Redmi 11 Prime 5G review: Cheap 5G experience, but at what price?
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G is currently the company’s most affordable 5G smartphone in India, with Xiaomi claiming it to be a 5G all-rounder. The budget smartphone sits in a crowded segment and faces competition from brands like iQoo, Vivo, Realme, Motorola, etc. The Redmi 11 Prime 5G features a MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC, which is a popular choice among brands launching 5G smartphones in the segment. The phone also supports seven 5G bands, which should be more than enough to cover all the telecom circles in India.
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G also packs a beefy battery, a full HD+ display, and a dual rear camera setup. With all that on offer, is it the best 5G smartphone under Rs. 15,000 in India? We find out.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G Price in India
Xiaomi has launched a 4G and 5G version of the Redmi 11 Prime in India, with the 5G version being the costlier offering of the two. The 5G variant comes in two storage options. The 4GB RAM + 64GB storage configuration is priced at Rs 13,999 while the 6GB RAM + 128GB variant is available for Rs 15,999. The 5G smartphone comes in Meadow Green, Chrome Silver and Thunder Black colour options.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G Design
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G follows the 2022 smartphone trend of featuring a flat frame design. The phone’s back panel curves towards the edges to ensure a comfortable fit when you hold it. Xiaomi has used plastic materials for the back and the frame, which is common for smartphones in this price range. That said, the back panel offers good grip, thanks to its textured design. Xiaomi sent us the 6GB RAM variant of the Redmi 11 Prime 5G in Meadow Green, which seems to be the hero color of the three.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G comes with a polycarbonate back
The left side of the phone has the SIM tray with two slots for nano SIM cards and a third slot for a microSD card. On the right side, you’ll find the power button and volume rockers. The buttons are clicky, but a little too recessed for my taste. You also get a 3.5mm headphone jack next to the IR blaster on the top edge. The USB Type-C port and the single speaker grille are on the bottom edge.
The Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protected display is quite tall at 6.58 inches and offers a 90Hz refresh rate. The display has a full HD+ resolution and Widevine L1 certification, which means users can consume HD content on Netflix, Prime Video, etc. One drawback of this display when compared to some phones in the segment is the use of an IPS LCD versus AMOLED.
The colors aren’t that vibrant, and the Redmi 11 Prime 5G’s display brightness maxes out at 400 nits. While the display is bright for indoor use, I preferred using the phone at its maximum brightness level for outdoor use. This might not bother some people, but the phone has a waterdrop notch for the front-facing camera, which looks dated.
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G is slightly heavier at 200 grams and is also quite thick at 8.9mm. Xiaomi has included a silicone protective case in the box. You also get a 22.5W fast charger and a USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable. However, the phone only supports 18W fast charging.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G specifications and software
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G features a 7nm MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC and supports seven 5G bands in India. The phone has dual-5G, Bluetooth 5.1, and Wi-Fi 802.11 ac. There’s no IP rating, but the phone does come with ingress protection around the SIM tray to provide some basic protection against water splashes and dust.
The phone also packs a 5,000mAh battery with support for 18W fast charging. Like all recent Xiaomi phones, the Redmi 11 Prime 5G runs on Android 12-based MIUI 13, which is quite feature-rich but also bloated at the same time. Along with some of Xiaomi’s first-party apps, MIUI 13 on the Redmi 11 Prime 5G comes with a slew of third-party apps such as Moj, Snapchat, Zilli, Spotify, etc. You can choose to uninstall these apps if you want to.
Xiaomi hasn’t promised any details on long-term software updates for the Redmi 11 Prime 5G yet, but we’re hoping the company at least rolls out Android 13 for it.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G performance and battery life
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G, which features the MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC, delivers a decent performance. Day-to-day tasks like scrolling through social media, surfing the web, etc. worked fine for it. However, if you are someone who wants great gaming performance at this price, it might disappoint. While games like Asphalt 9 Legends, Call of Duty: Mobile ran decently well on base settings, we did notice some stuttering while playing. The phone scored 521 and 1,757 points in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests. In AnTuTu, the phone scored 3,37,683 points.
The phone offers good battery life overall. The 5,000mAh battery easily lasted us a day and a half of moderate to light usage. In our battery life test, the Redmi 11 Prime 5G lasted 16 hours and 53 minutes, which was good. Using the supplied charger, it took around two hours to fully charge the phone from empty.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G features a 7nm MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which quickly authenticates and unlocks the phone. While there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, Redmi hasn’t included a pair of wired earbuds in the box. The device also has a single-speaker setup, which is fairly loud. We would have liked a dual-speaker setup, though.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G Cameras
There’s a dual-camera setup on the back of the Redmi 11 Prime 5G. The phone has a 50-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor, but no ultra-wide camera. For selfies, there’s an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
Redmi 11 Prime 5G has a dual camera setup
The primary camera is good enough in bright scenarios. Photos generally had neutral colors and good details. However, in challenging situations with backlit subjects or in low light, the camera performance was below average and the dynamic range was weak.
Taken with the main camera of the Redmi 11 Prime 5G
There is a night mode, but I didn’t find it very effective. As for video, the device supports up to 1080p recording at 30fps for both the front and rear cameras. Videos recorded in daylight with the main camera offered neutral colors, but lacked proper stabilization. In low light, there is visible noise.
Sample photo of night mode on Redmi 11 Prime 5G
Selfies offer decent detail in daylight, but the software messes with skin tones, making faces look lighter and adding some pinkish hues. The portrait mode for the front camera does a good job of blurring the right areas of the background.
Portrait mode on Redmi 11 Prime 5G
Sample photo of the front camera on the Redmi 11 Prime 5G
Pronunciation
The Redmi 11 Prime 5G packs a decent performance package for under Rs. 15,000. The highlight of the phone is its 5G support with up to seven bands, along with a decent processor for day-to-day tasks. With a large display and decent battery life, the Redmi 11 Prime 5G will appeal to those who like consuming video content on their phone. We would have liked to see a brighter AMOLED display with a standard refresh rate, instead of what we have currently. If you can stretch your budget by Rs. 500, the Redmi Note 11S (Review) with its 90Hz AMOLED display offers a better multimedia experience.
The Redmi 11 Prime’s cameras also aren’t the best. You could look at phones like the Moto G32 or even Redmi’s own Note 11, both of which are 4G-only phones. If you want 5G networking support at this price, you’re going to have to make some compromises in some areas. There’s also the iQoo Z6 Lite 5G (first look), a new performance-focused budget 5G smartphone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 SoC that’s also worth considering.
