Realme 11X review: A pocket-friendly powerhouse

Realme 11X review: Realme launched Realme 11X and Realme 11 on August 23 in India. These newly launched smartphones are a new addition to Realme’s 11 series in India, which also includes Realme 11 Pro 5G and Realme 11 Pro+ 5G. Realme 11 series offers smartphones in the mid-budget as well as budget segment. Realme 11X is a mid-budget smartphone, which is the successor to Realme 10 that was launched in January this year. It is a clear upgrade over the Realme 10 as it is a 5G smartphone whereas the Realme 10 was a 4G smartphone. In addition to this, the Realme 11X features an updated rear and front camera, chipset, and a larger display with a higher refresh rate, as well as a different camera positioning from the Realme 10. But do these features make it worth buying? I will answer this question here. However, before we dive into the detailed review, let’s have a quick overview of its specifications, features and price.

Realme 11X review: Design and display

First coming to what you get in the retail box: the handset, a silicon case, a charger, a USB data cable, a SIM ejector tool and some guides. Realme offers a screen protector with the handset, which is a nice addition because you are not spending extra money on ensuring the protection of your phone. Realme also does not offer any earphones in the box with this smartphone, which, although slightly inconvenient, is a standard practice now.

A look at the Realme 11X and you will notice that it has got a boxy shape. The edges are not smooth or curved, which makes it feel like a flat slab in your hand. That may set it apart from other phones but is not a very comfortable design for prolonged usage. I began feeling minor inconvenience after holding the phone for about an hour, especially while watching videos or playing games. Its speaker is loud but lacks bass. Also, its position on the phone’s bottom leads to the muffling of sound when holding the phone horizontally. The volume buttons are easily reachable when holding the phone in the right hand. The power button, which embeds the fingerprint sensor, is well within my thumb’s reach, while the sensor works fine. The other side has only a slot for two SIM cards.

Coming to the display, it is bright and clear, and it works well both indoors and outdoors. The auto-brightness adjusts well to the lighting conditions. The screen can switch between six different refresh rates, but I set it at 120Hz for a smooth performance as it felt a bit laggy at 60Hz. That means you can have a smooth display experience, but only at the expense of higher battery consumption. That said, I found the display good enough for watching movies and shows.

Realme 11X review: Camera

The camera app of the Realme 11X offers a host of functions such as 64MP Mode, Night Mode, Street Mode, Photograph mode, Portrait Mode, Professional Mode, Panorama Mode, Text Scanner and Tilt Shift.

At the price point, Realme 11X offers a good camera performance. The main 64MP camera gives vibrant natural colours, although it uses pixel-binning to give the regular photo resolution output of 12MP. If you want to take advantage of the full camera resolution, 64MP mode helps and lets you click photos with even more details.

If you are interested in macro photography, this smartphone will give you natural depth of field and detailed shots. But the results are average. With HDR, the camera gives a nice photograph with a detailed background in bright daylight. However, in low light conditions, the camera has some noise but that smoothens out with Night Mode. It takes decent shots in Portrait Mode but misses out on edges at a few points. There is also a 2X zoom option, which takes zoomed shots without losing many details.

If you are someone who loves to click spotless pictures of yourself or your loved ones, this smartphone comes with a range of filters and retouch options to smoothen the image and remove spots. These filters also save you time on editing and do all this while retaining the original colours.

It is worth mentioning that I felt a considerable delay in the photo processing. In low light conditions or bright daylight, you need a keep this phone stable for a good 2-3 seconds to get a good shot.

Now coming to video quality, Realme 11X gives smooth, clear and stable videos at 1080p but struggles a bit in smoothness in 720p. I did not find its slow-motion videos decent enough as they lose details and degrade colours even in daylight and the same goes with the time-lapse videos too. It gives three orientation options in dual video mode, but I find dual videos jerky and lagging. There is also a Film Mode, which is quite good though as it enables you to take cinematic shots with on-screen controls such as ISO, shutter speed, focus and more.

Now coming to the front camera, it gets an 8MP front camera, which captures good images in both- daylight and low light and performs well in portrait mode but fails at capturing details. It also works just fine for video calls.

Here are a few Realme 11X camera sample for reference:

Realme 11X review: Performance and battery

Over my time with the Realme 11X, it performed smoothly when handling many tasks simultaneously. Considering its price point, it was quick in downloading, installing and opening apps, and has a game mode, which boosts performance while playing games. I did not find it overheating or lagging while playing games in HD quality.

Realme 11X comes with a lot of bloatware and duplicate apps for instance, it has two applications for Files- one from Google and the other from Realme, similarly, it has two message applications. You can uninstall some of them while you can force-stop the remaining.  However, the smartphone has nothing new to offer on the UI front. Its side-mounted fingerprint sensor and face unlock feature are also quick enough and respond well.

The battery, which does add to the phone’s weight, lasts for a day with normal to heavy usage and comes with a 33W fast charger that takes around an hour to fully charge the battery. So, the battery backup is not that big of a concern with this smartphone – although the size of the power adapter may be.

Realme 11X review: Verdict

Realme 11X performs well on many fronts. It has a bright display and cameras that perform well in low light and daylight. It has a chipset that is fast and performs well at handling many tasks simultaneously and you don’t need to worry about battery backup with its 33W fast charger. But it has some cons, as well, such as its design is not comfortable for prolonged use and front camera performance is just average, but it looks impressive and other features of this smartphone compensate for these shortcomings. At Rs 15,999, this smartphone is a value-for-money.