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realme 11 Pro+ 5G Review

Written By Jose Altoveros
Published • August 24th, 2023
Gadget ReviewsSmartphones
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Earlier this year, realme Philippines launched the realme 10 series. They were great phones at the time, and we’ve done our reviews of them, which you can read on the website. So we were pretty surprised when the company announced that the new realme 11 Series would also be debuting this year. It has only been a few months since its predecessor was introduced after all.

Compared to the realme 10 series, the changes to the realme 11 5G series are quite big. There’s a new design language, a new chipset, an improved camera, and many more. But is it worth it to upgrade especially if you just bought the realme 10 series earlier this year?

Today, we’ll be doing a full review of the realme 11 Pro+ 5G, the top-spec model of the realme 11 series, and whether it is a phone you should consider buying or trading up to.

Table of Contents

Design and Construction

One of the biggest changes Realme made to the 11 Pro+ and the Realme series is the design of the phone itself. Compared to the previous design in the Realme 10 series with two protruding circular lenses, the Realme 11 Pro+ features a large circular camera housing at the top. Here, you’ll find the triple camera system, which we’ll talk more about in detail later.

Another change to the back panel is the construction of the phone. Rather than a sleek matte finish, it is now made of what feels like a mix of synthetic leather and rubber. There’s also a zipper-like design that runs down the center of the phone. Don’t be fooled by the stitching though, it’s not real. Instead, it feels punched into the panel.

The new design language might not be for everyone, but we like it, especially in this Oasis Green colorway. The textured back panel makes the realme 11 Pro+ easier to hold, and the design makes it look different from other phones in the segment. You also don’t have to worry about leaving any nasty fingerprints either. However, we do wonder if the textured finish will look faded over time due to use and dirt buildup.

For buttons and ports, you have the volume and power buttons on the right side of the phone with none on the left. At the bottom, you’ll find a USB-C port, loudspeaker, and a dual-sim card slot. Meanwhile, at the top, there’s another loudspeaker.

Overall, it’s nice and easy to hold and slim enough to fit in your pocket together with another phone.

Display and Multimedia

On the realme 11 Pro+ 5G, you get a large 6.7-inch AMOLED display with beautiful colors out of the box. In addition, it also has a 120Hz refresh rate, making it nice and smooth whether you’re going through the menu or playing games.

There’s no option to change the colors to a more natural or a more vivid setting, but it does have Video Color Boost which enhances the color further. However, it is only limited to a few apps, and it also increases battery usage. In addition, there’s also Bright HDR video mode to increase brightness when playing videos.

But as it is, the colors are great already. Not to mention they are quite accurate too. This makes it perfect if you will be utilizing the new, more powerful camera in the Realme 11 Pro+. It’s also bright too with a maximum of 950 nits, making it easy to use under direct sunlight.

If you’re watching videos, you also have a pair of loudspeakers which are average at best. As with most smartphones, it lacks bass but the mids are quite clear. It’s also loud when you need it to be, making it great if you’re watching with a group of friends. Interestingly, the audio is tuned by Dolby Atmos.

Still, I recommend using a pair of Bluetooth headphones or earphones for a better listening experience since there is no 3.5mm audio jack available.

Cameras

Perhaps one one of the best and our favorite features of the realme 11 Pro+ is the camera. The triple rear camera system is highlighted by a 200MP main shooter along with an 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP macro lens. For video, the rear camera can capture footage at a maximum of 4K@30FPS. Meanwhile, the front camera features a 32MP shooter.

Even without editing, the photos already look great. The colors are quite vivid, but not overly saturated, and sharp overall. If you’re not too picky, you can even upload these photos straight to social media without any issue.

Surprisingly, the photos remain sharp even if you zoom in. At 4x zoom, it’s still great although you should set expectations. What I also liked is that the photos don’t end up being digitally enhanced as with other phone cameras I’ve tried out in the past. So even if you do want to zoom in, you’ll be fine.

If you don’t want to use zoom, there’s also the 200MP mode which you can take advantage of. You can do a 100% crop, and the details can still be seen. Similar to zooming in, you do have to set expectations, but it’s great considering this is a mid-range smartphone.

In terms of video, you can shoot up to 4K at most. However, it’s not stable when shooting handheld. With that, it’s best used with a gimbal or for static shots. If you want to do some cinematic shoots, there is Ultra Steady mode, but it’s only available on 1080P@60FPS max. It’s good enough to even walk around, and there’s minimal camera shake at most depending on how steady your hand can be. This makes it perfect if you don’t want to bring a gimbal around.

Here are some of the photos we took using the realme 11 Pro+, and see how good the camera is for yourself.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the realme 11 Pro+ is a Mediatek Dimensity 7050 5G 6nm chipset with a Mali G68 GPU. Our review unit also comes with 12GB RAM, which can be virtually expanded by an additional 12GB for a total of 24GB. It also comes with 512GB of internal storage which is a lot considering the specs of this phone. However, there is no microSD card slot to expand storage even further.

All-in-all, hardware makes this phone great to use with no lag whatsoever even when you have multiple apps running in the background. It also makes multitasking easier, perfect if you will be using the phone for work.

Since it does pack a Mediatek Dimensity 7050 chipset, the phone is capable of running and playing your favorite games such as Mobile Legends and CoD: Mobile.

It can also run Genshin Impact without any issue, but you do have to set the graphics settings lower in order for the game to run smoothly. Not to mention the phone also tends to heat up when playing Genshin for extended periods of time.

But to give you a better idea, check out our benchmark scores below.

Antutu v10 – 595,555
3D Mark – 2,304
Geekbench 6 – 955 (single core), 2,399 (multi core)
Geekbench 6 GPU – 2384 (Vulkan)
Geekbench 6 GPU – 2346 (OpenCL)
PC Mark Work 3.0 – 13,842

OS, Apps, and UI

The realme 11 Pro+ runs on Android 13 skinned with realme UI 4.0. If you’re used to realme UI in the past, then you’ll feel right at home. You get a bunch of multi-tasking features which makes it easier to become productive with the phone.

However, as with most realme phones, there is a lot of bloatware that comes pre-installed with the phone that is not from Google or Realme. It’s not as bad as other mid-range smartphones, but it’s still quite a hassle since you’ll have to delete the apps individually.

One thing I did like is always on screen which is available on the realme 11 Pro+. It can show the usual content like clock, date, notifications icons, and battery. You can also take advantage of floating windows and like before, split screen.

Battery and Connectivity

The realme 11 Pro+ uses a 5000mAh battery pack, which is the usual you would find in this segment. It’s also the same as you would find in its predecessor. Even with the new chipset, the realme 11 Pro+ doesn’t use that much battery.

According to realme, the phone can last up to 29 hours on calls or 18 hours on video. From my experience, their claims are a bit accurate since it lasted me almost the entire day before needing to recharge. However, it does use up battery quite fast when you end up playing games. And once the phone starts heating up, the battery drains even faster.

When you do need to recharge, it won’t take long. The realme 11 Pro+ features 100W wired fast charging when using the pre-supplied charger.

But to give you a better idea, the phone was able to score 15 hours and 13 minutes with PC Mark’s battery test.

In terms of connectivity, the Realme 11 Pro+ comes with WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and 5G.

Conclusion

All things considered, the realme 11 Pro+ 5G is great for everything it has to offer. You have a great camera with a very capable chipset and a long battery life. You also have a nice screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, which can be great for watching videos. While you can play games, the phone does tend to heat up over time.

For the price of PHP 24,999, it is priced properly, but it does have some serious competition in the segment. One of the phones, in particular, is the Honor 90 256, which also features a great camera and a capable chipset.

At the same time, the realme 11 Pro+ was released just a few months after its predecessor – the Realme 10 Series. With that, it’s possible you might have just bought the realme 10 Pro+ 38, making it hard to upgrade once again. But if you do have the budget, you can’t go wrong with this phone.

But what do you think of the realme 11 Pro+ 5G? Is it a phone you would consider buying this Q3 2023? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

What we liked:

Really Great Camera
Beautiful Display
Long battery life

What we didn’t like:

Lots of bloatware
Heats up when gaming

realme 11 Pro+ specs:
6.7-inch AMOLED display @ 1080 x 2412 pixels
120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, 950 nits (peak)
MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset
Octa-core CPU, up to 2.6GHz
Mali-G68 GPU
12GB RAM
256GB/512GB/1TB storage, no card slot
200MP f/1.7 (wide), PDAF, OIS
8MP f/2.2 (ultrawide)
2MP f/2.4 (macro)
LED flash, HDR, panorama
4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120/480fps, gyro-EIS video
32MP front-facing camera
GSM / CDMA / HSPA / CDMA2000 / LTE / 5G
WiFi-6
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS
NFC
USB Type-C 2.0
Fingerprint (under display, optical), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Android 13, Realme UI 4.0
Li-Po 5000mAh battery, 100W wired charging
Black, Green, Gold (colors)
161.6 x 73.9 x 8.2mm/8.7mm (dimensions)
183/189 grams (weight)