This Amazon Spring Sale phone deal will be hard to beat

With the release of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro right around the corner, now’s the time to find a bargain on its predecessor, and right on cue, we get an astounding offer with this Amazon Spring Sale phone deal. Since launching, the Redmi Note 11 Pro has averaged around the GBP280 mark in price, but the Amazon Spring Sale sees the price drop down to just GBP219 – the cheapest it has ever been. Buy now from Amazon

While paying a hair over GBP200 for a smartphone may sound like you’re going to end up with something shoddy and low-quality, there’s actually a lot to like with this phone, due to the fact that it shares a great deal of DNA with one of our favourite mid-range phones, the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G.

As the name suggests, the main difference between the pair is that only the latter offers 5G functionality, so as long as you’re happy to forgo 5G for another couple of years, lets dig into what this deal gets you. As mentioned, most of the 11 Pro is identical to the 11 Pro 5G, so you’re getting the same 6.67in AMOLED display, with vibrant, accurate colours and near-perfect contrast. The resolution is nice and sharp at 2,400 x 1,080 and the 120Hz refresh rate keeps scrolling feeling smooth and transition betweens apps efficient.

A layer of Gorilla Glass 5 covers the display to protect against cracks and scratches, and the whole phone is rated IP53 for dust and splash resistance. The other standout feature with the 11 Pro is the massive 108MP main camera, once again identical to the one used on the 11 Pro 5G. As standard, the 11 Pro doesn’t shoot with the full 108MP, instead using pixel-binning to combine multiple pixels into one, to produce detail-packed 12MP images.

Whether you stick with this or use to the setting to opt for the full 108MP, the camera puts in a good effort considering the price, producing sharp and well-balanced images. Buy now from Amazon

The rest of the camera suite consists of an 8MP ultrawide lens, a 2MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The latter, interestingly, is the one area in which the 11 Pro offers more than the 11 Pro 5G, with the latter only getting the ultrawide and macro lenses.

These ancillary shooters are around the quality you’d expect in a budget phone, you won’t be getting miracles, but they’re useful enough in a pinch. Looking to the internals, we do get a bit of a mixed bag with the 11 Pro. Starting with the positives, you get the same massive 5,000mAh battery as the 11 Pro 5G, so the phone should be good for two days of moderate use.

Xiaomi also bundles in the 67W fast charger with the phone, which the marketing claims can juice the battery from empty to 50% in just 15 minutes, and on to full in around 40. The mixed part of this bag comes in the form of the processor. While the 11 Pro 5G uses a respectable 2.2GHz Snapdragon 695 5G chipset, the non-5G model comes with a slightly weaker 2.05GHz Mediatek Helio G65.

This will likely still be perfectly serviceable for day-to-day activities, so if your phone use tends to consist of scrolling apps like Facebook and Instagram or watching Youtube and Netflix, it will still serve you well. If, however, you play phone games that are more intensive than Candy Crush, or often have dozens of apps open simultaneously, the processor may struggle to keep up. Buy now from Amazon

The good news is that the lack of 5G and the less powerful processor are the only two concerns to be aware of with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro.

If neither of those put you off, then you could do a lot worse for a smartphone at this price. The display is crisp and smooth, the main camera punches above its weight and the fast charging is some of the best you’ll see south of GBP300. There are plenty more deals to be had, and if you were wondering where’s the best place to find them, you can head over to our main Amazon Spring Sale hub.

We’ll be updating this page constantly throughout the sales event, so check back in regularly to see if we’ve dug up anything that takes your fancy.