realme 11 Philippines Initial Verdict: The standard realme 11 feels premium with its compact and slim build while getting upgrades for the main camera and charging speeds. The biggest question for the realme 11 is how much the brand intends to price it when it arrives in the Philippines. 

Pros

-Slim frame

-Upgraded camera

-Fast charging speed

Cons

-Thick bottom bezel

-Only a single speaker

realme is set to complete the 11 series in the Philippines with the arrival of the standard realme 11. Launching initially in Vietnam a few months ago, the realme 11 appears to be an interesting budget phone with a slim build. We got our hands on the realme 11 ahead of its official launch in the Philippines for our first impressions.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Unboxing and Packaging Contents

realme is consistent with the packaging of its phones with a dominant yellow box that has black accents for the branding. realme has been using this design for several models in the past few years, and its nice to see this consistency that maintains their brand identity–especially for its numbered series.

Inside the box, you have the usual contents: documentation, TPU case, SIM ejector tool, the realme 11 itself, a USB-C cable, and a 67w SuperVOOC charger–which is one of its key upgrades.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Design

What caught our attention with the realme 11 is its thickness: despite having the same 5000mAh battery, the realme 11 is under 8mm thin,  making it slimmer than its predecessor. Our review unit is in Glory Gold, and its glittery finish emits either a rainbow-like gradient or wavy lines to give it a visually pleasing aesthetic especially when you are using the realme 11 outdoors. Despite its glossy finish, realme used a coating that makes the back panel resistant to smudges.

The realme 11 has a unique camera module that has a gold accent to complement the back panel. Inside that large circle are two cameras and an LED flash, with the highlight being the 108-megapixel main camera that has a focal length equivalent to 25mm.

The button and port layout of the realme 11 is similar to its predecessor: USB-C, headphone jack, and loudspeaker at the bottom, SIM tray on the left side, and volume controls and power button/fingerprint scanner on the right side.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Display

Like the realme 10, you also get a 6.43-inch AMOLED display on the realme 11. You get a decent 90hz refresh rate, but we wished realme trimmed down the bottom bezel, as it is rather thick for 2023 standards.

That small complaint aside, we love that the realme 11 still uses an AMOLED display, as these panels usually have better colors than IPS panels and have other added features like an Always-On Display. The 90hz refresh rate is fine, and you get goodies like Widevine L1 for streaming Netflix in Full HD to maximize those nice colors you get from an AMOLED panel.

Since its similar to the realme 10, the realme 11 only comes with a single speaker, and we wished realme gave it a stereo speaker setup since most budget phones have it as a standard feature. The good thing with the realme 11 is that you still have a headphone jack, which should make music lovers happy with their wired earphones.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Cameras

The realme 11 has a dual rear camera setup that consists of a 108-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The main camera has more than double the resolution of the realme 10’s main camera, which gives it features like a clean 3x digital zoom. The realme 11’s main camera also has a physically larger sensor, which also helps in delivering better low-light performance.

On paper, the realme 11’s main camera appears to be better than the 100-megapixel snapper used on the realme 11 Pro, with the difference being the presence of OIS on the Pro model. We will putting it through its paces–and explore all of the software optimizations realme has implemented–so see if the realme 11 is one of the best budget phones for photography.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Internals and Battery

Like the realme 10, the realme is also powered by a Helio G99 processor that’s paired with 8GB RAM and 256GB internal storage. While the hardware may be the same, realme made optimizations with realmeUI 4.0, so the realme 11 should perform smoother than its predecessor.

Looking through benchmark numbers, the optimizations made on the realme 11 made it perform better than its predecessor despite using the same processor and RAM/storage configuration.

While the battery capacity is the same at 5000mAh–which is impressive given the realme 11’s slim build, charging speed is much faster with its support for 67w SuperVOOC. On paper, this should be able to top up the realme 11’s battery from flat to 100% in less than an hour.

 

realme 11 Philippines: Wrap-up and Initial Conclusions

Despite feeling more like an incremental update from last year’s realme 10, the realme 11’s upgrades to its main camera and charging speed–along with a design that stands out and better software–should justify it being better than its predecessor. The biggest question here is with pricing–we hope that the realme 11 is priced the same as the realme 10’s SRP last year or has a lower price tag to make it a competitive device.