The Realme number series has been one of the most popular smartphones from Realme found in both the mid-range and premium mid-range segments. With each of its iterations, Realme brings some substantial upgrades. Similarly, the Realme 11 Pro Plus brings some smaller upgrades over its predecessor, i.e., the Realme 10 Pro Plus (Review), the first smartphone in this segment to bring a curved display.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus brings a new design with that Vegan Leather finish that does make it stand out, now there is a 200MP primary Camera compared to the 108MP primary camera on the Realme 10 Pro Plus. Also, the Realme 11 Pro Plus gets a newer MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset which is, in fact, the rebranded MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset, with 100W fast charging while other specifications do look good.

But with the newer Realme 11 Pro Plus, can the Realme position it well considering a lot of smartphones present in this premium mid-range segment? Is it worth buying?

Let's find out in the full review.

In terms of design, the Realme 11 Pro Plus brings in a unique design which has a Vegan leather finish at the back with 3D-printed stitches that are golden in colour starting from the top of the camera module and going to the bottom also surround the camera module if you consider the Sunrise Beige option. The camera module feels slightly raised which you can feel while the smartphone is kept on a flat surface.

The camera module is circular that houses a ring of vinyl-like finish that looks premium and this camera module houses triple cameras with a LED flashlight. The Realme 11 Pro Plus is available in three different colours - Astral Black, Oasis Green and Sunrise Beige and both the Oasis Green and Sunrise Beige follow a similar design pattern. The Astral Black has a simple matte finish at the back. 

The smartphone does feel premium and provides a solid grip while holding it in hand and also it weighs around 189 grams which makes it slightly heavier. The back of the smartphone does not have any IP rating which makes it somewhat disappointing. Around the sides, there is a glossy polycarbonate frame that houses the power button and the volume buttons on the right side whereas the left side of the smartphone is completely cleaner with no controls.

At the top, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone and secondary speaker grille whereas the bottom has the USB Type-C port, a primary speaker grille, a primary microphone and a dual SIM card slot. There is neither a 3.5mm headphone jack nor any support for a microSD card slot for storage expansion. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display that is curved to the sides thus looking premium.

Overall, the build and design feel like a good upgrade over the Realme 10 Pro Plus with that Vegan leather finish.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus sports a larger 6.7-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED display that has a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. The single punch-hole is located at the centre to the top of the display and the curved display looks premium just like premium flagships. This is a 10-bit display so you get punchier colours and great viewing angles.

The display has support for a 120Hz refresh rate where it has three different settings to choose from - Standard, High and an Auto Select option. Switching to the Auto-Select option, switches either between 60Hz or 120Hz depending on the application in usage where playing games like BGMI, scrolling through webpages, etc. the display refreshes at 120Hz whereas YouTube, Netflix and gallery work at 60Hz.

Switching to the Standard mode does provide the best battery life. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 360Hz touch sampling rate and 2160Hz PWM dimming which will reduce the strain on the eyes while viewing the content in darker scenarios. In terms of display brightness, the display can reach a peak brightness of 950nits which is good and the visibility is also good under direct sunlight.

The display reaches around 793 units of brightness under direct sunlight. The display of the Realme 11 Pro Plus has four different colour settings to choose from - Vivid, Natural and a Pro mode that consists of Brilliant and Cinematic. Choosing the Vivid mode provides punchier colours that cover the DCI-P3 colour gamut whereas the Natural mode covers the sRGB colour content. 

You can also change the temperature from a warmer to a cooler tone on the display. Since the display is an AMOLED one, there is an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which works faster and more accurately. The display has support for HDR10 on YouTube and also there is support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc.

Currently, Netflix also supports HDR which is good. On the front, the display of the Realme 11 Pro Plus has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 for protection. Overall, the curved display does look premium which makes it great for multi-media consumption.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus is powered by the powerful MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset which is the rebranded name of the MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset found on its predecessor i.e. the Realme 10 Pro Plus so there is no change in performance between both smartphones as it can handle all the tasks easily without any lags or stutters. 

Some of the heavy tasks like playing heavy games like BGMI, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc. ran smoothly without any problem but while playing BGMI at the highest graphics settings i.e. with HDR graphics and Ultra frame rates, there were some minor stutters or lags noticed. Also, there were very minor stutters noticed while switching between applications but it is negligible.

After longer hours of gaming i.e. 3-4 hours continuously, the back of the Realme 11 Pro Plus did not feel warmer as it gets a dedicated vapour cooling system that does dissipate heat faster. In the CPU throttling test, the Realme 11 Pro Plus could achieve a sustained performance of around 80-85 per cent which is really good as there was minimal throttling detected.

The benchmark scores came out decent on the smartphone. In terms of network connectivity, the Realme 11 Pro Plus has support for good carrier aggregation and 12 bands of 5G. The smartphone is available in two different storage variants - 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 256GB storage having UFS 2.2 speeds. Overall the performance and gaming are good on the Realme 11 Pro Plus.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus runs on the latest RealmeUI 4.0 based on Android 13 out of the box. RealmeUI resembles just like ColourOS and OxygenOS so you get the Aquamorphic design and the whole look and feel is closer to Stock Android. You get a lot of customizations where you can change icon shape and size, different colours for icon packs, Always-On display and different wallpapers and themes also.

Since it comes with Android 13 out of the box, you get almost all features like Media Controls, and Privacy Dashboard where you can control applications that use the microphone, camera as well as location, Android 13 widgets are present which can be placed in larger folders, etc. There are some other features commonly found on all Realme smartphones is the Realme Labs under settings.

In Realme Labs, you get three different features - Dual-Mode Audio which allows you to connect both wireless and wired earphones simultaneously where you can listen to the audio through both, then there is the Heart Rate Measurement where heart rate can be measured by placing the figure on the fingerprint scanner, and there is Sleep Capsule that restricts notifications from certain applications during the night.

Other features include a Smart Sidebar where you can access some of the applications, there is also Edge Lighting where the edges do light up in different colours when a notification pops in, and also there is RAM Expansion feature where you can increase the virtual RAM up to 4GB. However, though the RealmeUI is feature packed, it does come with a lot of bloatware and ads do pop up every time.

However, the bloatware can be uninstalled easily but the presence of ads is just irritating and will bother you each time while using an application or download it from the Play Store. In terms of software updates, the Realme 11 Pro Plus will get another two major AndroidOS updates and three years of security patches which is good. However, RealmeUI is feature packed but needs a lot of improvement.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus house a 200MP f/1.7 Samsung ISOCELL HP3 sensor for the primary camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. The 200MP Samsung HP3 sensor is a big upgrade over the 108MP Samsung HM6 sensor for the main camera on the Realme 10 Pro Plus as the 200MP primary camera allows for 2x and 4x lossless zoom and features Auto Zoom also.

The images from the primary camera come out with good details that look sharper and have a wider dynamic range. The noise is very less in the background with natural colours in the background. The contrast is good and also the images shot using the HDR mode come out with punchier colours. There is 2x zoom available where details look sharper, noise is less and the colours look punchier.

All the images are saved by 12.5MP by default and if you look at images with 4x zoom, the images have good details and dynamic range, less noise, and good colour saturation that looks natural. Switching to 200MP mode provides good details in images but the dynamic range is less wide, there is some amount of noise present and also the colours look accurate. 

At night, the images from the Realme 11 Pro Plus come out with good details that look sharper, have good dynamic range and contrast, the exposure is well under control, the noise is less and colours look natural without any oversharpening. These are the images taken using the Auto NightScape Mode which triggers automatically while you take an image during the night. 

Without the NightScape Mode, the images come out with sharper details and colours look natural but there is some amount of noise introduced in the background also the dynamic range is not as good as with the NightScape Mode turned on but still the difference is very negligible. With the NightScape Mode turned on, the 2x zoomed images come out with sharper details but the dynamic range comes out average.

The 8MP ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of details that look slightly softer but have good contrast and dynamic range. The colours look natural with no oversaturation and have good contrast. However, there is some amount of noise present in the background and also around the edges, there is a lot of distortion present. But you do get a larger 112-degree field of view which is good.

At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good dynamic range but the details look softer with some amount of noise in the background. The colours look slightly washed out though and all these results came out with the NightScape Mode turned on. 

In terms of macro images, the smartphone does a decent job as it houses a fixed-focus camera that provides poor dynamic range, a decent level of detail, and washed-out colours. The portraits come out at 2x zoomed shots and the details look sharper, colours come out naturally, with proper edge detection and background blur. The skin tones look accurate and have natural colours. 

The Realme 11 Pro Plus has a 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX615 sensor for the front camera which takes selfies with sharper details and good dynamic range. The selfies have natural colours without any oversharpening, the noise is less in the background and also the contrast is good. By default, the images get saved at 8MP by default and also the portrait selfies come out with good edge detection and proper background blur.

In terms of videos, the primary camera i.e. 200MP camera can record 4K videos at 30fps where details come out really well and the dynamic range is also wider with natural colours in the background. However, the noise is less in the background as it has OIS. This camera can also record 1080p videos at 60fps that come out with sharper details with excellent dynamic range.

The ultrawide camera is restricted to 1080p video recording at 30fps where the videos come out with a decent dynamic range with a lot of noise in the background. However, the colours look natural but the details look softer. On the front, the 1080p videos at 30fps have decent dynamic range with good details but since there is no EIS, there is a lot of noise present in the videos. 

Overall, the cameras are well-tuned on the smartphone but there are still some improvements needed.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus houses a 5000mAh battery which is similar in capacity to that of the Realme 10 Pro Plus so, in terms of normal usage that includes scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, and casually playing games, with the display set to 120Hz, the smartphone can easily last for one and half days with some charge left.

With heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI continuously for 3-4 hours, attending calls for longer hours, clicking images and videos, etc. the smartphone easily lasted one single day with some charge left. The standard screen-on time was around 6-7 hours with normal usage and with heavy usage, the standard screen-on time came around 4.5-5 hours both of which are very good.

In terms of charging, the Realme 11 Pro Plus is bundled with a 100W fast charger which is a good upgrade over the 80W fast charger supported on the Realme 10 Pro Plus. The 100W fast charger takes around 30-35 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent completely which is very good. 

The Realme 11 Pro Plus sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear. It has a good level of bass and also the sound at the highest volume settings does not feel muffled. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present either. However, you do get support for Dolby Atmos which provides enhanced sound output while watching any content, listening to music, etc.

Overall, the Realme 11 Pro Plus feels like a premium mid-range smartphone as it brings all the basics right which includes a premium and striking design with that Vegan leather finish, a curved 120Hz AMOLED display that looks premium and is great for media consumption combined with the stereo speakers, the cameras are well tuned for both images and videos, and performance is good in daily scenarios.

The battery life is very good with support for insane 100W fast charging. RealmeUI provides a lot of features making it easy to use. However, there are some areas where the Realme 11 Pro Plus falls short like the 200MP primary camera though performs well, but still, the image processing is not as good as that of the similar 200MP primary camera on the flagship Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Then the RealmeUI comes with a lot of bloatware and ads throughout the user interface which makes it very cumbersome to use the smartphone on a daily basis. Though the daily performance is good, still the rebranded Mediatek Dimensity 7050 does not provide a flagship-level performance and gaming is good but not extraordinary as other smartphones in this segment are much better in gaming. 

Ultimately the Realme 11 Pro Plus is for those users who want a unique build and design, a curved display, a good set of cameras, good battery life with faster charging and good performance though sacrificing some aspects like flagship-level gaming capabilities, IP rating, and software experience which has a lot of bloatware and ads, then the Realme 11 Pro Plus is a great choice making it a worthy one.