The right answer to the question "Which smartphone should I buy under £300?" in the last few years has always been "A Xiaomi Redmi Note device", with the range being updated every year to bring higher and higher specs without raising the prices. Today we have four new phones from Xiaomi, the Redmi Note 11 series, see the keynote video below.

Here's the launch keynote, though note that it's over two hours long and that there are some repeated bits - plus the presentation itself doesn't really start until 00:48:30!

For simplicity, I'll just cover the top two picks from the range. The Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G has a Snapdragon 695, a 6nm chip, with 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 64GB or 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage. There's a hybrid card tray, meaning that you can put in a microSD card instead of a second SIM. The Redmi Note 11 Pro (4G) has a Helio G96 chip instead, on an older 12nm process, with other specs largely the same. Both will launch with MIUI 13, which is based on Android 11.

Both have a 6.67” AMOLED 1080p display, 120Hz refresh rate, and supporting DCI-P3 wide color gamut. Gorilla Glass 5 protects the screen, while the phones are IP53 for dust and splash resistance. The main camera on the back of each is 108MP, 1/1.52” in size, with 9-in-1 pixel binning and - in theory - 3x smart-cropped zoom. Plus an 8MP ultrawide camera (118°) and a 2MP macro.

Happily the fingerprint readers are side-mounted capacitive, and there's an also welcome 3.5mm headphone jack, plus stereo speakers. Both models are powered by 5000 mAh batteries, which support 67W fast charging. Availability is February and I don't have UK pricing yet. Expect a range of £250-£350, depending on spec level and model.