OnePlus 11 has just landed in the Indian market. There is no Pro model in the lineup this time around, a first for the company since it announced the OnePlus 7 series in 2019. However, what the OnePlus 11 lacks in name, it makes up for with the ‘Pro’ specs on offer. , Prominent among them include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and 50MP Sony IMX890 primary camera.
Hasselblad continues its partnership with OnePlus and the former’s branding is prominently featured on both the box and the phone’s optical setup. Last year’s OnePlus 10 Pro (Review) didn’t particularly impress my colleague when compared to the competition. So has OnePlus crowned its formula as the undisputed flagship champion? Let’s find out more about the OnePlus 11 in detail in this detailed review.
Decision
The OnePlus 11 can be considered a loaded, premium offering, which almost matches the phone’s price tag. As advertised, the phone boasts of a best-in-class display which goes along with its sweeping design language and a clean UI. Apart from a few niggles arising from the macro camera mode and some sporadic thermal throttling, the rest of the OnePlus 11 experience remains top-notch.
design and performance
OnePlus rarely falters in its design department, with the company rarely delivering that sense of simplicity in its handsets. The OnePlus 11 comes with two finishes: the Eternal Green color scheme with a glossy look and the other matte-finished Titan Black. I’ve got the latter and it’s my favorite look on a smartphone. The build is sleek, and premium, and has an elegant feel to it. Furthermore, the weight distribution across the chassis is pretty even, with the device tipping the scales at around 205g. Like last time, the OnePlus 11’s metallic-finish camera hump melts into the frame but the housing is circular instead of square. The Hasselblad logo is plastered between the three lenses and the dual-LED flash module.
For audio, the phone is equipped with dual ‘Reality’ speakers for immersive stereo sound experience. OnePlus’ signature alert slider moves along the right edge of the phone, with a textured power button below. On the right side, there is a volume rocker bar which is housed quite simply inside the slim frame. The bottom of the device houses the usual USB Type-C port, a speaker grille, and a dual-SIM slot. In my professional opinion, the exterior of the OnePlus 11 is well made, with a touch of panache adding to the overall build. My quirks are basically the lack of IP certification on the device for water resistance. There is Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the back of the phone but you can use the silicone case provided inside the box.
Considering the display specs it brings to the table, the viewing experience of the OnePlus 11 is top-notch. You get a 6.7-inch QHD+ Super Fluid AMOLED panel that can refresh at 120Hz. It uses the new LTPO 3.0 technology, also seen on the iQOO 11 (Review), which allows the phone to dynamically change the refresh rate from 1 to 120Hz depending on the app. Apparently, it is said that there is more focus on power efficiency than the previous generation of LTPO. In any case, the real visual heavy lifting is done by the panel itself which has the ability to output 10-bit images (1.07 billion colors) while also featuring HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support. However, when I opened Netflix, the device’s maximum output was showing as just Widevine L1. Still, I think a future software update could definitely fix this problem.
To wit, I played a few HDR videos on YouTube and the picture quality thrilled me. You can also fine-tune the colors in the Screen color mode, which is part of the overall display setting. There’s also a video enhancement engine with toggles to further sharpen images and increase saturation levels. An unobtrusive punch-hole camera sits at the top-left of the screen and often disappears from view when I’m immersed in media content. There is a slight curvature on each side of the display which I feel adds to the elegance of the device while not accounting for any accidental touches. Lastly, the screen can deliver up to 1,300nits of peak brightness which can be considered sufficient for any kind of outdoor usage.
camera
For optical use, the phone has a trio of Sony sensors. a 50MP Sony IMX890 primary shooter, a 48MP ultra-wide Sony IMX581 sensor, and a 32MP IMX209 portrait tele lens. With this setup, it looks like OnePlus is stepping up its camera game, and from my usage, I can safely say that the company is headed in the right direction. Putting aside whatever tuning Hasselblad provided, the daylight images churned out from the main shooter were sharp and rich.
The contrast ratio seemed a bit unbalanced and the saturation levels were a bit high. However, users who prefer more vibrancy in their shots will likely appreciate the color scheme OnePlus is choosing. The dynamic range and exposure handling of the sensor are on point. Shutter speed is more-or-less instantaneous and it almost always captures a fast-moving subject in close-up detail. Focus is top-notch too, so much so that I rarely had to tap in the viewfinder to bring subjects into sharp detail.
Hasselblad’s filters are baked into the camera menu but I generally avoid using them. I didn’t even turn on the AI scene recognition as it produced the usual brand of oversaturated shots that robbed scenes of realism. Again, users inclined towards highly social media-ready images can certainly find some great use cases from this mode. Then there’s the usual assortment of shooting modes for users to experiment and play with, like the Hasselblad-powered Pro Mode, Long Exposure, Tilt-Shift, XPan, and more.
The ultra-wide lens also has a macro mode, which was absent from last year’s OnePlus 10 Pro. One of its major advantages is that extremely close-up shots of the subject can be taken without compromising on resolution. However, the auto macro mode keeps on sporadically switching the lens from prime to ultra-wide when getting close to the subject. Getting a good shot with a good amount of focus can be quite difficult. Colors and details were reproduced quite amicably in regular ultra-wide shots, although the color temperature was slightly warmer than the primary shooter.
The portrait lens, which also doubles as a 2X telephoto shooter, is capable of quality edge detection and background separation. Subject highlights were kept in focus and skin tones matched real life. Other than that the zoom capabilities on the lens were respectable enough but detail can be a bit sketchy in less-than-optimal lighting.
Now coming to the low light capabilities of the phone, which I think can be said to be pretty decent for the price. The most impressive feature I found was the level of detail being preserved in each shot when there was ambient light. Both low-light indoor situations and outdoor scenes are handled well by the sensor.
However, when compared to some low-light shots from my iPhone 14 Plus, the OnePlus 11’s colors looked a bit washed out. This was more apparent when I focused on some street lights and saw yellow fluorescent bulbs outputting a white shade. The dedicated night mode helped, but most shots didn’t need its input as the sensor was large enough to capture enough light. My overall experience with night photography was satisfactory but some improvements can be made through software updates. Lastly, you get a 16MP selfie camera on the front which takes great selfies with good contrast, controllable background exposure and matching skin tones.
display and software
The OnePlus 11 5G packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC under the hood. It is currently the fastest silicon on the market for Android devices and the reason for this is that any daily task thrown at the device is easily brushed aside. There is only one problem though and that is the energy efficiency of the device. I ran two intense throttling benchmarks to see how the device performed under constant load. The phone got a really rudimentary 53 percent stability score in 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme stress test.
For the CPU Throttle benchmark, Twice the device dropped to around 56 percent of its peak capacity, which I can only assume is a counter to heating. In fact it was not a one time affair, I ran the device through the two benchmarks a few more times and the results remained the same. In comparison, the iQOO 11 with the same chipset had a stability score of 70.4 percent and maintained up to 86 percent peak performance under load.
This does not mean that your daily usage will be affected by the OnePlus 11. Tasks like social media, Chrome, Spotify, Netflix and others can be breezed through with zero issues. Up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM ensures multiple apps can stay open in the background and be recalled at a moment’s notice. Also, the composite Antutu score of 1,243,661 and the Geekbench 5 multi-core result of 4,559 are quite remarkable and can be considered in line with the iQOO 11’s results. As far as storage is concerned, the OnePlus 11 has up to 256GB based on the new UFS 4.0 standard.
However, I noticed that the device had lower read speeds on the CPDT sequential and random test compared to the iQOO 11, which also has 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The real-world implications didn’t seem very obvious to me as the OnePlus 11 was lightning fast when closing and opening apps. Still, there were instances of momentary stuttering especially when closing large apps like COD: Mobile,
Speaking of which, the gaming experience on the phone is thoroughly enjoyable. I Tested Some Heavy Duty Headers cod And Pubg: New State with very favorable results. Average FPS was maintained at 60 while graphics were set to max, although I did feel the phone heating up after extended use. Also a shoutout to the excellent haptic feedback provided on the device and the even more exceptional dual-speaker setup. For authentication purposes, the in-display fingerprint sensor does a great job of unlocking the phone. Furthermore, you also have 5G capabilities on the OnePlus 11 with support for the popular sub-6Ghz bands.
The software skin of choice on OnePlus’ Android 13-based OxygenOS 13 device. Though largely indistinguishable from Oppo’s own ColorOS, the software experience on the device is fluid and bloatware-free. I also like the customizable Dashboard menu that appears when you swipe down from the home screen, although this can be disabled in the Settings menu. The icon packs could do with a little more fine-tuning to make them look less jarring, but there are a plethora of different themes that can be applied to the UI. Beyond that, there are more tweaks that can be made with the always-on display. In general, the previous charm of OxygenOS may have waned a bit over the years, but for general use cases, the UI will serve most users well.
Battery
The OnePlus 11 packs a 5,000mAh cell that is supported by 100W SuperVOOC charging. During my usage of the device, I actually operated the device mostly on 5G networks and used navigation extensively. I got about five hours of screen-on time with this heavy usage, and on a normal day it went up to about seven hours. Furthermore, inside the box, OnePlus has provided its own 100W charging solution that charges the phone in about 20 minutes.
final call
The OnePlus 11 5G is a phone that can best be described in one word: glamorous. It is a stylishly crafted piece of hardware that is capable of carrying out any and all performance-oriented tasks. To top it all, the device boasts of a world-class viewing experience and more than reasonable camera hardware. One can say that in comparison, the iQOO 11 handles continuous load and thermals better than the OnePlus 11. However, the use cases for these will be very specific to hardcore gamers and not the case for most audiences. With its relatively clean software, super fast charging speeds, and more, the OnePlus 11 gets my vote as a premium yet reliable Android case.
Editor’s rating: 3.5 / 5
Pros:
- premium design
- Superb performance
- fast charging
- enabled main camera
Shortcoming:
- no ip rating
- Macro shooting can be cumbersome
- can throttle under load
