Can the OnePlus 11 be the ultimate flagship killer from OnePlus?
OnePlus has been a top brand ever since it came to the global market as it brought smartphones with excellent specifications that were almost flagship at a lower price. OnePlus One, the company's first smartphone, came with some of the flagship specifications at almost half the price of what Apple and Samsung flagships were providing.
But things did change slightly in the past two years when we could see the steep rise in pricing on OnePlus smartphones thus losing the tagline of value for money lastly after the merger of OnePlus and Oppo, the software experience though clean and good lost the charm of the Stock Android experience provided by some OnePlus smartphones in the past.
Last year OnePlus 10 Pro (Review) was launched and it was a very good all-rounder from OnePlus as it brought some of the best specifications like a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, an excellent set of triple cameras, 120Hz LTPO AMOLED display, a 5000mAh battery with 80W fast charging, etc. but it was priced quite higher.
Later came the OnePlus 10T (Review) which brought in the powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset and much more. However, it lacked the OnePlus signature alert slider and the cameras were also not so good. However, with the OnePlus 11, OnePlus seems to make a comeback with the flagship specifications like a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, a curved 2K LTPO AMOLED display, a great set of cameras and much more.
So will the OnePlus 11 set the benchmark for the brand and will it prove the true definition of OnePlus? Let's find out in the full review.
OnePlus 11 Design:
The OnePlus 11 sports a unique and premium design like all OnePlus smartphones where you get a glass sandwich design with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection at the front and the back has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection at the back. The back has an interesting and new camera module where you get a squarish module and on top of it is a circular module that has triple cameras and a LED flashlight.
The camera module is slightly raised but you do not feel the bump which is very good as it would not wobble when kept on a flat surface. The OnePlus 11 is available in two different colours - Titan Black and Eternal Green where both of them have a glossy textured finish which does attract some fingerprints but still the Black colour one has the better grip of the two.
The OnePlus 11 has an IP54 rating which makes it splash and dust resistant up to some extent. The smartphone weighs around 205 grams which makes it slightly heavier while held in hands. Around the sides, the smartphone is thicker at 8.5mm and there is an aluminium frame that looks and feels premium compared to the polycarbonate frame present on the OnePlus 10T.
Around the sides, there is an alert slider located to the top right and just below is the power button and to the left are the volume buttons which do feel tactile while pressing them. The presence of an alert slider does make it special as it was missing on the OnePlus 10T. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a dual SIM card slot and a primary microphone.
The top of the OnePlus 11 only houses the secondary noise-cancelling microphone. The edges are slightly curved so it is easier to hold in hands. On the front, there is a single punch-hole camera located in the top left corner and minimum bezels are present on the sides. This display is curved around the sides which makes it look premium and there are no sharp corners also which makes it easier to hold.
Overall, the build and design feel premium.
OnePlus 11 Display:
The OnePlus 11 sports a larger 6.7-inch Quad HD+(3216x1440 pixels) AMOLED display which is curved and comes with LTPO 3 technology. The curved display has a screen-to-body ratio of around 20:9 and since this is an AMOLED display, the colours look punchier and viewing angles are also great. Just like the OnePlus 10T, this display is also 10-bit which produces very good colours.
Talking about the refresh rate, this display can go as low as 1Hz like while viewing a static image in the gallery, while watching a video the refresh rate can go somewhere between 30Hz or 50Hz, while gaming or scrolling webpages, the refresh rate scales up to 120Hz and it does feel smooth. If you set it to the Standard 60Hz, you get much better battery life.
Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, there is also a 360Hz touch sampling rate which can go as high as 1000Hz while playing games. The display on the OnePlus 11 can go as high as 1300nits while watching content in HDR which is good and the display legibility under direct sunlight is very good. The display can go somewhere around 800nits while watching the display under direct sunlight.
The display on the OnePlus 11 has three different settings to tune - Vivid, Natural and Pro mode which further consists of Cinematic and Brilliant where setting to Vivid provides punchier colours and covers the DCI-P3 gamut scale whereas Natural provides more realistic colours that look plain and this covers the sRGB content. You can set the display to a warmer or cooler tone using the temperature slider.
Since the smartphone has an AMOLED display you get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works accurately and is fast. The display of the OnePlus 11 has support for HDR on YouTube and Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Prime, and Netflix but currently, Netflix does not support HDR which will OnePlus fix the issue in a future software update.
OnePlus 11 Performance:
The OnePlus 11 is powered by the latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset which is also found on the flagship iQOO 11 (Review). In terms of daily usage that includes scrolling web pages, playing games, rendering videos, etc. the smartphone can easily handle all tasks. There is the powerful Adreno 740 GPU which handles all the heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc easily without frame drops.
In BGMI, the smartphone can easily run at HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates and soon there will be support for 90fps also. After long hours of gaming, the smartphone does not feel warmer since there is a dedicated vapour cooling system present underneath to dissipate heat faster. In the CPU throttling test, the OnePlus 11 could achieve a sustained performance of around 85-90 per cent which is very good without any throttling.
The benchmark scores were also the best in class. In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation and support for up to 12 bands of 5G. The OnePlus 11 is available in two variants - 8/16GB LPDDR5X RAM with 128/256GB storage whereas the 128GB storage variant has UFS 3.1 speeds whereas the 256GB storage variant has slightly faster UFS 4.0 speeds. Overall, the gaming and performance are the best.
OnePlus 11 Software:
The OnePlus 11 runs on the latest OxygenOS 13 based on Android 13 out of the box. The look and feel are almost like ColorOS or RealmeUI where all the notifications panels and settings are similar for Oppo and OnePlus smartphones as OxygenOS is very much inspired by ColorOS. There are a lot of customizations present under the Personalizations tab in settings.
You can change the icon shape and size, different themes and wallpapers, and different animations for the fingerprint scanner and also for the Always-On display. The OxygenOS 13 comes with some new features like enhanced features of Always-On display which now shows upcoming events, music player and also it is well integrated with Spotify.
Then there are Android 12-specific features like enhanced privacy features like Privacy Dashboard where you can see which applications are using the camera, and microphone as well as location, depending on the wallpaper, the colour gets applied to the notification toggles and some parts of the user interface. The one area where OxyegnOS feels unique is that it does not come with any sort of bloatware.
Then there is the O-Haptics option under settings where you get two options for haptics - Crisp and Gentle and you can set the vibration intensity and type of haptic feedback which is another feature of ColorOS. In terms of software updates, OnePlus has stepped up as now it will provide another four years of AndroidOS updates and five years of security patches which are just amazing.
OnePlus 11 Cameras:
The OnePlus 11 sports a triple camera setup which includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX890 sensor for the main camera, a 48MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 32MP f/2.0 telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom. The front camera has 16MP f/2.4 Sony IMX471 sensor for selfies. It's the third year of the partnership between OnePlus and Hasselblad. The cameras are definitely a good upgrade over the OnePlus 10T.
The images from the main camera come out with details that look sharper and the dynamic range is very good. There is very less noise in the background and also the colours look punchier since Hasselblad tuning results in overprocessing of colours. The HDR images have excellent dynamic range and exposure is well controlled in the background. The 50MP images do have slightly more noise.
At night, the images come out with an excellent level of detail that look sharper and have great dynamic range. Whether you are using the Photo mode or the Night Mode, the images look equally good with excellent highlights in shadows and exposure is perfect without any oversharpening in the background. The colours look great and also noise is almost non-existent in the background.
The ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look great and have good dynamic range. Though you get a 115-degree field of view, there is almost no distortion around the edges and also no noise is present in the background. The colours look vivid just like the main camera and the 48MP images have good exposure and white balance.
This ultrawide camera also has autofocus so as you go nearer to a subject it also doubles up as a macro camera and it takes some images with excellent dynamic range and details that look sharper with punchier colours. The telephoto camera does a very good job in terms of dynamic range and details also look sharper with almost less noise in the background.
The exposure is well controlled in the background with good contrast but beyond 2x optical zoom, the images do have a lot of noise and colours look slightly washed out. At night, whether you are using the Photo mode or the Night mode, the images have a good amount of details that look sharper but the exposure takes a slight hit, a lot of oversharpening is present, and the dynamic range could have been slightly better.
In terms of portraits, you get good edge detection with proper background blur and here OnePlus is using Hasselblad's colour tuning where you get an excellent level of detail and good dynamic range when using the main camera for portraits. Using the telephoto camera for portraits can result in slightly more noise and skin tones are not accurate as that of the main camera but you do get a good amount of background blur.
The 16MP front camera can take some very good selfies which have less noise in the background and also excellent dynamic range. The skin tones look natural without any oversharpening and contrast is also well maintained. The selfie portraits come out with good edge detection but the level of background blur needs some improvement.
In terms of videos, the main camera can record 8K videos at 24fps and the videos come out with good dynamic range and details look sharper with good contrast and less noise. The stabilization is good due to the presence of OIS but it does crop in and if you switch to 4K at 60fps, there is no crop and videos come out very good.
The ultrawide camera can also record 4K videos at 60fps and these videos have sharper details and good dynamic range with almost less noise. There is also the Ultra Steady Pro mode which also reduces noise thus applying a slight crop. The telephone camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps and these videos have a good dynamic range but details look slightly softer with slightly washed-out colours.
The selfie camera can only record 1080p videos at 30fps and these videos have good dynamic range and the presence of EIS helps in reducing noise. The skin tones look natural without any oversharpening and the colours also look punchier. Overall, the cameras are definitely a big step up from previous OnePlus smartphones.
OnePlus 11 Battery Life:
The OnePlus 11 sports a larger 5000mAh battery which provides good battery life considering the battery optimizations and the efficient 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. With heavy usage and the display set to High, the smartphone can easily last for one day with some charge left and if you set the display to standard 60Hz, the smartphone easily lasted for one and a half days left.
With normal usage with the display set to High, the smartphone easily lasted for around two days with some charge left which is really good. The standard screen-on time with heavy usage came around 4-5 hours and with normal usage, the standard screen-on time came out around 6-7 hours. In terms of charging, the OnePlus 11 ships with a 100W fast charger which is good since most of the manufacturers are removing chargers from the box.
The 100W fast charger easily takes around 22-25 minutes when charging from 0 to 100 per cent completely. However, the OnePlus 10T had the support for slightly faster 150W fast charging but still, you would not find much time difference between the charging times on both devices. There is no support for wireless charging which seems slightly disappointing considering the price of the smartphone.
OnePlus 11 Audio Quality:
The OnePlus 11 has a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds loud and clear with a good level of bass. The sound does not feel distorted even at the highest volume settings but still, it could have been slightly louder and clearer. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present but you do get Dolby Atmos for an enhanced sound experience while playing games, watching movies, etc.
Verdict:
Overall, the OnePlus 11 makes you feel that OnePlus has stepped in the right direction after many years as it brings one of the best set of cameras, a premium-looking design, an amazing 2K LTPO AMOLED display for media consumption, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset provides flagship performance and gaming experience, the battery life is very good and you also get a clean software experience with longer updates.
However, there are very few compromises OnePlus has done which could have been better. The OnePlus 11 lacks a proper IP rating, then there is no support for wireless charging, the telephoto camera could have been better in terms of videos and zoom levels could have been more, and also OnePlus could have provided a newer design.
But still, it does feel like a complete OnePlus smartphone with all the best specifications and most important of all the signature alert slider. It definitely brings back the old glory of the brand OnePlus and will be a huge success in the global market.
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