Realme 11x 5G: price in India
The price of 6GB + 128GB storage variant of Realme 11x 5G is Rs 14,999, while its 6GB + 128GB storage variant is being sold for Rs 15,999. With the start of the festive season, we can expect some offers on this phone. The phone is available in Purple Dawn and Midnight Black color variants.
Realme 11x 5G: design and display
Realme 11x 5G comes with a boxy design. With a thickness of 7.9 mm and a weight of 190 grams, the smartphone does not feel too heavy or uncomfortable to hold. Its body is made of polycarbonate, but Realme has done a good job with the finish. An attempt has been made to give glass finish on the back panel and despite being polycarbonate, the frame seems to be made of aluminium. We had its Purple Dawn color variant for review, which has a glittery and extremely bright blue shade on the back panel, which changes color between blue and purple when the light falls on it. At a certain angle you will see an ‘S’ pattern made of lines. The good thing is that even after having a glossy glass finish, it is easy to grip and it does not slip out of the hand easily.
There is a large circular ring on the back of the Realme 11x 5G, in which two smaller camera rings and an LED flash are fitted. The module is slightly raised above the panel. The volume rockers and power button are placed on the right side of the frame. The power button works as a fingerprint sensor and it was fast and accurate at unlocking the phone. There is a triple slot tray on the left side of the frame, in which a microSD card can be inserted along with two SIMs and the storage can be expanded by 1TB. There is a Type-C charging port, primary microphone and a 3.5 mm audio jack with a speaker grill at the bottom and a secondary microphone for noise cancellation at the top. The single bottom-firing speaker was loud enough, but the sound quality was average. The microphone did a good job of removing external noise during calling. Overall, the Realme 11x 5G feels sturdy and durable. Its build quality is good. However, everyone may have different preferences and opinions regarding the large circular camera.
Realme 11x 5G has a 6.72-inch IPS LCD display, which comes equipped with FHD+ (1080 x 2400 pixels) resolution and refresh rate up to 120Hz. Its screen-to-body ratio is around 86.6% with thin bezels on the sides and a relatively thick chin at the bottom. Despite being an IPS LCD, the display produces good colors. However, there remains a slight blue tint on the screen, which can be warmed or balanced by changing the color temperature settings. It has received Widevine L1 certificate to stream HD content, but it does not support HDR. While the display was bright enough indoors, with a brightness of 550 nits, I found it difficult to read text at times in direct sunlight.
Realme 11x 5G: specifications and software
The Realme 11X 5G is powered by an octa-core 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 6100+ SoC, paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. It is claimed to include 9 5G bands. Connectivity options in the phone include 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS/ A-GPS.
Realme 11x 5G works on Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13. After first boot you will get plenty of bloatware. Apps cannot be uninstalled in bulk, which means you have to uninstall them one by one. The good thing is that most apps can be uninstalled and some can be disabled. Realme UI is full of customization options. It also had some special features, such as split screen, flexible window, smart sidebar, kid space and simple mode for senior citizens. Also, RAM management could have been a little better, as I found that apps in the background were not staying active for long. However, one good thing is that Realme is promising users two years of OS upgrades and three years of security updates.
Realme 11x 5G: performance, battery
Realme 11x 5G performs well in general everyday usage. The MediaTek Dimensity 6100+ is a capable chipset, which did not give me any problems even with medium to heavy usage. The smartphone achieved a score of 10405 in PCMark’s Work 3.0 test, which was above average. I streamed OTT content while keeping the BGMI game and some social media apps minimized in the background and the phone handled it without any issues. Talking about benchmark scores, Realme 11x 5G scored 726 and 1931 points in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests respectively. At the same time, it got a score of 430589 in AnTuTu, which was around the same as other smartphones in this range.
At the same time, Realme 11x 5G did not disappoint me even in casual gaming. A graphics demanding game like BGMI was set to HD graphics and high frame rate in default settings. At these settings the game was reaching an average of 45 fps and ran without any stutters or lag. Whereas Asphalt 9 was on medium graphics settings by default, I noticed FPS stuttering during gameplay, but it did not spoil the game experience. The claimed 240Hz touch sampling rate here also helped improve the experience of these games. Thermal throttling was also handled well by Realme 11x 5G.
Realme 11x 5G also did not disappoint me in terms of battery backup, but I was expecting slightly better results. The battery lasted the whole day with about half an hour of gaming, a few hours of social media and finishing a movie in HD resolution on an OTT platform, but a slightly longer gaming session and a little more time on Instagram and YouTube ended the day. Before that could happen I had to put the phone on charging. The Realme 11x 5G lasted 11 hours XX minutes in our HD video loop test, which was a below-average backup. A 33W charging adapter is available in the phone box, which charged the battery from 0-50% in about 30 minutes and from zero to full in 1 hour 10 minutes.
Realme 11x 5G: cameras
Realme 11x 5G has a dual rear camera setup, which includes a 64-megapixel OV64B primary camera. The camera can give you some great shots in daylight. In good lighting, there is plenty of detail in the pictures and the pictures appear sharp. Exposure and contrast were accurate and dynamic range was good as well. Although the colors were slightly boosted in most of the photos, the photos were worth sharing directly on social media without editing. There is also a 64MP mode, which gives you even better results, but with a larger file size. However, there was not much difference between the binned photo and the full resolution photo. If you want to save storage space, I would recommend taking photos in Normal mode only.
The setup lacks a telephoto lens, which is missing from most phones in this price range, but the primary camera supports 2x zoom, which can give you some zoomed-in results, similar to telephoto. It gave me some shots that had enough detail. However, there was a hedge effect in some photos, but it went away with basic editing.
Results were mixed in indoor lighting. In good artificial lighting the camera produced good shots, with good contrast and exposure, and plenty of detail. But once again, here too the reds and greens were boosted by the camera and the skin tones were also a little brighter. However, almost all the photos were directly shareable on social media. As the lighting decreased, there was a decline in quality. There was noise in the pictures and also some parts were over sharp. However, a Night Mode has been provided in the app, which improves the results to a great extent. It did a good job of removing noise from the shots, but there was a loss of detail when zooming.
Portrait mode does accurate edge detection in good lighting and generates some nice shots. However, at times the skin appeared washed out and there was a slight lack of detail. At the same time, in artificial lighting the camera was struggling to recognize the edges of the subject.
Realme 11x 5G has an 8-megapixel front camera, which can give you some good selfies in good lighting conditions. The good thing was that the skin tones came out natural in the front camera. There was natural blur in the background and plenty of details. However, this camera struggled a lot in low light. There was noise in the photos and skin tones appeared relatively bright in some photos. However, all results were shareable on social media without editing.
It disappointed me greatly in terms of video recording. Both the main and front cameras can record at a maximum of 1080p@30fps and the results were average. Videos were not stable and dynamic range was also not good.
Overall, the camera system of Realme 11x 5G performs well. It gives excellent daylight performance for the price. However, low-light camera performance needs some improvement.
Realme 11x 5G: verdict
The Realme 11x 5G is a budget-friendly 5G phone that offers great build quality, a capable camera system, and a vivid display experience for its price. I missed stereo speakers in it, but the single bottom firing speaker was enough to enjoy a movie inside a room. The battery gives relatively little backup, but the 33W fast charging works to charge the device quickly. At the same time, there is no IP rating available in the phone, which is present in some models in the competition.
Overall, with a starting price of Rs 14,999, the Realme 11x 5G is a good option for those looking for a budget-friendly device. However, if you can compromise with slow charging and average low-light camera performance, the lower-priced Infinix HOT 30 5G is also a good option that offers extra perks like long battery life, stereo speakers, and an IP53 rating. Also gives.