Realme C11 Unboxing and First Impressions — Refreshing design!


realme is in a launch spree lately and has been expanding its entry-level/ budget smartphone lineup rapidly in India. The company has been altering its product lineup in this segment with new series like the Narzo 10 Series (Narzo 10, Narzo 10A) that was launched a couple of months back here. This exists alongside the realme C series and today, the company has launched a new model in the C Series line up in India — realme C11 with a new and refreshing design. We have been using the smartphone for the past couple of days and here is the unboxing and our first impressions of the realme C11.

Box Contents

  • realme C11 (2GB+32GB) in Rich Green color
  • Quick Guide
  • Safety Guide
  • SIM Ejector tool
  • 10W USB adapter
  • Micro USB cable

realme has adopted a new design language on the realme C11 smartphone and calls it ‘Geometric Art Design’. For starters, the vertical camera alignment is replaced by a square-shaped module that houses the dual 13MP+2MP cameras. The huge camera bump is gone now and the square-shaped camera module is kind of recessed on the back. Further, a vertical strip runs through the back and this is where the realme brand logo is present. Thankfully, the logo is not too big like the one in Narzo 10A. The ‘Rich Green’ color is subtle and pleasant, and the back panel has a textured finish to it which offers a good grip. For reference, the texture on the back of realme C11 is largely similar to the texture on the realme C3’s back. On the whole, the design change is a welcome move and is definitely refreshing.

Moving on, the button placements have been altered as well. Now, the volume rockers and the power button are present to the right edge of the smartphone and the Dual SIM + microSD tray is present to the left edge. To recall, the realme C3 had the volume rockers and the Dual SIM + microSD tray to the left edge and the power button was present to the right edge. The bottom houses the 3.5mm audio jack, primary microphone, micro USB port, and a speaker grille. The top part is left clean and there is no fingerprint scanner on this as well.

Coming to the display, the realme C11 sports a 6.52-inch (1600 x 720 pixels) HD+ 20:9 mini-drop display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3+ protection, 269 dpi, and an 88.7% screen-to-body ratio. The display quality is quite good with good viewing angles and vivid colors. Thankfully, it is not over saturated and you can adjust the color temperature from the display settings menu. That said, the sharpness isn’t the best considering it is just an HD+ panel and the outdoor visibility isn’t too great either. The display is similar to that of realme C3 and Narzo 10A.

Powering the realme C11 is the Octa-Core MediaTek Helio G35 processor which is built on the 12nm architecture. It is a Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at up to 2.3GHz(4x 2.30 GHz, 4x 1.80 GHz), and is paired with 2GB LPDDR4X RAM and 32GB eMMC 5.1 storage which is expandable up to 256GB with microSD. The graphic duties are handled by the IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU.

While it is too early to comment on the performance, the 2GB RAM seems to be a bottleneck and it is evident in the usage. In our limited time with the device, the UI was sluggish and there were noticeable lags all over the UI. The apps were slow to load and it is to be seen if realme can iron out the issues and optimise it. We will have more to say on this in our full review.

As for the cameras, there are dual rear cameras housed in a square-shaped module and it is a combination of a 13MP (primary with f/2.2 aperture, 1/2.72″ sensor size) + 2MP (depth with f/2.4 aperture). The front-facing camera is a 5MP shooter with f/2.4 aperture, 1/4.4″ sensor size and the video recording is capped to 1080p at 30fps on both the cameras. There are a slew of camera modes like HDR, Portrait Mode, AI Beauty, Filter Mode, Panoramic View, Time-lapse, Slo-mo, Super, NightScape, and Expert Mode. We’ll have to say more on the optics in our full review.

Lastly, the realme C11 runs on realme UI 1.0 based on Android 10 and packs a large 5000mAh battery with support for 10W charging through micro USB port.

Pricing and Availability

The realme C11 (2GB+32GB) comes in Rich Green and Rich Grey colour options and is priced at Rs. 7499. It will be available from Flipkart starting from July 22nd.


Author: Manoj Nagendra

Manoj Nagendra is passionate about smartphones and the latest technology. He likes to write and explore the latest tech and you can often find him with an Android phone. You can follow him on Twitter @manojshesh24 and also mail at manojnagendra@fonearena.com