The Vibe that's always with you: a review of the realme 11 Pro+ smartphone with an unusual design

realme 11 Pro+ is a smartphone in the middle price segment, makes a very pleasant impression when using and in some parameters is almost as good as flagships. First of all, it is worth noting a very unusual and original design, thanks to which the smartphone differs significantly from competitors. It has a remarkable AMOLED-display with high brightness, good colour reproduction and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. the realme 11 Pro+ can run for a day and a half without charging and supports very fast charging. The main camera takes quality pictures most of the time and also has a well working digital zoom. The performance of the smartphone is quite good, but there are models with better processors in this price range. On the other hand, it is worth noting the pleasant amount of memory, even the basic version has a 256 GB drive. Of wishes - I would like to have at least protection from water splashes, which is available in many competitors. 

6 reasons to buy realme 11 Pro +:

• Unusual stylish design
• Wonderful AMOLED-display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz
• High-quality photos on the main camera
• Long battery life and ultra-fast charging
• Loud stereo speakers and a pleasant vibration response
• A large amount of RAM and internal memory even in the basic version

2 reasons not to buy realme 11 Pro + reasons not to buy realme 11 Pro+:

• No dust and moisture protection
• You need a smartphone with more powerful hardware

Quick Jump:

1. What's in the bundle?
2. What does realme 11 Pro+ look like?
3. How good is the screen?
4. What are the unlocking methods?
5. What about performance, memory, sound and battery life of realme 11 Pro+?
6. How user-friendly is the interface?
7. How good are the cameras?
8. What are the neighbours in the lineup?
9. In the end

What's in the bundle?

realme 11 Pro+ is packed in a typical for the brand bright yellow box with black printing. The kit is very good, Chinese brands usually don't skimp on this. The box contains the smartphone, a 100W power supply, a Type-C cable, a transparent silicone case, a tray tool and documentation.

What does realme 11 Pro+ look like?

Appearance is definitely one of the strong points of realme 11 Pro+. If you look at the smartphone from the front, you can confuse it with a typical modern flagship. A large display with curved sides and very thin bezels around the perimeter. A front camera in a round hole in the middle of the display and a thin slit of the conversation speaker on top. In general, in modern smartphones it is difficult to do something original with the front panel.

But the back of the smartphone looks very original. realme often resorts to various experiments. There have already been models with a paper-like to the touch back cover, and now decided to use the so-called eco-leather. The design of the smartphone was developed by the ex-designer of Gucci, Matteo Minotto. The back cover is light cream-coloured, and in the middle there is a vertical golden stripe. It looks very interesting and the tactile sensations are pleasant. Smartphone does not slip out of the palm of your hand, and on the coating almost no traces of use.

The rear camera module is also unusual. It is made in the form of a large round puck of black colour with a golden circle inside. Three cameras are placed horizontally, with an LED flash on top. The camera protrudes quite a bit above the body, but it's not annoying at all thanks to the symmetry. And on a lying surface realme 11 Pro+ does not wobble.

The plastic frame around the perimeter gives away that still we are dealing with a mid-segment smartphone. It is also gold-coloured and tapers on the side edges. Location of all standard elements in the usual places. Power button and dual volume buttons are located on the right edge. Placement is quite convenient for both right and left hand, you do not have to stretch.

On the top of the smartphone has an additional microphone, as well as one of the speakers.

At the bottom - Type-C connector, the main external speaker, another microphone and a tray.

In the tray can be installed two SIM-cards nano format. There is no space for a memory card, but it is not critical. The minimum storage capacity - 256 GB, which is enough for a large number of photos, videos and music library.

The smartphone has a comfortable shape and practical coating on the back. It's a pleasure to use. But unfortunately, another compromise is the lack of any protection against dust and splashes. Although in this price range there are already many models that have at least IP52/53.

How high quality is the screen?

The realme 11 Pro+ has a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with curves on the sides.The resolution is 2412x1080 (aspect ratio 20:9), pixel density - about 394 ppi. A 10-bit matrix is used, capable of displaying over a billion shades of colours. Colour coverage is claimed to be 100% DCI-P3 space. They promise a peak brightness in auto mode of 950 cd/m². There is support for HDR10+. The maximum refresh rate is 120Hz and the sensor readout is 1260Hz. The PWM frequency is 2160 Hz, so the screen should not strain the owners sensitive eyes. In the settings - a typical modern set. Brightness, dark and light themes, interface and text scale, refresh rate (adaptive, 60 and 120 Hz), eye comfort mode (warmer shades with the possibility of working on a schedule) and colour display modes (bright, natural, additional "professional") with colour temperature adjustment.

The screen is of very good quality, with saturated colours and brightness reserve, sufficient for comfortable use in the summer sun. The picture does not burn out and remains comfortable. Viewing angles are maximised, although there is a typical AMOLED feature: a minimal greenish tinge of white at certain angles. Hardware measurements showed that the screen is really high-quality and only slightly inferior in brightness to flagship models. In bright mode, the maximum brightness is 472.278 cd/m². The colour gamut is indeed much wider than the standard sRGB. The accuracy of colour reproduction is quite good, the deviation to cold shades is minimal.

In "Natural" mode the colour gamut is close to sRGB, the accuracy of colour reproduction is close to bright mode. Brightness is slightly lower: 451.789 cd/m².

Comparison with other models:

What are the ways to unlock?

Unlocking methods are quite standard for a modern smartphone: fingerprint scanner in the screen and face recognition by the front camera. The scanner is optical, so it may be difficult to recognise wet fingers. It is located a bit low. But it works quickly and accurately, there were no errors during the time of use. Face recognition works well and quickly in sufficient light. There are standard useful features: increasing the brightness of the display when recognising in the dark, as well as the inability to unlock with closed eyes.

What about performance, memory, sound and autonomy?

The 6nm octa-core Mediatek Dimensity 7050 processor is responsible for the performance of realme 11 Pro+. In fact, it is the Dimensity 1080 that has been rebranded. It includes two 2.6GHz ARM Cortex-A78 cores, six energy-efficient 2.0GHz Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G68 MC4 GPU Mali-G68 graphics accelerator. This is a mid-segment processor with quite appropriate performance. RAM is 12 GB with the possibility of expansion through the built-in storage for 4/8/12 GB. The internal storage has a capacity of 512GB. The performance of the smartphone is enough for smooth and stable operation of the interface and any heavy applications. New games also work, but do not expect maximum graphics settings and high FPS.

The smartphone works quite stably, without significant overheating under prolonged loads. CPU Throttling Test showed that the performance drop can be up to 87%, which is quite normal for modern smartphones.

It is quite possible to play modern games on realme 11 Pro+. Call of Duty Mobile at high settings works with a stable 60 FPS, Diablo Immortal - high graphics settings, 30 FPS, Genshin Impact - 40-50 FPS with occasional freezes at medium settings.

realme 11 Pro+ has a full set of modern wireless communication capabilities. Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, Bluetooth 5.2 LE (SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC), as well as NFC for contactless payment. The smartphone can work with global positioning systems GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS, NavIC. In terms of music playback in headphones in the smartphone is quite standard. A familiar player with a standard set of functions and equaliser. The sound through the built-in stereo speakers is more interesting. They sound loud and quite high quality. There are even hints of low frequencies. It is also worth mentioning separately about a very pleasant vibration response O-Haptics, which is really significantly different from most competitors.

Another advantage of realme 11 Pro+ turned out to be autonomy. The smartphone uses a battery with a typical capacity of 5000 mAh for modern models. But the smartphone turned out to be quite hardy. With active use (benchmarks, games and active use of the camera in addition to the usual everyday functions), the smartphone withstands a day. If you switch to a more moderate use, the realme 11 Pro+ works for a day and a half without any problems. The smartphone supports SUPERVOOC's proprietary 100W fast charging. A full charge takes about half an hour. And in 15 minutes the smartphone gets 65% of the charge.

How convenient is the interface?

realme 11 Pro+ runs on OSandroid 13 with a proprietary shell realme UI 4.0. The shell does not make cardinal changes in the logic of Android, so everything is familiar and convenient. The main changes concern the appearance and some additional features. The shell is quite well optimised, works fast and there are no critical errors or bugs. Three display modes are available: desktops only, desktops with a separate application menu, and a simplified mode. The grid of programs and desktops can be customised, widgets, various design themes, wallpapers and icon customisation are available.

In addition to the standard choice between button and gesture navigation, there are a number of additional gestures on the active and off screen. Quick launch of the camera, programmes and music playback control, etc.

There is a sidebar with quick access to useful applications:

The Programme Manager is made in the form of a standard horizontal carousel. There is a split screen mode, as well as the ability to open applications in a window.

A set of proprietary programs: file manager, voice recorder, calculator, compass, notes, etc.

How good are the cameras?

The realme 11 Pro+ has a three-camera configuration at the back. Undoubtedly, the most interesting is the main one. This is the 200-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL HP3 camera. The physical size is 1/1.4", with 0.56µm pixels. The optics are f/1.69 aperture, 23mm EFV. There's optical stabilisation and phase autofocus. They promise 2x and 4x zoom without compromising quality. There's also auto zoom technology that recognises your subject, automatically zooms in and tries to keep it in the centre of the frame, so you don't have to move the camera. In standard mode, the camera takes 12 MP shots, although there are 50 and 200 MP modes. The ultra-wide-angle camera is an 8 MPSony IMX355, 16mm f/2.2 without autofocus. And the third is a low-performance 2 MP macro camera with fixed focus. Video smartphone can write in 4K@30fps, FullHD@30/60fps. Front camera - 32 MP, f/2.5, 22 mm.

The app is nothing special. Standard carousel of modes, a separate section with additional modes and a set of basic settings right on the screen (flash, zoom, format, etc.).

The main camera takes wonderful, detailed pictures in good light. With high detail and natural (in most cases) colours. The camera also copes well with the night mode and captures enough light. Although the colours are not so natural, there are some yellowish shades typical for night mode:

The ultra-wide-angle camera captures good photos in sufficient light. Although, of course, the detail and colour reproduction is significantly inferior to the main camera. Night photos turn out rather weak. With low detail and noticeable digital noise:

Zoom really works very well, including night mode. 2x zoom:

4x zoom:

And it's also quite realistic to photograph the moon on a smartphone, though with some artefacts:

You shouldn't expect anything special from a 2 megapixel macro camera:

Video in 4K resolution turns out pretty good, but the picture shakes a bit:

In FullHD 60 FPS stabilisation works very well:

What are the neighbours in the range?

In addition to the realme 11 Pro+, the company has also released a junior model realme 11 Pro with some differences and a slightly lower price. The design is similar to the older model. It also uses the same processor and a 5000 mAh battery. But 67W fast charging is supported. The older model has 256GB, 512GB and 1TB versions, while the younger model doesn't have 1TB, but the base variant got 128GB. The rear camera module is also simpler. The main one is 100 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, wide-angle and macro are absent. But there is a 2 MP depth sensor. Specs comparison:

In the dry: four things you need to know about the realme 11 Pro+.

• realme 11 Pro+ looks very interesting and original.
• It has a great AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz.
• The smartphone lasts a long time on a single charge and charges very quickly.
• The main camera takes good photos.

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