The New OnePlus 11: An Eternally Bright Smartphone with 120 Hz Refresh Rate and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 GPU Incorporation
OnePlus used to be one of the best companies if you wanted a clean, simple and speedy Android experience. The company has deviated from that idea since merging with another company, Oppo, which has made it much more difficult to use an app on your phone.
Look at this thing! It’s hard to deny beauty when you see it, and the OnePlus 11 is just that: beautiful. It was a bit more bright than the official images would lead you to believe. For those who’d rather have something sleek and unassuming, it also comes in Titan Black. (Oddly, OnePlus went with a frosted finish for the back glass on the Titan Black and glossy for the Eternal Green, and I wish they’d used the frosted finish on both).
I think the company achieved their goal of showcasing a modern elegance on this phone. The curves on the sides and corners of the phone make holding it more comfortable, and the glass blends nicely with the aluminum frame and camera housing. The device is not very heavy. It is less than 200 grams, less than the 236- gram Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max and less than the 203-gramgoogle pixel 7 pro.
There is a port on the bottom forcharging, stereo speakers, a physical SIM tray, and an array of microphones. The alert slider on the right gives you the option to switch between ringer, vibrate, and silent modes without turning your phone on. I am very happy to see it back on this year’s device, it was missing from last year’s 10T.
And thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, everything feels nice and smooth. If you’re unfamiliar, a 120Hz refresh rate means the display is refreshing 120 times per second. The majority of phone screens refresh at 60 times per second. It’s a massive leap forward from a smoothness perspective. OnePlus has been a pioneer when it comes to faster refresh rates, having been one of the first companies to ship a phone with a 90Hz refresh rate. I am very excited to see it continue in its throne with the newest entrant into the club, the OnePlus 11.
The latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor is included in the device. It comes with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM, depending on which model you get, along with either 128GB or 256GB of storage. I have the higher-end model of the model and it is great. Getting work done on the go, juggling multiple apps at the same time, and playing games are no match for these specifications. They handle anything I throw at them with ease.
TheCryovelocity VC Cooling system is a new system designed to keep your device cool while doing things like gaming. I can safely say that it is very effective, and that it is the largest phone in the series. I never once had this phone get overly hot. It helps with performance, since the phone will not have to be throttled due to extreme heat.
The OnePlus 11 features a bionic vibration motor that greatly improves the quality of vibrations and haptic feedback on the device. Typing on the keyboard, using quick shortcuts and the subtle vibrations from different interface elements all feel a lot stronger and higher quality than most other vibration motors. The iPhone remains the best at vibrations and haptics, but the OnePlus 11 isn’t far behind. There is something to note about what the other phones have done here.
Full disclosure: I still think the company is behind the big three in terms of their camera technology. That being said, there’s no question that the OnePlus 11, with its triple rear camera system tuned by Hasselblad, is a very capable system.
There is a new 50-megapixel main camera with an f/1.8 lens. This helps the camera gather more light and detail in every situation, whether it be a bright sunny day or midnight. I tested this sensor the most to see whether it could keep up with my iPhone 14 Pro Max and Pixel 7 Pro, and I was surprised to find that it could. The device could hold its own, even though there was a slight dip in the amount of detail it could capture.
At night, the camera still gets crushed by the Pixel 7 Pro, which remains my favorite phone to use in the dark. However, it’s still good enough if you want to take pictures at night without completely losing your subject to the darkness. The OIS helps the camera to stay steady, it is especially important at night when taking longer exposures.
The 48-megapixel 115-degree ultrawide camera takes a noticeable step down in quality from the main camera, but it’s still perfectly fine when taking pictures during the day. It’s a good idea to take only a few wide-angle nighttime photos.
There is a 32-megapixel lens that has 2x optical zoom and up to 20x hybrid zoom. That’s notably far behind other smartphones like the iPhone 14 Pro, Pixel 7 Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, which can zoom in a staggering 100x.
How Fast is the OnePlus 11? Recharging with SuperVooc+ for a Full Day on a 12 GHz Smartphone
You may be wondering what the meaning of the label is on the back of the phone. It’s a continuation of OnePlus’ partnership with the legendary camera company that kicked off in 2021 with the OnePlus 9 series. Hasselblad takes OnePlus’ hardware and applies its own tuning to make each picture you take seem more appealing. They look at color reproduction, contrast, highlights and more during the process.
The video quality is not terrible, but it is not as good as the iPhone 14 Pro. The 4K footage I recorded was similar to the footage I have recorded on thePixel 7 Pro, with good color and not too much artifacting.
I didn’t feel like I had to stay close to an outlet. With average use, the OnePlus 11’s 5,000-mAh battery comfortably lasted a full day, with enough left in the tank for the following morning. The OnePlus 11 is one of the fastest-charging phones in the US. In 22 minutes, I went from 8 to 95 percent. The catch is that you need to use OnePlus’ 80-watt SuperVooc+ charging adapter, which is chunky. Unlike most other phones, it’s included in the box.
These are some of the fastest recharging speeds you’ll find on any smartphone in the United States. It is the only one surpassed by the 10T phone, which has 120W on top of it. Its speed is way faster than any of the other phones you can find. The charging speeds could change your life if you plug in your phone frequently.
The OxygenOS OneUI is not a Playground for Performance or Battery Life: How much does it Matter if you scroll, scrolling, menus or websites?
OxygenOS is inferior to both the OneUI ofSamsung and thePixel experience ofGoogle, from almost every perspective. It is, in fact, not the same system that became famous for as long as the person has been alive.
I didn’t want to switch away to the phone when I was on it. The entire system feels poorly optimized, to an extent that it seems to value battery life over performance. Despite there being a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, 16GB of RAM and fast UFS 4.0 storage, the phone feels slow because of how choppy the software is.
When scrolling menus, social media and websites, I notice that the UI gets choppier and choppier until it catches up with itself and starts moving smoother. This seems like a problem with the variable refresh rate of the screen, with OxygenOS aggressively slowing it down at the wrong times to save battery life. The amount of memory on this phone is the reason why apps will not stay awake in the background.
It seems that the overarchingUI element force things to scroll smoothly even if it means hanging behind your finger on the screen. It’s kind of like smooth scrolling in a web browser, except everywhere — not just vertical lists, but also folders, settings, the notification pane and more.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/oneplus-11?iid=CNNUnderscoredHPcontainer
The OnePlus 11: A Step Towards All-Area Respectable Cellular Phones for Advanced Computing and Cameras, not Wireless Charging
It is odd to see that wireless charging is not a standard feature on the OnePlus 11. It was available on the 10 Pro and it was as fast as 50W. If you rely on wireless charging a lot to juice up during the day, don’t buy the OnePlus 11.
If you read through the speaker portion of OnePlus’ press materials for the OnePlus 11, you’d think these speakers were the best thing since sliced bread. They are incredibly generic in reality.
The Dolby Atmos support is nice, but for a majority of the content you’ll play on these speakers, you’ll be left with subpar quality. The speakers on the Apple devices are better than the ones on the phones.
This is one of the slipperiest phones I’ve ever used. The back glass has a glossy finish that gives you no grippability. It likes to slide off any table or soft surface that isn’t level, so you should expect to catch it if you set the phone on a crooked counter.
It’s not good that the phone is on the large side. There’s no alternative model with a smaller screen, so you’ll be stuck with the 6.7-inch panel, which will require two hands for operation more often than not.
You can get more of a flagship phone if you pay extra, and the words “Ultra” or “Pro” are also attached at the end. For the first time, there won’t be a “Pro” version of the OnePlus 11. You should have everything you need in the standard flagship. It’s similar to the way the company took Marty DiBergi’s question from This is Spinal Tap to heart.
The new handset is pretty darn good. It omits a few features you’d expect to find at its $699 base price, like wireless charging and an IP68 water-resistance rating. It is able to compete with most other high-end phones in a number of ways, including performance, battery life and cameras. It’s not my first recommendation if you’re shopping for a new phone, nor is it my second, but it is an all-around respectable device.
The base version of the phone comes with UFS 3.1 and you can upgrade to 16GLE for no extra cost. The latter storage option has better data transfer speeds and a better power efficiency, so apps and games will load faster and your battery life will be reduced, though you’ll probably notice the difference if you put these devices together. They are already very fast for most tasks.
Can the Battery Be Damaged? The Case for the OnePlus Wireless Charging Adapter in 2023 and With the Move Back from USB-C to USB-A
Wondering if the battery will be damaged? The phone will intelligently recharge at slower speeds when it detects that you’re juicing up at bedtime, but if you forgot to plug it in and are rushing to head out the door at 8:45 am, it’ll know to crank things up. Weirdly, OnePlus has omitted wireless charging, a staple on all flagship phones, claiming that most people will rely on speedy wired charging instead. It’s possible that both can’t coexist, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do. I much prefer plopping a phone on my bedside wireless charger instead of fumbling for a cable in the dark. Oh well. Time to fumble.
Perhaps even stranger is the company’s decision to move back from a USB-C charging adapter to a USB-A. The older port is still common enough that this might not be an issue for you, but with most new devices going exclusively with USB-C ports and cables, it feels like a step back. It was once I went to a coffee shop and brought the phone’s cable to use on my laptop. But it turned out the cable was too short—and I couldn’t swap in the MacBook’s longer cable, because its USB-C plug wouldn’t work with the OnePlus adapter. First-world problems, I know, but it’s a silly snag to have in 2023.
Then there’s the IP64 water- and dust-resistance rating. The OnePlus 11 will be fine against dust and rain, but it might not be as protected if you drop it in the pool as a phone with an IP68 rating (which is, er, most flagship smartphones). The company couldn’t get a better rating. Also, the screen is wrapped in Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass Victus, but the rear glass employs the older Gorilla Glass 5. Even the cheaper Pixel 7 uses Victus on both sides, making it more durable (the new Galaxy S23 opts for the even stronger Victus 2).