Redmi Note 11T 5G vs Lava Agni 5G: Who's got the power?

Redmi Note 11T 5G vs Lava Agni 5G: Who knew that we would see a close battle between Xiaomi and Lava in 2021? Last month, the Lava Agni 5G made headlines as Lava took a break from making entry-level phones and went ahead with a midrange one. We reviewed it too and had a mixed response to it.

However, Xiaomi came up with the Redmi Note 11T 5G – a phone that is similar to the Lava Agni in many ways, expect for a lower price. The Redmi Note 11T has more storage variants and brings in new stuff from 2021. Both of them have, however, the same chipset. Obviously, it becomes an uphill task to choose between these two.

Hence, we have come up with this comparison of on-paper specs between the two. Which one should you buy.

Redmi Note 11T 5G vs Lava Agni 5G

Design

Both phones have a plastic unibody design with large camera humps and an edge-to-edge 6.67-inch display. Redmi offers brighter gradient colours whereas Lava offers only one colour variant in India. The Redmi Note 11T also gets a stereo speaker setup and an IP53 water and dust resistance, something which the Lava lacks.

Display

Both of them are on-par here. They have got an identical 6.67-inch IPS LCD display with FHD+ resolution and a refresh rate of 90Hz. However, the Redmi Note 11T can vary its refresh rate down to 50Hz based on the content to save battery, and has a 180Hz touch response rate.

Performance

The Mediatek Dimensity 810 is the common factor between these two phones. Xiaomi offers variants with 6GB and 8GB RAM while Lava only offers 8GB RAM. Raw performance should be identical in this case. However, the Redmi Note 11T gets a more feature-rich and better optimized MIUI 12.5. Lava Agni has a custom Android 11 experience that does not offer as many modifications. Choosing between these two OSes depends on your preference. Note that we found the Lava's OS lacking unpolished in many ways.

Cameras

On paper, the Lava Agni has the advantage here. You get a 64MP main camera along with a 5MP ultra-wide, a 2MP macro and a 2MP depth camera on the back. The Redmi Note 11T 5G only has a 50MP main camera and an 8MP ultra-wide camera (lacking macro photography). The Lava's cameras faired decent in our review. We haven't tested the Redmi Note 11T yet.

Battery

Again, both these phones have a similar 5000mAh battery capacity. The Lava Agni 5G gets a 30W wired charging system whereas the Redmi Note 11T gets a 33W Pro charging system. Redmi uses a split battery architecture for faster charging.

Price

The Lava Agni 5G has only one variant in India that costs ₹19,999. The Redmi Note 11T 5G comes in three variants, with the base 6GB/64GB variant costing ₹16,999. The 6GB/128GB variant costs ₹17,999 while the top-end 8GB RAM variant costs ₹19,999.