realme 11 Review

The realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus were two really great phones launched by realme Philippines earlier this year. Specifically, the realme 11 Pro Plus stood out given everything it has to offer.

Despite that, one phone was still missing from the lineup – the entry-level realme 11.

Now, it’s finally here. And interestingly, it looks quite different from the realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro Plus. At the same time, the realme 11 is also down on specs. However, it is a lot more affordable, making it a lot lighter on the wallet. Specifically, the realme 11 retails for PHP 13,999.

So if you didn’t order the realme 11 Pro or the 11 Pro+, today we’ll be checking out the all-new realme 11. More importantly, we’ll see if it’s a phone you should consider buying. Given the great reviews we had of the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus, we do have high expectations for the entry-level realme 11.

Design and Construction

First, we have to talk about the design of the realme 11. We’ve gotten used to the design of the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus, which features the large circular camera housing at the center. Unlike the more powerful variants, the base realme 11’s camera housing is located at the upper corner of the back panel.

I’m not sure why realme changed the design of this phone from the 11 Pro and Pro Plus, but it still looks great. As you would expect the back panel is made out of plastic, and it features a matte textured finish. Because of this, you don’t leave any nasty fingerprints behind making it great to use without the provided rubber case. It also looks great in this black colorway.

Like the back panel, the frame is also made out of plastic. On the right side, you’ll find the volume rockers along with the power button which doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

At the bottom, you get a loudspeaker, a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack which happens to be missing on the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus. To round things up, the dual-sim card slot is found on the left side.

Coming from the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus, the base realme 11 doesn’t have the same premium feel. However, it still feels solid and doesn’t feel that cheap. It has a good weight, and the buttons have a nice tactile feel. Not to mention, I like this design better.

Display and Multimedia

On the realme 11, you get a large 6.43-inch AMOLED screen. This does have rather thick borders, especially at the bottom. But in this black color, you won’t notice it too much. Since it is AMOLED, the colors are great and vivid out of the box. It’s definitely not as vibrant as the 11 Pro and Pro Plus, but they’re still nice for watching videos and photos.

However, the display only has a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz, which might disappoint some users who want to game on this phone. Thankfully, it is quite bright making it easy to use even under direct sunlight. Not to mention the display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, making it quite sturdy. But as always, try not to drop your phone.

You also get only one downward-firing loudspeaker for the realme 11. It’s not great if I’m being honest, but thankfully there is a 3.5mm audio jack that you can use. It is worth mentioning that the loudspeaker is loud though; just be sure not to accidentally cover it when holding it up.

Performance

The Philippine version of the realme 11 is powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 processor with a Mali-G57 GPU. Our review unit also comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The storage is a bit lacking for my liking, but thankfully it can be expanded further by a microSD card slot.

While the MediaTek Helio G99 chipset isn’t the most powerful one out there, it suits the realme 11 for day-to-day use. There wasn’t any lag or slowing down when I used it to watch videos and scroll through social media. That’s even when I left several apps running in the background. Although I do recommend clearing them if you want to game.

For gamers, you can expect the realme 11 to run Mobile Legends or Asphalt 9 with ease. It can even run Genshin Impact, but I did have to tone down the settings in order to improve gameplay. One thing I did notice is that the phone tends to run hot over time so do keep that in mind. But hey at least you can do your dailies, right?

To give you a better idea of how the phone performs, check out benchmark scores below.
Antutu – 423288
Antutu Storage Test- 34644
S.Read- 11872
Speed: 1034.7 MB/s
S.Write- 9872
Speed: 860.3 MB/s
R.Access- 12900
R.Speed: 193.0 MB/s
W.Speed: 190.0 MB/s

3d Mark wild life- 1369

Geekbench 6
Single: 650
Multi: 1872

Geekbench 6 GPU OpenCL- 1412
PC work 3.0 performance- 9898

Camera

One of the main highlights of the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus are the cameras. So it’s not surprising that the camera on this realme 11 is also quite decent. It’s not as capable as the realme 11 Pro Plus that’s for sure, but it’s still really good.

The dual-rear camera features a 108MP main shooter paired with a 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, you get a 16MP front camera.

During the day or in perfect lighting conditions, the photos come out really nice. They’re sharp and also very vivid. Even if you use 3x zoom, you still get decent photos that are relatively sharp.

But what really surprised me was the image quality at night. Just take a look at these photos, these were taken using just regular photo mode. There’s little grain, and you can still make out details in the background. However, I noticed that the photo quality goes down when you use 3x zoom or more at night, but that should be a given.

With that, you can’t go wrong using the realme 11 to capture memories wherever you go, and in whatever condition. As for the front camera, you can take decent selfie photos provided there’s enough lighting.

Like the photos, the videos taken by this smartphone are also great during the day and when there’s enough lighting. However, the quality does go down once it’s dark since you’ll start seeing more grain. At the same time, the subject may not be as sharp anymore. For reference, the realme 11 can record at a maximum of 1080P@30FPS for both the front and rear cameras.

Check out the gallery below to see some of the photos we took using the realme 11.

OS, Apps, and UI

The smartphone runs on realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13, and it’s quite decent. You have several shortcut and gesture options you can take advantage of.

But one thing I didn’t like about the realme 11 is the amount of bloatware that comes pre-installed with the phone. There’s a lot, and honestly, they can be quite annoying. That’s because you have to manually uninstall all of the apps just to declutter your brand-new phone.

While some of the pre-installed apps are those you might use, the rest of them just end up taking up space.

Battery and Connectivity

In terms of battery life, the realme 11 comes with a standard 5,000mAh unit. It lasts a relatively long time, enough for an entire day of use. However, it does drain relatively fast when the phone starts heating up after gaming for some time. Based on our battery loop test, it was able to last approximately 14 hours and 30 minutes, which are rather decent numbers.

If you do need to recharge, it won’t take too long. The realme 11 comes with 67W fast charging, which according to realme, can recharge the phone to 50% in just 17 minutes. That’s of course assuming you use the provided cable and brick.

The only downside to the realme 11 is that it doesn’t come with 5G, so you are limited to 4G LTE. However, you do get Wi-Fi 5. Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, and the other usual bits.

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, the realme 11 retails for PHP 13,999 for the 8GB+256GB variant. It’s also the only variant available in the Philippines. But there are various discounts available for up to PHP 2,000, which you can check here 60.

So is the realme 11 a budget version of the more powerful 11 Pro and Pro Plus? It’s both a yes and a no. Yes in the sense that you have a really great camera that works great in almost any lighting condition. However, that’s where the similarities end. At the end of the day, you have a less powerful chipset and lower performance with the realme 11 at the cost of lower price.

If you have the budget, I would definitely recommend going for the realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus just because of what they have to offer. But if your wallet’s a bit tight and you want a phone that can simply capture great images at an affordable price you can’t go wrong with the realme 11.

But what do you think of the realme 11? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

realme 11 specs
6.4” FHD+ Super AMOLED display
2400 x 1080 pixels, 90Hz refresh
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
MediaTek Helio G99
8GB RAM (+8GB extended memory)
256GB storage
Suports microSD (dedicated slot)
Dual rear cameras:
– 108MP f/1.8 main
– 2MP f/2.4 mono
16MP f/2.5 selfie camera
Dual SIM
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
USB Type-C (USB 2.0)
3.5mm audio jack
Side mounted fingerprint sensor
realme UI 4.0 (Android 13)
5000mAh battery
67W SuperVOOC charging
159.9 x 73.3 x 7.95 mm
~178g
Glory Gold, Dark Glory

What we liked:
Great camera
Decent chipset
Affordable price

What we didn’t like:
Only a 90Hz display
Mono Audio
Very plasticky feel