The Realme C3 (Review) was launched earlier this year at a starting price of Rs 6,999, but is now priced at Rs 8,999, which is pretty close to the Narzo 10A (Review) that was announced back in May for Rs 8,499. It was launched but now it is selling for Rs 8,999 after the price increase which is only Rs 1,000 more than the new Realme C11. Due to all this, customers can get confused very easily and to get out of this confusion, we have brought Realme C11 review for you. Here we have tested this phone in every way, to make it easier for you to decide whether you should buy Realme C11 or not.
Realme C11 price in India, specifications
Realme C11 launched with just 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage which costs Rs 7499. Realme has packed a new MediaTek Helio G35 chipset in this phone which is MediaTek’s budget gaming series processor. Apart from this, the new Realme C11 smartphone is very similar to Realme C3 and Narzo 10A. You get a very similar 6.5-inch HD+ (720 x 1600 pixels) display and a 5000mAh battery.
The main rear camera has a 13-megapixel sensor, while the other two phones have a 12-megapixel main sensor. This seems like a minor improvement, but the aperture drops from f/1.8 to f/2.2, which means the new phone can’t capture as much light on exposure as the Realme C3 and Narzo 10A. The front camera remains the same with 5 megapixels and f/2.4 aperture.
It is a dual-SIM device with VoLTE support. It only supports single-band Wi-Fi, but has Bluetooth version 5. You get all the usual sensors, including a compass and gyroscope. Storage can be expanded up to 256 GB using a microSD card in the dedicated slot. The only negative point is that there is no fingerprint reader like the Realme C3.
realme c11 design
As far as budget phones go, we think the Realme C11 looks great. It is similar to other budget Realme phones. There’s a slim bezel on the side of the screen, but a very thick chin sits at the bottom. The water drop notch is available at the top.
The phone gives you Rich Green and Rich Gray color options to choose from. The body is made of plastic. It has been given a texture on the back, which enhances its grip and makes it easier to hold. The back has a square camera module, unlike the camera modules on other Realme phones, which only have two sets of cameras. The volume buttons are located above the power button on the right side. The company has also used Micro-USB in this budget phone. We believe that now the company should put this behind it. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack and a single speaker at the bottom.
It weighs 196 grams and is 9.1 mm thick. Realme C11 is relatively heavy. We found one-handed use a bit difficult, but the textured back panel doesn’t allow the phone to slip out of the palm. It doesn’t look like an expensive phone, but its build quality is solid. Although we do wish there was better glass protection on the front.
Realme C11 performance, battery life and software
Being an entry-level smartphone, the Realme C11 allows you to run all Android apps smoothly, but the experience is not always great. Sometimes I found that the phone lags a bit even on simple tasks like waking the phone from standby and opening the app drawer or task switcher. There was a slight lag when launching the app, scrolling through photos in the gallery, or even during multitasking, but it didn’t hold our attention. It is disappointing that your user experience has not been smooth.
If you like to play some of the powerful games that are coming out these days, you will have to increase your budget a bit. PUBG Mobile runs on the game’s lowest graphics settings by default, and yet the game was plagued with many crashes and lags. Although PUBG Mobile Lite works fine on it. Like PUBG Mobile, the smartphone also had trouble running Asphalt 9: Legends. The overall gaming experience wasn’t great, but the good thing is that at least the phone didn’t get hot.
Considering the price of this phone, the screen is pretty good. Colors look good and viewing angles were good too. Videos look good, but speaker performance wasn’t great. The music is punchy and we found that the dialogues weren’t clear either.
Battery life is excellent. With a low-end processor and a 5,000mAh battery, the phone clocked 28 hours and 25 minutes on our HD video loop battery test. With daily use, it easily managed a day and a half on a single charge after a lot of audio and video streaming, a bit of camera use, and a brief gaming session.
Realme’s software generally has no issues. We did not find any ads or spam notifications, except for some “news” articles sent by the Realme UI browser. The phone has Chrome on the home screen, so this browser was not needed at all, but sadly, we were unable to disable or uninstall it. Realme UI looks and behaves like stock Android and has added some customizations including themes.
Realme C11 cameras
Realme C11 includes some modes like Panorama, Time Lapse and Slo-Mo and Realme claims that C11’s Night Mode is the first in this price segment. Like other apps, the phone can’t load the camera app too fast.
The quality of the photos was somewhat disappointing, although you also have to consider the price. However, let us tell you that the camera was not able to adapt the colors well and the lack of detail in the images was also clearly noticeable. Flowers and leaves didn’t look natural in every shot, and we found the C11 also struggled for exposure.
Backgrounds looked blurry in portrait shots, but the exposure was poor. There is no way to set the blur level before or after taking the photo. The few close-ups we did turn out surprisingly well. In general, photos look pretty good on the phone’s screen and you can even zoom in and crop a bit.
When it comes to low light, the Realme C11 really struggles. Many of our shots were very bad, although some of them worked. The phone had trouble locking focus and after the slightest movement we had to tap the screen to lock focus again.
Night mode made a big difference, but it didn’t improve every shot. The phone still had trouble focusing and the results came out a bit cropped, so you’ll have to pay some attention to the composition of the frame. Night mode shots got better contrast and bright parts included in the frame became sharper. On the other hand, the lack of detail was clearly visible in low-light areas. Noise (grain) was also quite visible in the images.
Verdict
After a long period of discounts and price cuts by the smartphone brands, we are now witnessing a cost escalation in the market. Many models have seen price increases just weeks after launch, which means customers have to do a lot of math and comparison before making a purchase decision. It is quite disappointing that the Realme C11 smartphone is more expensive and less powerful than the Realme C3 and Realme Narzo.
We definitely would have liked better performance and it is also clear that 2 GB of RAM is insufficient. The experience of using the C11 wasn’t smooth, but you’ll be able to run most of the apps you need. Camera performance is average.
It’s still a decent phone compared to other phones in the entry-level segment. However, if you can afford to spend a bit more, you can go for the Realme Narzo 10A. Beyond that, you can wait for Xiaomi’s upcoming Redmi 9 series, or even go for budget models recently released by Samsung, Infinix, and Honor.