OnePlus 11R review: All-rounder phone
OnePlus earlier in the month launched the OnePlus 11R along with the premium OnePlus 11 series in India.
For now, OnePlus 11R is exclusively available in India. It comes in two options--8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage— for Rs 39,999 and Rs 44,999, respectively.
I have been using the OnePlus 11R for the last several days and here are my thoughts on the new Android premium phone.
Design, build quality and display
It may sound cliched, but I have to say OnePlus 11R do evoke a breath of freshness in terms of design language. Yes, it is very similar to the powerful brethren OnePlus 11, but with just one look, people will instantly know it's new and those who follow tech, will straightway know, it is a OnePlus phone.
The shining metallic circular camera module is unique and beautifully blends with the frame and the back of the phone. Also, the camera module looks big, but it does not protrude much outwards and the phone can slip into the pocket with ease.
Our review model is sonic black and it has a shiny back with a matte finish. It does an excellent job of repelling sweaty fingerprint smudges.
Even, galactic silver too does good in terms of the aforementioned issue and is quite a looker too.
The company has not done any compromises in terms of the build quality, it exudes a premium feel not just visually, but also when held in hand, and it has a smooth texture.
On the front, the company pre-applied a layer of screen guard to protect against scratches.
Also, an interesting thing about OnePlus 11R is that the company has re-introduced the signature feature-- alert slider. It was sorely missed in the predecessor. With this shortcut, users can easily switch between ring, vibrate and silent modes in an instant. But, the only qualm, is the slider, though textured and offers a tactile touch feel, is kind of small to move around, particularly when the cover case is on the phone. It will take a few days to get used to the feel. Without the cover, it is a bit easier.
It sports a beautiful 6.74-inch full HD+ fluid AMOLED screen with support for adaptive refresh rate 40Hz-120Hz and offers up to 1,450 nits peak brightness. The screen cascades slightly to the right and the left sides, adding visual appeal to the phone.
The nature documentaries are so good to watch on the AMOLED screen; the colours are rich and vibrant. During the testing period, I never felt any fatigue in my eyes while watching vlogs for hours. Scrolling on the OnePlus 11R is a buttery smooth experience.
With Auto brightness, the screen adjusts the intensity of the display panel's light to match the surrounding environment.
It also boasts an in-display fingerprint sensor. The blue graphic animation when unlocking the screen adds a cool visual element to the user interface. And, yes, it does work well in terms of recognising the finger impression and quickly unlocking the screen.
Performance
It comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 octa-core processor with Adreno 730 GPU. It can reach a peak CPU speed of 3.19GHz. And, as mentioned above, the company is offering the phone in two configurations--8GB RAM +128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. Our review unit is the latter.
And, with the RAM Expansion feature, users can extend 8GB RAM up to 12GB extra, meaning it can top 20GB RAM. And, 12GB RAM can be extended up to 24GB, provided there is enough storage space. With this, the phone will be able to perform better in terms of app loading speed, gaming and other day-to-day activities.
As advertised, it does an exceptional job in delivering smooth performance, you can discernibly notice the speed of the app launching instantly and never once during the review period, it showed any kind of lag-ness.
Also, though the phone when playing games like Asphalt 9: Legends, the phone does get warmed up, but does not overheat. It boasts HyperBoost Gaming Engine is backed by OnePlus' proprietary Cryo-Velocity Cooling system to ensure the device is stable and delivers a smooth gaming experience.
OnePlus 11R runs Android 13 with OxygenOS 13. The interface is clean and comes with a lot of pre-loaded apps, but they take up around 5GB and the operating system takes up 18.1GB. So, depending on the storage variant, the user will be left with around 220 GB or 90GB of storage. This is more than enough to install several apps and store thousands of photos and videos.
The new phone boasts a 5,000mAh battery and it can easily deliver a full day under normal usage including an average of three-four of scrolling on the internet or social media platforms, and an hour or two streaming videos on OTT apps or play games and other normal day-to-day activites.
It comes with a 100W SuperVOOC fast-charging adaptor in the box. It can fully charge from zero to 100 per cent in under 25 minutes. Even 10 minutes of charging is enough to reach the 50 per cent mark.
The company has incorporated 13 independent temperature sensors and they work with 128-bit encryption, and the SUPERVOOC S charging management chip, to ensure the phone does not pose danger to the owner and also ensure device battery cells retain power storing capacity to the maximum, for long years. It has TÜV Rheinland Safe Fast-Charge System certification.
OnePlus 11R supports 5G cellular service on both Airtel and Reliance Jio SIM cards. [Supported 5G bands: N1, N3, N5, N8, N28, N40, N41, N77, N78 SA/NSA]
Photography
It boasts a triple camera module— main 50MP (with 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX890 sensor, f/1.8, OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) + 8MP 120-degree ultra-wide camera (with Omnivision OV08D10 sensor, f/2.2) + 2MP macro camera (with Omnivision OV02B10 sensor, f/2.4) with gyro-EIS and LED flash on the back.
Compared to its predecessor, OnePlus 11R is a huge improvement. Truth be told, it is even better than the premium OnePlus 10T launched in late 2022.
The photos captured by OnePlus 11R are remarkably good, particularly when taken in bring sunny conditions. The colour of the subjects such as flowers is really punchy and visually good. Even the details are pretty well captured.
As you can see sample below, the colours of wall paintings are really near-natural, as close to what we perceive through our eyes. The images are sharp and clear.
The ultrawide angle mode does well capturing a wide area in the frame and the colours are good too. The blue sky looks natural and the aura around the sun is well captured in the photo taken in the afternoon.
In the night mode, OnePlus 11R manages to get pretty decent photos, on par with most of the rival brands in its class (under Rs 50,000 range).
Must read | OnePlus 10R review
Even the macro mode photos too, the phone is capable of getting crisp close-up shots with good details.
In portrait mode, the edge detection on the phone works fine. It manages to differentiate the foreground and the background pretty well. Also, the contours of the petals of flowers are so finely captured with the back blurred and the latter doesn't look artificial at all.
It can record up to 4K at 30/60 frames per second(fps), full HD (1080p) at 30fps, 60fps and 240fps. The videos are of decent quality.
On the front, OnePlus 11R houses a 16MP wide camera (f/2.4, 24mm lens, 1/3.09-inch, 1.0µm pixel size). It takes fine selfies and even the videos (1080p at 30 fps) too, are clear and come off pretty stable even with shaky hands.
Also, it offers superficial tools to enhance the person's facial details such as skin tone, skin texture, spot healing, cheeks, eye size, eye brightness, dark circles, and even teeth. I can't blame the company, as these tools are actually in demand. One can see thousands of dedicated photo-enhancing apps on the Play store, it is just that, the company is offering them on a platter in the native camera app and saving them storage space to add more photos to the album.
Final thoughts
OnePlus had a forgetful 2022, as the premium phones including the R series lacked that 'X' factor. But, the company seem to have learnt lessons and implemented them, by bringing much-needed freshness in terms of design language and most importantly, the improved performance in the OnePlus 11R.
The camera is exceptionally good too. It takes fantastic photos in almost all conditions and the video recording capability is also decent in its class.
The battery life is good too and icing on the cake, the 100W SuperVOOC fast charging is just phenomenally good and it just makes you lose the low battery anxiety.
OnePlus 11R is a well-packaged premium phone and the pricing makes it a very compelling smart buy.
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