Realme 11 Pro 5G Review: A Good Offering Held Back by Camera Performance

Realme has expanded its number series lineup with the introduction of the all-new Realme 11 Pro series. The Realme 11 Pro series is a successor to last year’s Realme 10 Pro series. It includes two models: Realme 11 Pro and Realme 11 Pro+, with both sharing most of the specifications, except for a few areas, including the price.

On the one hand, the Realme 11 Pro+ starts at Rs 27,999, while the Realme 11 Pro can be had for Rs 23,999. For Rs 4,000 less, the Realme 11 Pro skimps on megapixels and ultra-fast charging. But should you consider it over its sibling, the Realme 11 Pro+, or other smartphones in the same price bracket?

Here’s our Realme 11 Pro review to help you decide.

What’s Good?

Realme has opted for the same design and choice of materials on both the Realme 11 Pro models. As such, you get the same plastic frame as the Realme 11 Pro+ sandwiched between glass on the front and the back of the Realme 11 Pro.

The back panel is covered in faux leather and has a zipper-style strip running vertically along the center. I like the finish on the back panel here: not only does it look nice, but it also makes the device comfortable to hold.

As for the vertical strip, it doesn’t entice me much, though it certainly gives the Realme 11 Pro a distinct visual appearance in this price range, and many would like it. All three buttons (power, volume up, and volume down) offer good tactility. Plus, since the rear camera module is positioned in the middle, the phone doesn’t wobble much when you use it on a table.

Moving to the front, the Realme 11 Pro 5G features a 6.7-inch curved OLED display. It offers an FHD+ (2412 x 1080 pixels) screen resolution and supports 120Hz of refresh rate. A high refresh rate makes the interface feel snappy, and it’s good to have this on a device in this price range.

Realme has done a good job with the display here. It has kept it identical to the Realme 11 Pro+. The display is sharp and gets sufficiently bright outdoors, thanks to a peak brightness of 950 nits. It’s also HDR10+ certified, which makes it really good for content consumption, though we could only test this on YouTube.

Additionally, Realme is using the PWM dimming technology, which uses ultra-high frequency—2160Hz—to reduce screen flicker. There’s an in-display fingerprint scanner on the device, which is super quick and accurate.

Under the hood, the Realme 11 Pro runs a Dimensity 7050 5G chipset. It’s basically a rebranded Dimensity 1080 5G with some performance tweaks but nothing too significant.

The chipset performs well in everyday use: it’s able to tackle day-to-day tasks, like checking updates on social media, clicking pictures, watching videos, and casual gaming effortlessly; at no point did I encounter any stutter or lag on the device, even during gaming. Similarly, I didn’t experience any noticeable issues with multitasking either.

Part of the reason for a good overall experience is the UI. The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G runs on Realme UI 4.0, which is smooth and responsive, though I have a few issues with the software. I’ll discuss them in the other section.

Realme packs a 5,000mAh battery on the Realme 11 Pro 5G. It lasted around six hours on average on a single charge. My usage included typical day-to-day use: web browsing, social media, capturing photos, listening to music, and watching content on YouTube. Occasionally, I also played a few games, but the screen-on-time didn’t go down by much.

For charging, Realme bundles a 67W SUPERVOOC charger with the Realme 11 Pro. It took the charger 50-55 minutes to charge the battery from around 5 to 100%, which is close to the company’s claim of 47 minutes.

As for optics, the Realme 11 Pro sports a dual-camera setup on the rear, which includes a 100MP primary sensor with OIS and a 2MP secondary depth sensor.

Talking about performance, the 100MP shooter captures decent photos in daylight. The pictures come out sharp and have contrast levels.

However, the saturation can be a hit or a miss, as the camera has the tendency to oversaturate things at times.

I also like the color temperature here. It’s a little warm compared to Realme 11 Pro+, and in my opinion, it looks a bit more natural. The primary sensor allows for 2x lossless zoom. It’s quite useful and helps you capture clearer and sharper shots at 2x zoom.

Low-light shots from the Realme 11 Pro are also acceptable and usable. But they do appear a little oversaturated in certain lighting, and the colors sometimes look a bit more punchy than in real life.

Similarly, the camera also does a good job with portrait shots: it doesn’t alter the color much, which is a problem with its elder sibling, as we mentioned in our review. However, the skin tones sometimes appear washed out under artificial lighting.

What’s Not So Good?

Although Realme has done well in the design department, and the build also feels fairly sturdy, it’s skimped on ingress protection, which is a major missing, especially when you consider that some of its competitors in this price range come with some sort of protection.

Similarly, another thing about the Realme 11 Pro 5G that disappoints me is the haptics. Unlike its elder sibling, which has really good haptics, the ones on the Realme 11 Pro are poor and hamper the experience.

On the performance front, while I didn’t have any noticeable issues during my time with the device, it’s worth mentioning that it did get warm while clicking pictures and shooting videos—a little too much for my liking. This was also the case with the Realme 11 Pro+.

Coming to my gripe with the Realme UI, the bloatware situation continues to plague the software. The UI comes loaded with a host of bloatware apps, including Hot Apps and Hot Games recommendations. In fact, there’s an addition of a new category, Hot FreeGames, which adds to the misery further. Thankfully, these apps are uninstallable, so if you decide on getting this device, we recommend removing them to free up storage space.

Besides unsolicited apps, the Realme UI also throws a lot of suggestions and tips as you open an app or a system component, like search, for the first time. Sure, we get the intention behind this, but it adds unnecessary friction and isn’t needed at all. Notifications from various system apps is another major problem with Realme UI. In my time, the notifications kept buzzing the phone all day, and I had to disable them for those apps to continue using the phone peacefully.

All of these issues with the Realme UI can be seen on the Realme 11 Pro+, too. In fact, it dates back even to the Realme 10 Pro+, and we highlighted the same in its review.

As for what isn’t good about the Realme 11 Pro cameras, the first problem is the slow shutter speed. It’s apparent with portrait shots the most, but I also noticed it in 2x zoom mode on a few occasions. Then, there’s inconsistency with night-time shots: sometimes the pictures look decent with well-exposed objects in the frame, but then there are times when it fails terribly and produces oversaturated shots with too much noise. Night mode does come to the rescue, but it doesn’t always yield the best results.

Realme also includes a secondary 2MP shooter on the Realme 11 Pro. But sadly, it’s subpar, and you shouldn’t expect much out of it. Similarly, there’s a 16MP selfie camera on the front. It needs favorable lighting conditions to capture good shots. When it doesn’t get it, it struggles with exposure, skin tone, and highlights.

Should You Buy the Realme 11 Pro?

Realme offers the Realme 11 Pro 5G in multiple RAM and storage configurations, and here’s how much each of them costs:

• 8GB+128GB: Rs 23,999
• 8GB+256GB: Rs 24,999
• 12GB+256GB: Rs 27,999

Considering the phone’s starting price of Rs 23,999, the Realme 11 Pro gives you a standout design, an excellent display, good overall performance (for an average user), and strong battery life. However, it lacks an IP rating, and the camera performance isn’t the best. Plus, there are too many bloatware apps, which hamper the experience.

Plus, when stacked against its elder sibling, the price difference between them isn’t much. And for Rs 4,000 more, the Realme 11 Pro+ can get you an ultrawide camera and better primary and selfie cameras, which makes one wonder if it’s worth purchasing the Realme 11 Pro at its current price. In my opinion, even though the Realme 11 Pro comes with a few noticeable upgrades over the Realme 10 Pro, it’s a better purchase with discount offers, as the device finds itself in an awkward spot with its MRP.

As for alternatives, there’s the POCO X5 Pro for those who need the best performance on a budget. Similarly, for someone looking for a more rounded performer, the Redmi Note 12 Pro is a solid option with a splash-resistance design and more capable cameras.

Buy Realme 11 Pro 5G