Realme 11 Pro+ 5G Review: The Yin-Yang Smartphone

Realme 11 Pro+ 5G has been officially launched in India and going by the nomenclature, it should be the successor to the Realme 10 Pro+ 5G (Review). However, with the number of upgrades on offer, the 11 Pro+ 5G finds itself competing against higher-priced rivals such as the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ 5G (Review), Motorola Edge 40 (Review), iQoo Neo 7 (Review), and the Poco F5 5G (Review). The phone certainly packs some promising hardware on paper, including a new 200-megapixel primary camera, 100W fast charging and a capable performance unit.

With all that is on offer, should you consider buying the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G? Here is our full review to help you decide.

Realme 11 Pro+ 5G price in India

The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G has been launched in two configurations. The base variant of the phone packs 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 27,999. The variant we have comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is priced at Rs. 29,999.

Realme 11 Pro+ 5G design and display

The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G comes in three finishes, Astral Black, Oasis Green and Sunrise Beige. The green variant we have has faux-leather on the back, which seems to be a new trend now. I do not have any problem here as it feels very premium compared to regular plastic panels and also helps avoid fingerprints and smudges. The beige colour also has a faux-leather back.

Both weigh about 189g and thanks to the textured surface, offer good grip and in-hand feel. The back panel also has a stitch-like pattern running vertically through the centre of the rear panel, which makes it look like the phone’s wearing a fashionable leather jacket. If you want a more simple look, the black variant is always there, which is also a tad lighter at 183g.

The plastic frame has a glossy finish and houses the power and volume buttons on the right, whereas the bottom edge houses the USB Type-C port, primary speaker grille and hybrid-SIM slot.

Things have not changed as much on the front of the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G compared to the 10 Pro+ 5G, which is not a bad thing. The 11 Pro+ 5G uses the same 6.7-inch curved-edge AMOLED display with a full-HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The display offers a great multimedia experience with rich colours and ample brightness for outdoor conditions. There is an HDR10+ playback certification, which worked with YouTube at the time of this review, but Netflix didn’t detect it. Despite the curved-edges of the display, I did not experience any issues with accidental touches.

Realme 11 Pro+ 5G specifications and software

The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G features a MediaTek Dimensity 7050 SoC, which is a slightly tweaked version of the Dimensity 1080 SoC found in the 10 Pro+ 5G. The 11 Pro+ also packs a 5,000mAh battery with 100W fast charging support. The phone has a dual-speaker setup, support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and GPS.

In terms of software, the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G boots the Android 13-based Realme UI 4.0. The custom skin based on Oppo’s ColorOS 13 offers many personalisation and customisation options. For starters, users can adjust the shape and size of icons, change the fonts, wallpapers and themes. You can sync the colours of the system icons with the wallpaper as well. There is also support for an Always-on Display, which offers some personalisation including adding a Bitmoji.

That being said, Realme UI 4.0 is a mess when it comes to bloatware and app recommendations. Currently, among all the custom skins out there, it feels like the most bloated of the lot. If Hot Apps, Hot Games and Hot FreeGames were not enough, the phone also comes preinstalled with a bunch of third-party apps such as Josh, Dailyhunt, Moj, PhonePe, Spotify, and LinkedIn.

To make matters worse, Game Centre, App Market (Realme’s native App Store) and Theme Store spam the notification shade with frequent recommendations. Also, whenever an app is downloaded and installed, you’re redirected to a new screen with the option to open it or check more apps in the App Market. The same screen will also show ads for other apps available in the App Market.

The good news is that Realme has promised to provide two major Android updates and security support for three years for the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G.

Realme 11 Pro+ 5G performance and battery life

The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G is quite capable when it comes to handling routine tasks and casual gaming. The phone did not show any sign of lag or stutter, except for some jitter in the animations while playing videos (YouTube mainly) in picture-in-picture (PIP) mode.

When it comes to gaming on the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G, BGMI runs at up to ‘Ultra’ framerate with ‘HDR’ graphics. You can also run it at a higher ‘Extreme’ framerate with ‘Smooth’ graphics settings. I did enjoy playing BGMI on the 11 Pro+ 5G as it did not lag or show any signs of stutter. The phone gets marginally warm around the camera module, which is quite normal. The rear camera module tends to get in the way when holding the phone horizontally, which is something to get used to.

The Realme 11 Pro+ 5G scored 5,37,230 points in AnTuTu (v10), which is lower than the Motorola Edge 40’s score of 7,64,083 points and the Poco F5’s score of 10,94,798 points. In Geekbench 6’s single-core and multi-core tests, the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G scored 921 and 2138 points, respectively.