Realme C11 First Impressions: Don't fall for the impressive design

The Realme C11 takes two step forward from the previous Realme C3, but one major step back for the C-series in general. At least that’s what comes off when you compare the hardware inside the two smartphones. The Realme C11 is powered by the MediaTek Helio G35 as compared to the Helio G70 on the Realme C3. Apart from being lower in the hierarchy, the Helio G35 is an entry-level chipset with eight power efficient Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.3GHz. On the other hand, the Helio G70 offers at least two Cortex-A75 performance cores clocked at 2.0GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores at 1.7GHz.

Not a phone for gaming

Clearly, the Realme C3 is far more powerful in raw performance than the Realme C11. Which is weird for a smartphone that’s supposed to helm in the next generation. Nevertheless, what it does offer is a brand new design, which easily masks the fact that this one’s thoroughly entry-level. But the G-series chips from MediaTek are also meant for gaming, so before anything else, we gave that a try —

We played our usual round of Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG Mobile, plugged to the GameBench terminal and recorded the data. And as expected, the gameplay are marred with stutters and lags. The median frame rate for CODM was 43 FPS with 79% stability, while PUBG Mobile ran at a meagre 26 FPS with 89% stability. The CPU was also stretched thin during the 5-minute odd session, and both games ran at the lowest possible graphics settings. It’s clearly not for high-end gaming, that’s one thing we can say for sure for now and the G35 is not a gaming chipset by any means.

The Realme C11 also stutters when you open a webpage, and you do need some patience to run apps, especially while multi tasking, switching from one app to the other. And things like unlocking the device, launching the camera app or the phone app are visibly slower than most smartphones under Rs 10,000, especially the Realme C3 or the Narzo 10A.

Camera at par with competition

The camera is good enough for the price, it seems. The hardware is what most other smartphones in this segment offers. A 13MP primary sensor combined with a 2MP depth sensor. However, there’s a dedicated night mode this time which is likely the first in this segment. We took a few shots with the camera and here are the samples, resized for the web —

First Impressions

What should work in favour of the Realme C11 is also something that couldn’t be tested in a day —The 5,000mAh battery. The company claims 10 hours of PUBG Mobile on a single charge (even the game even runs for that long, that is), and that may be possible due to the low power consumption of the chipset. Which makes me wonder if the Realme C11 could be aimed at a completely different set of user at that price point. Sure, the Realme C3 is powerful, but the powerful components inside the device have pushed the price of the phone to beyond Rs 10,000 especially after the GST rate hike and the COVID-19 situation. Using cheaper hardware, as a result, could be a way to keep the price in check, and it’s likely that other brands will also follow the same path in the foreseeable future.