Is it better than Realme 11 Pro+?
Hello everyone, this is Pratima and today I will be talking about the Realme 11 Pro. Realme’s 11 Pro series is making quite the headlines right now with the company selling about 200,000 units of these phones in India in just 5 days. And now, the phone is official here in Nepal too. Well, I have already reviewed the Realme 11 Pro Plus a while back and now it’s this guy’s turn.
It is a slightly downgraded version of the Realme 11 Pro Plus and comes with a slightly cheaper price tag too. At the same time, it also shares a lot of similarities with the Pro Plus which might make you think if it is a better value than its elder brother.
I have been using the Realme 11 Pro alongside the Pro Plus for about 2 weeks now and in this review, I will help you decide which one is more value for your money.
Realme 11 Pro Specifications:
- Body: 73.9 x 161.6 x 8.2-8.7mm, 185-191gm
- Display: 6.7-inch OLED, 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate
- Resolution: FHD+ (2400 x 1080 pixels), 20:9 aspect ratio
- Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 7050 5G (6nm Mobile Platform)
- Memory: 8/12GBRAM, 256GB/512GB storage
- Software & UI: Realme UI 4.0 on top of Android 13
- Rear Camera: Dual
– 100MP primary, f/1.75, OIS
– 2MP f/2.4 macro - Front Camera: 16MP (punch-hole)
- Audio: Stereo speakers, Hi-Res Audio
- Security: In-display fingerprint sensor
- Battery: 5000mAh with 67W fast charging
Design
Okay, so design-wise, it’s no surprise that Realme has killed it this time. For the price, the Realme 11 Pro is definitely the best-looking phone out there. I love the vegan leather finish at the back, it has a good heft, it’s not bulky, it feels great to hold, the grip here is really nice and the color options are just nice.
Now, you might think that the Realme 11 Pro Plus being the more expensive of the two maybe somehow offers more on the design front, but no! Apart from the slightly pronounced protrusion in the camera module, both devices feel pretty much the same.
For some more context, the Realme 11 Pro feels much more refined and lighter than the Lava Agni 2 which I have been comparing side by side.
Display
- 6.7-inch OLED
- 120Hz, 360Hz Touch Sampling
Realme has also done a great job with the display here. You get the same quality 120Hz AMOLED display on both the Realme 11 Pro and Pro Plus and they are excellent in terms of contrast, brightness levels, and color reproduction.
The curve on the sides is also not very steep, so I had no issues of mistouch or anything like that here. And the bezels on the side are also quite minimal with a teeny tiny notch up top, so the viewing experience here is also quite enjoyable.
For some reason, you don’t get HDR playback support on Netflix yet, which I hope they push with a software update.
Anyway, I also did compare its display with the Lava Agni 2, and even though the Agni 2 has a more vibrant display in its default settingI felt the color reproduction on the Realme 11 Pro to be more natural, hence, I found it more pleasing.
Likewise, Realme has made sure to include perks like 2160 Hz PWM dimming here which helps prevent eye stress due to screen flickering.
However, Realme has not made it clear as to what sort of display protection this phone has, so I am assuming there is none which is kind of disappointing because curved screens are more vulnerable to damage than flat ones. So any kind of protection here would have been nice.
Audio and Vibration Motor
The stereo speakers here sound good. They are loud and are almost the same as the Realme 11 Pro Plus with crisp vocals and a bit of bass to enjoy.
But what I will complain about is the lack of a good vibration motor on the Realme 11 Pro. I guess it’s one of the compromises Realme has made here to keep the price down.
The vibration on it feels soft and I often found myself missing a lot of my calls and notifications. On the contrary, the 11 Pro Plus’s X- axis vibration motor has excellent feedback and even the cheaper Agni 2 has a much stronger and more refined haptic feedback than the 11 Pro.
Camera
- 100MP Primary Camera
- 2MP Macro
Similarly, another compromise on the Realme 11 Pro also has to be on the camera side of things. Although on paper, its 100 MP sensor might look like a great deal but, in reality, I found its cameras to be a bit inconsistent.
Daylight
Now, don’t get me wrong, during good lighting conditions, the phone is able to pull off some good images! I like how Realme 11 Pro processes human subjects in portraits too, and overall It is definitely better than the Lava Agni 2.
It’s no surprise that Realme prefers a saturated kind of processing, which most times works in its favor, but sometimes it can come off a bit overbearing.
Selfies
Night time
Likewise, as you can see from this sample comparison between the Realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+, the 11 Pro+ is a more consistent performer – both during daytime and especially nighttime.
I think the reason the Realme 11 Pro is not able to produce sharper images or process noise during nighttime is because of its inferior Omnivision primary sensor. As a result, in extremely low light conditions, the 11 Pro struggles to process noise and maintain sharpness. And not to forget, the Realme 11 Pro also misses out on an ultra-wide sensor!
Videos
And I also think the videography side could be better here. Yes, you can shoot up to 4K 30 fps videos but the output is strictly average in terms of stabilization, FOV, and color reproduction. You also don’t have the option to shoot at 60 fps even in 1080p resolution. So, the only choice for decent video output here is 1080p 30 fps.
Performance
- Mediatek Dimensity 7050
- 8GB RAM, 256GB internal storage
Okay, now let’s talk about the performance. The Realme 11 Pro features the same Dimensity 7050 chipset as the 11 Pro Plus and even the Lava Agni 2 for that matter.
So, the performance levels here are pretty similar across all three phones. This means that you can run your daily tasks with ease on this phone, and multitasking between 4 to 5 apps is swift too.
However, the Dimensity 7050 is not a gaming chipset by any means, so the gaming performance on this device is just mediocre.
I was able to play PUBG and COD at 60fps at lower graphics settings without much heating, but it was only when playing Genshin Impact that the phone would show signs of distress, especially in terms of thermals.
And compared with the Pro+, I found the phone getting slightly hotter too! So, this is also another area where Realme seems to have compromised.
What about the UI?
- Realme UI 4.0, Android 13
Other than that, their day-to-day performance is pretty much the same and so is the software experience. For the most part, Realme has optimized the UI quite well here and I haven’t faced any kind of lags or stutters anywhere.
And overall it’s very easy to get around too. Realme has also promised 2 years of software updates and 3 years of security patches on this phone which is not bad!
But like always, the thing that bugs me with Realme UI is the number of bloatware apps. While 80% of them can be uninstalled, the remaining 20% stick around with no way to even disable them.
Battery
- 5,000mAh battery
- 67W fast charging
Lastly, the battery life on the Realme 11 Pro has been great! It’s pretty amazing how Realme has fitted a 5000 mAh battery in such a slim form factor and thanks to Realme’s aggressive battery management, I was getting almost 7 hours of screen on time here under normal kind of usage which is similar to the Realme 11 Pro Plus and slightly more than the Lava Agni 2.
This phone charges pretty fast too. It does not support 100-watt charging like the Pro Plus. But its 67-watt charging makes the phone go from 0-100% in under 50 minutes, which is fast enough!
Conclusion
Okay, time to conclude. So, I started using the device right after I reviewed the 11 Pro Plus and honestly, I didn’t feel that big of a difference in the overall experience, except for the haptics, the camera, and a little bit of extra heating while playing demanding games.
So, basically, the 11 Pro Plus is a polished version of this phone wherein you will get a more refined experience.
Otherwise, with both these phones, you are getting the same design, similar performance, similar battery life, and the same software experience! But, if you are willing to add 14,000 rupees more, you can get the Pro Plus instead.
Realme 11 Pro Review: Pros and Cons
Pros
- Gorgeous Design and Curved Display
- Top-notch stereo speakers
- Great Battery Life
Cons
- Bloatware and Ads on Realme UI
- Average camera
- Not the very decent gaming performance
- Pricing could have been better
