OnePlus 11 review: Return of the old OnePlus? (2023)

OnePlus first caught everyone's attention with its "flagship killer" mentality. He challenged thembest android phoneseach year with a single affordable device that balances its superior performance with thoughtful sacrifices on the rest of the spec sheet. So OnePlus bit into the conventional apple. One phone became two, the feature list filled up and prices started to rise in the search for the killer flagship. Now the brand wants to return to those simpler days, whether those times still exist or not. With OnePlus' old-school spirit, can you still compete in the modern market? And most importantly: is the result worth buying? Find out in our OnePlus 11 review.

About this OnePlus 11 review:I tested the OnePlus 11 (16GB/256GB) over a period of three weeks. It ran on Android 13 with the December 5, 2022 security update. OnePlus provided the impetus for this hotfix.

What you need to know about the OnePlus 11

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In terms of design, the OnePlus 11 is not too far off the mark.OnePlus 10 PromiOnePlus 10TTree. It shares a nearly identical 6.7-inch Gorilla Glass Victus display with a 2K resolution and a variable 120Hz refresh rate. The popular Alert slider is back after much ado about its removal from the OnePlus 10T right side; You can find it in front of the volume control. OnePlus has hidden its dual nano SIM tray on the bottom edge next to the USB-C port.

On the back, the OnePlus 11 has a round camera instead of the previous square one, although the sensor layout is the same. It packs a 50MP main lens, a 48MP ultra-wide camera and a 32MP telephoto lens. Like its predecessors, the OnePlus 11 is available in black or green, now called Eternal Green and Titan Black, and the back is made of Gorilla Glass 5. All versions have an IP64 rating for dust and water resistance.

The most obvious change in the OnePlus 11 is the new circular camera hump, but most of the updates are under the hood.

There's plenty of flagship power under the OnePlus 11's glossy exterior. This is one of the first devices to land at QualcommSnapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, which is supported by 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage in the base model. If you need a bit more power, there's also a 16GB/256GB model, which is the version we have to test. There's a big 5000mAh battery to top it off, with 80W cable charging in the US or 100W cable charging for the rest of the world.

As is so often the case with OnePlus flagships, the OnePlus 11 also comes with the latest Android version: Android 13oxygen operating systemSkin on top But as a welcome change, the OnePlus 11 now also has a true flagship update promise: four years of Android version compatibility and five years of bi-monthly security patches. This makes it one of the best in the industry forlong-term software support.

OnePlus might be the last brand that hasn't decided to downsize its packaging. The OnePlus 11 even comes with a 100W USB-A charger (yes, it's USB-A, no typo), a USB-A to USB-C cable, and the retail versions include a basic protective case .

OnePlus made its latest flagship available for pre-order on February 7, 2023 on its own website, as well as on Amazon and Best Buy, with sales open from February 16, 20235G sub-6GHz connectivity(excluding mmWave) at launch on all three major US networks and many of their MVNOs.

What is good?

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It might not be the most important feature for all users, but the alert slider is back. We've received many complaints about the OnePlus 10T's removal, so it's good to see that it was more of a sabbatical than retirement. The Eternal Green finish is also excellent. OnePlus is no stranger to green phones and I'm happy with how the color looks in the hand and in pictures.

OnePlus also seems to have found the right balance when it comes to cascading displays. I often have problems with accidental touches and pressure on most curved screens, but I didn't have the same problem on the OnePlus 11. It's easy to grip from either side without fear of placing fingers. Also, the 6.7-inch screen is bright and sharp, the 120Hz displayvariable BildwiederholfrequenzIt's smooth, dropping down to 1Hz, and I had no trouble seeing it clearly in the occasional sunlight of a Pennsylvania winter.

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

After a year of battery life on flagships, the OnePlus 11 heads into 2023 strong with very solid staying power. I found I could stretch it to almost two days of moderate use, which for me was a mix of social media, light gaming and browsing the internet is. Your scores may suffer if you spend most of your time playing games, but you should still be able to go a day before reloading.

When you need a charge, the OnePlus 11 is lightning fast. Supports 80W wired charging in the US and 100W wired charging for the rest of the world, beating Apple, Samsung and other speeds. I found that it only took about half an hour to charge at 80W for a full battery, while my colleague Dhruv took about 25 minutes at 100W for his test ride in India.

In terms of performance thatLion's Maul 8 Gen 2it's not a game The OnePlus 11 is one of our first opportunities to test the chip in a production device, and the results are impressive. This easily outperforms the OnePlus 10T, which was designed as a high-performance device with its Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. The OnePlus 10T improved the multi-core score by 46% in standard mode and by 30% in standard mode, not too much.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 takes the peak performance of the OnePlus 11 beyond its predecessors.

Controlled benchmarking numbers only tell part of the story, but the OnePlus 11 also cuts an impressive figure in everyday use. I never noticed any stuttering or slowdowns, even when playing graphically demanding games like Asphalt 9 or quickly switching between other apps and games. More importantly, the phone never got hot. It got a little warm during longer 3D games, but never uncomfortable. Our review unit came with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, which OnePlus says is enough to keep up to 44 apps running in the background at once. I've never had 44 apps open at once, but I've never had a problem with apps quickly closing in the background.

Also, it's a relief to list software updates as positive for OnePlus 11. We apologize for many disappointing update commitments, so four years of Android releases and five years of security patches goes a long way: Samsung is up to the task. Oxygen OS 13 might not be as light and airy as the OnePlus skin, but there are a few tweaks that improve usability. On the app side, there are still not many OnePlus additions worth mentioning outside of Zen Mode and the OnePlus Store that you can uninstall. You can also opt out of other default apps like Netflix if you don't plan on streaming.

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

One of the best improvements I've found in Oxygen OS 13 is getting rid of the OnePlus Shelf, a menu that puts things like notes, recent contacts, your pedometer, and Spotify in one place. You used to open the shelf or quick settings depending on where you swiped down on the screen, but now you can choose one or the other. Some users might prefer Shelf for its comprehensive approach, but I like to hide it.

To top off the OnePlus 11, you shouldn't have any issues with connectivity or sound. he packsBluetooth 5.3miWLAN 7Support, and while most people don't have a compatible router yet, it's great to see such comprehensive protection going forward. Stereo speakers, a headphone jack and a bottom-firing unit are impressively loud and punchy with Dolby Atmos tuning, although like many phones, they struggle with bass at high settings.

What's not so good?

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

OnePlus' return to its "flagship killer" roots also appears to have brought some quirks to the OnePlus 11, particularly when it comes to charging. While the 80W wired power is impressive, it comes at the expense of wireless charging. OnePlus has tried to explain that away, stating that the 80W charging speed appears to be fast enough that most users won't miss out on wireless charging. We disagree; Users should have the flexibility to charge their phones as they please. Wireless charging has started making its way to sub-$500 phones and has long been the norm at this price point. While the OnePlus 11 is still one of the fastest-charging phones in the US, it still takes a step back compared to the lower-tier OnePlus 10T, with a power output of up to 150W.

Wireless charging or fast charging shouldn't be a choice buyers have to make at this price point.

Additionally, the OnePlus 11 comes with a USB-A charging pad and a USB-A to USB-C cable. Part of OnePlus' reasoning was that if you're out and forget a charger, your hotel is more likely to have a USB-A port that you can access. There's some logic to that, but regular USB-A connections won't charge your OnePlus 11 at the full 80W clip.

The USB-A to USB-C cable also means that if you need to borrow a friend's charger and they only have a USB-C option, you'll quickly run into trouble. It also doesn't connect to USB-C-only laptops, making it difficult to transfer photos and files quickly. I also tested the OnePlus 11's 80W charger with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and found that it only pulled 15W of power out of the brick. Unlike previous OnePlus chargers, this one doesn't seem to cover all of your fast charging needs.

While we didn't see any issues with the OnePlus 11's performance on most day-to-day tasks, it struggled in stress tests. Running the Mark Wild Life 3D stress test, we found the phone maxed out for about seven loops before levitating wildly. This would reduce performance to almost half of the original level as shown in the graph below. The other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 device in the chart, the Red Magic 8 Pro, doesn't show these fluctuations. You may never experience this level of throttling in real life, but it might be enough for hardcore mobile gamers to opt for the GPU consistency of the OnePlus 10T and its Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 over the higher peaks of the Snapdragon 8. OnePlus 11.2 gen.

I like to praise the design of the OnePlus 11, but the Eternal Green finish is also a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. When you take it out of the box it starts to scar. The good news is that the Titan Black version supports a finish that's more of a matte finish, or as OnePlus used to call it, Sandstone, which doesn't suffer the same fate. Perfection would have been an Eternal Green device with a Titan Black texture.

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

The OnePlus 11's Gorilla Glass Victus display doesn't seem to live up to its enduring bill either. I slipped the phone into an empty pocket when I took it out to take some test photos and managed to pick up several small scratches on the edges and bottom along the way. Despite the less durable material, I didn't notice any marks on the back of the Gorilla Glass 5. However, Gorilla Glass 5 isn't premium enough to be on a $700 device when there are cheaper options like the Google Pixel 7 Gorilla Glass Victus running through.

And while it's nice to see IP ratings for all OnePlus 11 models and not just specific carriers, IP64 just doesn't cut it. It resists dust well, but there's a big difference between IPX4, which is good for splashing water from all directions, and IPX8, which can withstand submersion in shallow water for long periods.

OnePlus 11 Kameratest

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OnePlus is now in its third year of partnership with leading camera company Hasselblad, but the development hasn't been drastic enough to really challenge the market.best camera phones. Hasselblad is still mostly involved in tweaking the camera's color profile, leaving most of the hardware to OnePlus. With the OnePlus 11, most of the changes take place within this hardware, due in part to a megapixel restructuring. The OnePlus 11 starts with a 50MP Sony IMX890 sensor, supported by an ultra-wide 48MP Sony IMX581 with a 115-degree field of view. There's a 32MP 2x portrait telephoto lens that uses Sony's IMX709 sensor to top it off.

That 50-megapixel primary sensor, in turn, is great for bright light. The colors of the samples I took are vivid and bold, especially the yellow facade of the building and the red sign in the lower left corner. Object detection is very good, with a gentle drop behind the belfry and chime cluster. However, the OnePlus 11 seems to struggle once the clouds gather. Both the image of a bike and the mural look much flatter, removing most of the vibrancy from colors like purple and orange. Also, the little flock of pigeons flying down the street seems to have been killed off by over-sharpening and noise reduction.

One Plus 11ultra largeThe lens is 0.6x, which is relatively standard on flagship devices. However, there is also a clear change in the color profile, especially in the slider below. The ultrabroad sample is noticeably cooler and the tree in the upper right corner is blue-green in color. Detail and distortion are well contained across the range of samples, and color differences aren't as noticeable in the sunny scene in the lower left corner.

OnePlus' ultra-wide sensor works like aMakro-Shooter. Overall, the OnePlus 11 performs very well in macro mode, delivering sharp results in the center of the flower on the right and the knot on the branch below. It's hard to get clean focus at times, like the yellow flower on the left, but the color accuracy is better than most true ultra wide-angle shots.

The most impressive part of the OnePlus 11's camera setup is the portrait recognition. This is where OnePlus and Hasselblad have focused most of their efforts, fine-tuning detection and bokeh over Hasselblad's XCD 30mm and XCD 65mm lenses. It's sharp and accurate at identifying objects, especially the coffee cup in my right hand. The OnePlus 11 accurately identified my entire hand and the mug itself, and it fell to the floor perfectly. The metal flower shows similar precision, although the bokeh effect is not as pronounced. Some other specimens, such as the metal pig, accurately identify the head but do not explain the body.

The OnePlus 11's camera interface lets you switch between 0.6x, 1x, and 2x zoom, and that's where I stayed most of the time. You don't have to pinch anything else and it becomes difficult to control due to the size of the screen. Unfortunately, the telephoto lens only offers 2x optical magnification, which means that the quality decreases relatively quickly with increasing distance. Zoom samples up to 5x can be used, but anything beyond that reveals detail quickly - just look at the blurry stars in the 20x exposure.

The OnePlus 11's Hasselblad-branded cameras often suffer from dull colors and poor low-light performance.

Low-light performance is the real pain point, though. The OnePlus 11 can occasionally capture fairly accurate color in night mode, but there's plenty of lens flare even when the cameras are clean. The image of a barn lamp and that of Reading Terminal Market were taken on two different evenings but have similar issues.

Details also fade quickly when looking at the background and smaller elements, especially around the edges of the frame. The cars are smudged and poorly rendered in the lower left, the woman's face is cramped and ghostly in the lower right, and the lights in front of the house are dim. Unfortunately, aggressive over-sharpening is accompanied by unstable exposure. The dark shadow around the spire of Philadelphia City Hall was present no matter how many times I tried to take the picture, while the sky is extremely bright in all of my rehearsals.

Finally, thatSelfie-Camera. The OnePlus 11's 16-megapixel punch-hole shares many of its strengths with the main rear camera, especially when it comes to portrait recognition. It captured most of my hair with precision, ignoring just a few wild strands that I would have preferred to hide anyway. The selfie camera shows some detail, like the trees and roof tiles in the background, and my face looks a little softer than it really is. But I am satisfied with the color rendering: my jacket really has this color combination.

For videos, the OnePlus 11 can record in resolutions up to 8K at 24 fps or 4K at 60 fps. It opts for 1080p by default, but the results aren't bad. They might not live up to Apple's video capabilities, but I was impressed with their automatic stabilization and clarity.

You can also view full-size versions of these sample photos (and more) hereEnlace a drive.

OnePlus 11 specifications

OnePlus 11 review: the verdict

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In many ways, OnePlus 11 is a successful return to what originally made the brand exciting. It offers outstanding performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip and wired charging that is miles ahead of its closest competitors. The all-glass design feels good in the hand, no matter how stained it is. A respectable upgrade commitment is the icing on the cake for keeping the OnePlus 11 in your pocket for long.

However, as Little Big Town said, "There are some things you can't go back to." The OnePlus 11 foregoes the features we've come to expect from modern flagships and even most mid-range devices in the hope that it will can balance with raw power. A low IP rating and weaker glass back mean its durability doesn't live up to the headlines, and many devices add wireless charging instead of removing it. And while the cameras are competent in decent conditions, especially if you're into portraits, the low-light performance is reminiscent of the darker days of OnePlus' imaging prowess.

The OnePlus 11 is a return to the "flagship killer" ethos that made the brand exciting in the first place, but it breaks some awkward old habits.

The OnePlus 11's aggressive pricing puts it against a different class of smartphone than its defunct Pro line, though it still faces stiff competition. It's more affordable than some flagships like thatSamsungGalaxy S23($ 799,99 Samsung), but costs more than the excellent oneGoogle-Pixel 7($599 at Amazon). Google's flagship brings wireless charging to the table and a full IP68 rating, and it's hard to top the Pixel's light and fluid interface or the search giant's excellent cameras. The Galaxy S23 also offers wireless charging and a comprehensive triple camera system, but it doesn't come close in terms of charging speeds.

If you want a small phone for the same price, this is itAsus Zenfone 9($629 at Amazon) Worth a look. It sacrifices some battery power and starts with less base RAM, but retains classic features like a headphone jack and a screen that's under six inches. After all, the price of the OnePlus 11 is dangerously close to the OnePlus 10T ($499.99 on Amazon). The OnePlus 11 leads the way in terms of camera and performance, but the $50 savings and 125W charging gain is hard to argue with, especially when the OnePlus 10T suffers from many of the same fundamental flaws you might expect that they will disappear in the future. Shop the latest and flashiest OnePlus throughout the year. Best offer.

one plus 11

one plus 11

Strong peak performance • Ultra-fast wired charging • Outstanding software promise

OnePlus simplifies its lineup, bundling all products into one flagship device

The OnePlus 11 is all about speed, thanks to 80W wired charging and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. It also has a third-gen Hasselblad camera setup, an IP64 rating, and OnePlus' most aggressive pricing in years.

$699.00 for OnePlus

$699.00 at Amazon

$699.00 and Best Buy

The most important questions and answers about OnePlus 11