too much, yet noise is still visible. The only good thing about these videos is the colors.

Finally, the 1080p clips from the ultrawide camera are likable. They have enough detail, the colors are true to life, and the dynamic range is high, though the contrast is rather average as a result.

Finally, here is the Redmi Note 11S in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

Redmi Note 11S against Redmi Note 10 Pro and the Galaxy A52s 5G in our Video compare tool