Realme C11 review: Great battery life, affordable price

Realme has launched an entry-level smartphone in India called the C11, months after it outed the Realme C3 in the same price category. While its naming is a little odd and different from the predecessor, the Realme C11 brings the new MediaTek Helio G35 processor to the table, in addition to a large display and a battery with 5000mAh capacity. The Realme C11 not only is the company's most affordable handset, but it also brings something that I have personally been asking for -- the change in camera design.

Realme C11 is unlike other Realme smartphones because it gives up the vertically-stacked cameras and features a squarish module that houses two sensors. It looks similar to the camera modules we first saw on the Google Pixel 4. The change in the camera design was much needed since the old one was getting more monotonous and repetitive than it should have. The rest of the hardware in the Realme C11 is in line with its price. In fact, better than what you would expect in this category.

So, with its good mix of price and hardware, does Realme C11 succeed at Rs 7,499?

Realme C11: Design and display

Since the Realme C11 is a price-friendly smartphone, the bar for expectations should not be high. But Realme manages to deliver more than what I expected from the C11. Its design is one of the few things I like.

The Realme C11 has patterns all over the back panel that is made of polycarbonate. It does not look or feel cheap at all. The smartphone has chamfered edges with multiple grooves given as minute design elements on the body. There is a stripe on the left part of the back panel, filled with solid colour and Realme logo inscribed on it. I am reviewing the Rich Grey colour model but there is another Rich Green colour variant, which looks equally beautiful and has the same design elements as this one.

The square-shaped camera island sits at the top-left portion of the rear surface, with ample space for two cameras and the LED light. The Realme C11 has the power button and volume rocker on the right side while the SIM tray is on the left. At the bottom are the 3.5mm audio jack, Micro-USB port, speaker grille, and a microphone. The top edge is clean without any ports or perforations. All the ports are readily functional and I did not have any issues with them.

It is a no-nonsense design for a smartphone that dares to replace the venerable vertical cameras on nearly all Realme's previous models.

The display on the Realme C11 looks quite tall. It has a waterdrop-style notch at the top and an earpiece above it. Turning the display on reveals a bright and vibrant screen. It is a 6.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 720X1600 pixels and a screen-to-body ratio of 88.7 per cent. The display does not bleed at the edges and feels like a high-resolution panel, thanks to the pixel density of 270 PPI. The bezels are slim on the sides, but the bottom chin is hefty. As far as the screen is concerned, it comes with a mode that makes reading text at night easier on the eyes, as well as dark mode.

The C11 display also gets adequately bright. It allowed me to read the text under direct sunlight. The display colour temperature can be changed between cool and warm, but default setting works fine and should be good enough for most consumers.

Realme C11: Performance

The Realme C11 introduces the MediaTek Helio G35 processor to the market. In hindsight, the Helio G35 is a remodelled Helio P35 with some speed boost. The processor features Cortex-A53 12-nanometre architecture and offers a clock speed of 2.3GHz. I ran Geekbench 5 to find out the benchmark scores but the app repeatedly crashed. Since AnTuTu is delisted from Google Play Store, I did not run it.

For all it is worth, Realme is claiming a 41.3 per cent increase in the benchmark results over the Realme C2, which was powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 processor. After using it, I feel the C11 is faster than the C2 but definitely slower than the Realme C3, which does cost a bit more.

The performance is one of the issues with the C11, which is a pity because otherwise, it is such a good phone. While using the phone, I often saw apps lagging on it. Opening a handful of apps made the phone slow. Also, opening apps such as the camera takes an extra second or two, long enough for the screen to go blank and then reappear. When making calls, the device takes time to jump from dialler to in-call screen. I also tried downloading memory-intensive apps such as Google Chrome and Facebook and both of them showed lags every time they were opened.

What about gaming? Don’t expect much. The Realme C11 can handle light games, such as Angry Birds 2 and Temple Run 2, quite well but struggles to load Darkness Rises and PUBG Lite properly. They are visible lags and frame drops in games like PUBG Lite and the experience is underwhelming at best and frustrating at worst.

The Realme UI, which is based on Android 10, is smooth and works well enough. Taking screenshots with the three-finger gesture and screen recording is smooth. There are nifty features available as a part of Realme UI, which do add to the Android experience but are bogged down by hardware constraints.

The speakers on the Realme C11 are not quite loud though. I never preferred watching a show or playing a game with sound routed through speakers. I used earphones with it. The placement of the speaker grille is such that the sound gets muffled when hand holding it horizontally.

Realme C11: Cameras

An entry-level smartphone will appease the photographer in you by only so much. You cannot expect better looking and well-detailed photos from such a phone. But Realme C11 manages to surprise. There are two cameras on the back: a 13-megapixel main sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, PDAF, HDR, and Super Nightscape mode, and a 2-megapixel f/2.4 sensor with portrait mode.

The main camera can click photos with good details in bright light. In these photos, you can see a lot of details, original colour and balanced colour temperature. The colours have a punch, but they don’t look overly toned. The photos come out well even when shot against a direct light source, thanks to the HDR and chroma boost. The texture of various objects is intact in photos, as well. The portrait shots clicked using the secondary sensor look good, except the bokeh effect in them is very aggressive and seems unnatural.

In low-light conditions, the main sensor struggles to bring out the details and distinction in the subject. This is when the Super Nightscape mode comes into the picture. The mode can minimise noise and brighten the photos. Although the details are still low in these photos, it’s still better than nothing.

The 5-megapixel front camera can shoot decent selfies, but don’t go looking for minute details in these pictures or worry about colour accuracy. The portrait mode works for the front camera as well, bringing out a more aggressive bokeh effect than the one produced by the dedicated sensor at the back.

The rear cameras can shoot 1080p videos at the maximum of 30fps. The videos are shaky and have some loss of details, but otherwise clear enough. The slow-motion is quite ordinary and when used leads to a big loss in video resolution.

All in all, Realme C11 has pretty good cameras for its price. They will not disappoint you at all, given you do not expect iPhone-class camera performance from it.

Realme C11: Battery

The Realme C11 delivers its best shot with the battery. It has a 5000mAh battery that can be charged at up to 10W. Once fully charged, the Realme C11 lasts for more than 1.5 days, which is impressive. It has a standby life of 40 days and can offer a talking time close to 30 hours. The battery takes about 2-3 hours to fully charge with the bundled charger. The Realme C11 also supports reverse charging, so it helps to top the battery of my Realme Buds Q using the compatible Micro-USB to Micro-USB cable.

Realme C11 review summary

Realme C11 gets plenty of things right for its class. It has a good display that produces bright colours. Its cameras manage to deliver beautiful shots in daylight but struggle a bit when the light conditions take a turn. The portrait shots are decent enough. And, finally, the 5000mAh battery on the Realme C11 is one of the strongest points about it. The battery can last for more than one and a half days, which is more than impressive about a smartphone that has Android 10 and other nifty features under the hood.

For Rs 7,499, Realme C11 is worth buying. It will not disappoint you as long as you don’t expect miracles like playing Fortnite on it or making the Full-HD movie with it from it.