As we all know, OnePlus is in a bit of an awkward position. Neither a flagship nor a flagship killer. Maybe OnePlus itself has lost its way, and people’s enthusiasm for it is fading away. But this year’s OnePlus 11 seems to give me hope. Although it seems they got their position wrong, this OnePlus 11, is a good phone.
Unboxing
OnePlus’ strategy now is to be the best-performing phone in the OPPO family. It’s in a position somewhat similar to Vivo’s sub-brand: iQOO. Performance first, everything else second. This is not my own guess, it’s written on the box of the OnePlus 11. The accessories in the box are a transparent case, a card pin, a bunch of instructions, and stickers. There’s also a sticker to prevent UV glue from seeping into the gaps. A 100w charger and OnePlus’ signature red charging cable. That’s all that’s in the box.
Design
The OnePlus 11 has a similar design to the OnePlus 10 Pro, except that the square shape has been turned into a round shape. I can’t say whether it’s a good-looking or ugly design, because I’m used to OnePlus using similar designs. The mirror part of the OnePlus 11 lens module has been made smaller, so it is no longer easy to get fingerprints. But I don’t like the shiny spots in the black area, which look like dust that can’t be wiped off.
The green version is good, the color is not so bright. And it looks like a ceramic-like shine, a premium look. The alert slider did not disappear this time, and the build quality is very good. Fingerprint recognition is also in the right place. This time OnePlus 11 uses the largest vibration motor in Android phones. The vibrations are the closest to the iPhone, which is a unique selling point of the OnePlus 11. Unfortunately, the USB-C port is still USB 2.0, making this phone one more pity.
Display
According to the specs, the screen of the OnePlus 11 should be top-of-the-line. 2K resolution, high refresh rate, and LTPO are there. Especially with their LTPO 3.0, they have evolved again. How fast or slow you swipe your finger affects the refresh rate in real-time. No color shift even when squinting.
It seems like a great screen, doesn’t it? But it does have some drawbacks. For some reason, the panel on this display is still the same as the Samsung E4 from two years ago. meaning it will be more power-hungry than the latest E6 panel, and the maximum brightness will be lower. If you are outdoors in direct sunlight, you may not be able to see the screen. Some people care more about DC dimming or high-frequency PWM dimming, which is not available in OnePlus 11. 360Hz PWM dimming is considered worse even two years ago.
So it’s up to you if this display is good or not. If you care more about resolution, refresh rate, and LTPO, then it’s a good display. If you are more concerned about maximum brightness, power consumption, and good dimming strategy, then it is not a good display.
Benchmark & Gaming
The performance of the OnePlus 11 is on the level of mainstream 8 Gen 2 phones, with no issues found on Benchmark. But the CPU throttling test results are a bit disappointing, OnePlus 11 is the only 8 Gen 2 phone we’ve tested that’s underclocked. The phone is only 47 degrees Celsius at this point, which isn’t particularly hot. Hey OnePlus, did you forget what it is written on your box?
The Genshin Impact is not as stable as the iQOO 11, it is closer to the Xiaomi 13. When we turn on Ultra-steady frames mode, the frame rate is a little more stable, but the effect is not obvious, and the same goes for the Super-resolution feature. You can see a little bit of clarity in the screenshots by zooming in, but you won’t notice it when the characters are moving.
Thankfully the OnePlus 11 has game frame insertion, so playing all games smoothly is not a problem. Actually, OnePlus 11 is not a bad performer, it’s just that their tagline made me think it would be super powerful and would be the best in the world, but it’s not.
Camera
What impressed me wasn’t the gaming experience of the OnePlus 11, but the photography. If you had told me last year that the OnePlus phone had an awesome camera, I would have thought you were joking. But the camera on OnePlus 11 is really, really good, and I’m not joking.
Because the sensors in all three cameras are so good, the OnePlus 11 does a great job of taking very nice pictures with any lens at any time. The colors will be more vibrant than reality, but not too vibrant. It can reproduce the ambiance of the moment. The dynamic range is excellent and the balance of clarity and sharpening effects is good. In most scenes, photos taken by auto mode and night mode are the same, so it is unnecessary to purposely select the night mode for night photos, very convenient.
The ultra-wide camera is as good as the main camera for most scenes. Unless you zoom in to look all around the picture, it can really get about the same image quality as the main camera. the Purple-fringing issue is almost non-existent, or at least better than the Xiaomi 13.
Just compare the recent models to show how good this ultra-wide camera is. iQOO 11 is definitely the worst one, and a quick glance shows how good OnePlus 11 is. The downside of Xiaomi 13 is the low dynamic range, although at the time it was just that dark. But just not good-looking. The Motorola X40 is the closest to OnePlus 11, but unfortunately, the color is not accurate enough. And the photo is overall greenish.
Actually, there is a bug in this photo OnePlus 11, did you find it? Something went wrong with the HDR, resulting in a strange circle of light around this light. Not a big problem, I shot hundreds of photos and it happened only one time.
Because this camera supports autofocus, you can also use it to take macro photos. Although you can’t take exaggerated macro photos because it’s not specifically designed for macro photography, the image quality is still great.
I believe many people will like This 2x telephoto lens because it is just right for recording life. Especially for taking pictures of food, you can use this telephoto lens to capture the food on the table as soon as you lift your hand. And the image quality is great, with lots of detail. It is also very suitable for street photography.
I used this lens to go to the seaside to take a lot of photos, and you can see that most of them are very good. The difference between it and flagship phones is a periscopic telephoto, and the 2x optical telephoto lens is not quite enough when shooting at super long distances.
At night, there are no drawbacks in scenes with more light. Dynamic range and sharpness are good. If the environment is very dark, even if you tap the 2x button, the auto mode will still use the main camera crop. When you use Pro mode to force a telephoto lens to shoot with, you will know why use the main camera instead of the telephoto lens.
The main camera supports up to 8K 24fps, the ultra-wide camera supports 4k 30fps, and the telephoto only 1080P 30fps. the main camera and ultra-wide camera are both flagship phone level. However, the telephoto is limited by the resolution and does not look as clear as the other two cameras. You can zoom in and out of the recording at 4k 30fps. But there seems to be a bug after zooming, the noise becomes significantly more. The most pity one is the front camera. Although the image quality of the selfie is good, but still does not support 4K and 60fps.
Battery & Charging
The charging power of the OnePlus 11 is not particularly high, but 100w can also meet the needs of most people. 5 minutes to charge 28%, a full charge only takes 25 minutes, the same as 120w iQOO 11. There is no wireless charging by the way. The battery life is also similar to iQOO 11. It is the regular level of an 8 Gen 2 phone.
I think it’s not that OnePlus got its position wrong, but that it can only be in this position. Because the OPPO Find X6 Pro is going to be the most powerful imaging flagship in the OPPO family, then OnePlus can only say “Oh we are the main performer”. The truth is that it’s the best 8 Gen 2 phone in terms of photography, except for flagship phones like the Xiaomi 13 Pro and X90 Pro+.
Although the OnePlus 11 is not a real flagship, and it’s not cheap enough to be a flagship killer. But it is indeed one of the best phones to buy in its price range, especially for those who like to take pictures but don’t want to spend too much money. Will you give OnePlus a chance in the future?
