Realme 11 5G Review: A Worthy Option Under Rs 20,000?

The sub-Rs 20,000 price segment in India is filled with options for someone looking for a decent smartphone. The Realme 11 joins this group with a seemingly new MediaTek Dimensity 6100+ chip — that can also be found in its affordable sibling — the Realme 11x. So, with the ever-growing cut-throat competition in this range, can the Realme 11 5G stand out? And, can it compete against the likes of the Moto G84, Moto G54, and OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite among others? Let’s find out in this review.

Realme 11 5G Review: Pricing and storage variant breakdown

8GB + 128GB: Rs 18,999 – The base variant of the Realme 11 should suffice for most people looking for a decent phone for daily usage.

8GB + 256GB: Rs 19,999 – The Rs 1,000 price difference for extra storage can be very attractive. But, since the memory is the same, choose this variant only if you tend to hoard a lot of files and photos.

Realme 11 5G Review: Design and display

• The Realme 11 5G comes with a unique design approach

• The 6.72-inch IPS LCD display can refresh at 120Hz

We’ve pretty much summed up the Realme 11 5G design aspect in our first impressions, but here are our final thoughts. The colour has grown on us over the period of time, but if you are one for subtlety — go for the Glory Black colourway. However, the plastic back panel is still a home for smudges, but the ‘S’ pattern on it helps steal the attention away. The phone, quite literally shines and glitters when kept in the sunlight. The design execution is pretty chic — guess years of experimentation helps. While many may find it fairly odd, there’s definitely a market for flaunt-worthy devices.

It would’ve been ideal for Realme to smoothen out the edges of the phone, as they tend to dig into your palms and fingers. If you face the same problem, consider using the TPU case provided in the box. At 190 grams, the phone feels relatively light with the weight equally distributed. The button and port placements are fine and reachable, and honestly, the inclusion of the headphone jack is a welcome addition.

The power button doubles up as a fingerprint sensor, and in our usage, it worked flawlessly. The camera module at the back protrudes a bit, making it wobble on flat surfaces. It also resembles the ‘poker’ face emoji — never failing to make us chuckle. Sadly, the Realme 11 5G skips out on any sort of IP rating, which can be found on the Moto G84 and Moto G54 (Review).

The display, rated at 120Hz, is quite smooth and responsive. It sports a hole-punch design at the top that incorporates a selfie camera. The bezels on the display are fairly thin, except for the slightly thicker bottom chin. With a peak brightness of 680 nits, content under outdoor conditions was legible.

The LCD display is crisp and produces good colours while viewing content. The Realme 11 is Widevine L1 certified, so watching 1080p content on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix is possible. That said, there is a slight colour change when viewing at skewed angles.

The single speaker output is common in this price segment, but not excusable. The Moto G54, at a starting price of Rs 15,999 offers a stereo speaker setup which helps enhance the video-watching experience more. Regardless, the mono-speaker output on the Realme 11 is decent and gets fairly loud enough.

Realme 11 5G Review: Performance and software

• The MediaTek Dimensity 6100+ chipset powers the Realme 11

• It runs on Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13

The Dimensity 6100+ SoC is based on the 6nm fabrication process. It’s an octa-core processor with a clock speed of 2.2GHz. This newly launched chip is not found on any other smartphone, as of now — besides Realme’s own 11x. The Realme 11 uses LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage tech. Gimmicks such as extended RAM are also present on the smartphone. As for 5G bands, the phone supports a total of nine bands in India.

In daily usage, the Realme 11 performs well without any noticeable stutters. Switching between apps and multitasking is not an issue either. Rest assured, it can handle menial tasks such as doom-scrolling on social media, checking emails, replying to texts, and more without any fuss. Adding to that, the RAM management is also quite decent, with the phone remembering background tasks.

The benchmark numbers show us that, despite the higher starting price, it lags behind the Moto G54. But, it wins against the similarly priced Moto G84. In fact, it also one-ups the Realme 11x. Geekbench 6 and 3DMark’s Sling Shot Extreme scores were fairly decent too.

Call of Duty: Mobile on the Realme 11 can go up to Medium graphics and High frame rates. We engaged in a couple of Team Deathmatch rounds, and the smartphone handled the game well without any lags. In BGMI, the phone can go up to HD graphics and High framerates. Using the Smooth graphics presets you can achieve Ultra framerates, which should ideally give you 40fps. While it’s not a gaming phone as such, it can certainly handle casual and light gaming sessions without much fuss.

The phone runs Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13. The UI experience is good with smooth animations and a bunch of options for customisation. It also comes with a set of gestures — both screen-off and screen-on, which makes the usage more dynamic. Since it boots Android 13, you get the Material You theming goodness.

While all that is good, the Realme 11 comes with a slew of bloatware apps. Moreover, you also get Glance, which sends across a lot of spammy lock screen wallpapers. Thankfully, it can be disabled in the settings. Realme also promises two years of software upgrades and three years of security patches, which is good.

Realme 11 5G Review: Cameras

• The phone sports a dual-camera setup at the back

• The front snapper is a 16-megapixel camera for selfies

The dual-camera array at the back includes a 108-megapixel camera, which comes with the Samsung ISOCELL HM6 sensor. You get a specific full-resolution camera mode in the app to take full advantage of this.

Realme 11 Daylight Camera Samples

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As for the normal photos, these are pixel-binned. In daylight conditions, the focus and shutter speed are commendable. Captured images are bright, crisp, and detailed. The post-processing tends to overdo the greens and blues in the image a bit, but they look pleasing to the eye.

Surprisingly, it does a good job of maintaining the dynamic range in tricky lighting situations. While the Realme 11 does not come with a dedicated telephoto camera, you get in-sensor zoom up to 3x on the primary camera. It’s a digital zoom and not optical but provides fairly lossless photos using the software. The same technology can be seen on the Realme 11 Pro+ (Review). While there’s a slight difference in detail, it’s not very prominent.

Realme 11 Selfie and Low light Camera Samples

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The photo processing time could’ve been slightly faster, but this shouldn’t really be a dealbreaker. Speaking of which, portrait shots have a good depth of field, but the edge detection can be better — especially around hair.

In human subjects, the Realme 11 has the tendency to introduce a bit of red hues to the skin. Low-light camera performance was a bit underwhelming with fewer details in the image. The dedicated night mode helps brighten up the images.

The 16-megapixel shooter at the front clicks decent photos — that is once you jump a few hurdles of switching off the uninvited filters. The selfies had good details and colour reproduction. The portrait mode also works fine in most conditions but gobbles up a chunk of hair in the blur.

Realme 11 5G Review: Battery and charging

• The Realme 11 packs a 5,000mAh battery

• It comes with an 80W charger in the box, but only supports 67W charging

The Realme 11 packs a 5,000mAh battery. This seems to be an industry standard in the sub-Rs 20k category, and we have no complaints. The battery life is reliable and will not make you beg for a charger before evening. It manages a screen time of over five hours in most cases and can go up to six hours. In our PCMark battery test, the Realme 11 ran for 12 hours and 53 minutes.

Worth noting that the included 80W charger charges the phone at 67W speeds. It takes the phone 30 minutes to reach the 50 per cent mark and a little over an hour to completely charge, which is great.

Realme 11 5G Review: Verdict

The Realme 11 finds itself in the middle of a lot of competition. But, for its own good — it can hold on to itself. While there will be a lot of talk about the design, we are bullish on it purely because they keep on trying something new. That said, get the black colourway if you would like to stay classy. Moving on to the display, the LCD panel does its job well.

Video watching experience on the Realme 11 was satisfactory, but the missing stereo speaker setup could be a dealbreaker for some. The daylight camera performance is also quite impressive, but the low-light output needs a bit of work. Additionally, the portrait mode could also do with some polish. All in all, the Realme 11 performs well in daily usage and is at par with other smartphones in this price range, and gets an edge with reliable battery life and fast charging.

Realme 11 5G Alternatives

Moto G54: If you want a more powerful battery and a simple-looking smartphone with a camera that has OIS, this is the device for you. Moreover, at the price of Realme 11, you can get up to 12GB RAM, if that’s your preference. But, remember, it comes with its fair share of drawbacks. Read our review to find out more.

Moto G84: If an AMOLED display and an attractive design are on your checklist, this should be considered. However, it comes with the age-old Snapdragon 695 chipset, so performance-wise, it lags behind the current crop of smartphones powered by newer processors.

OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite: If you want a smooth UI experience and fast charging to top it off, the Nord CE 3 Lite (Review) could be a worthy device to consider.

With all of that said, the Realme 11 is a reliable and capable smartphone in this price segment. A few software updates to fix the minor camera issues, and it could become the go-to choice below Rs 20k