OnePlus 11 takes performance up a notch

Almost universally, tech enthusiasts are greeting the just-launched next-gen OnePlus 11 by referring to a return of the brand. In fact, OnePlus never went away anywhere these past few years. What it did was take a nice detour to collect a much wider customer base with cheaper variants of their smartphones while making the top-tier one more expensive each year.

Originally, OnePlus targeted the tech community with its anti-establishment ‘Never Settle” tagline and many promises to not draw customers into the trap of paying exorbitantly for high-end specs, which can be provided for less.

For a while, OnePlus lived by this philosophy and kept close ties with its tech-savvy user base. But then, understandably wanting to grow its numbers, the company began targeting the budget phone segment, seeming to forget all about the techies who were hand-in-hand with it in its initial days. OnePlus did a few things that shocked the original audience. They rewrote what many say was the best operating system, OxygenOS, to build it on top of Oppo’s ColorOS. They, in fact, re-merged with Oppo. And then they even got rid of the famous much-loved alert slider button that was the signature of a OnePlus phone. Tech enthusiasts decided OnePlus had ‘lost the plot’. But that’s debatable.

With the launch of the OnePlus 11, reviewers speak of a return of the original OnePlus, but in fact, the phone is not radically different from recent years. Thankfully, the alert slider is still in its place, and that may be one thing that reassures those familiar with OnePlus phones for years.

Camera circle

The OnePlus 11 has a snazzy looking back, thanks to an interesting treatment given to a large circular camera housing. It looks more camera-like and has the prominent Hasselblad branding immediately obvious. There are two colours: green and black, the black comes with a textured frosted glass back that actually makes it possible to use without a case, though the camera bump will be offset and safer inside a case. The back actually feels plastic, which it isn’t. It’s interesting that we now have glass that feels like plastic and plastic that feels like glass.

The OnePlus 11 is every bit the large phone it has been in the past few years. This device is not for occasional users of a smartphone. It’s chunky and not light as well as being quite broad and decidedly for those who need plenty of screen space to do various tasks all day long. That screen is an expansive 6.7-inch with 3216x 1440 (QHD+) resolution and a pixel density of 525 ppi. It has a 120-Hz refresh rate and can hardly get away with less. Bezels around the screen are very slim and there’s a slight curvature to the left and right sides of the display. The little dot that houses the front camera is off to the left side, out of the way. The phone has a strong build and is made of the usual glass and metal sandwich that premium phones are. The glass is Gorilla Glass Victus -- but the resistance to water is not IP68 but IP64 so it’s splashproof rather than submerge-proof. But the rating costs a fair bit to put into place, and that’s a cost that would inevitably have been passed on to the customer.

Blazing speed

Powering the OnePlus 11 is Qualcomm’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 processor. OnePlus broke the sound barrier long ago and has consistently been about the fastest phone around. The new processor only seals that. On top of this is a choice of 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage. Don’t expect a memory card slot – that has long since become history on high-end phones. Performance is unquestionably fast. If you’re looking for a phone that isn’t going to slow down for years, a OnePlus top-ender is a good bet. The OnePlus 11 is blazing fast and is fine-tuned to make use of speed and power without getting hot, even when gaming, using the camera, etc. As before, the phone has a HyperBoost Gaming Engine, which goes into action automatically when you start playing a game – even simple ones. Gaming performance is one of the phone’s highlights.

All that power works with Android 13 and OxygenOS 13, but for those who have been familiar with the initial OxygenOS, this isn’t much reassurance. Somehow the arrangement is messy and follows that looks like no particular order. There are many annoyances such as OnePlus’ “Shelf’ page contacting quick-access data and shortcuts that keep pushing to be used even when you refuse permission when setting up. The clean user-in-control feel of the interface has long gone. All of this is more likely to irk tech-savvy users, though.

Despite the Hasselblad collaboration, the cameras on the OnePlus 11 are not dramatically improved and don’t take it into the league of the upper crust of camera phones. The main camera is 50MP with an f/1.8 lens and optical image stabilisation. There’s a 48MP lens that can also do macro shots and a 32MP portrait camera with 2x optical zoom. Images in good light are crisp and really quite nice. Now and then you get a photo that would rival results from the top camera phones (iPhone 14 Pro, Pixel 7 and Samsung’s S23 Ultra)) but there’s also a lot of inconsistency. In low light, results are disappointing. The zoom has actually gone down from 3.3 to 2x. The front camera is 16MP and does a passable job but doesn’t come with any big change in approach.

What Hasselblad really does for OnePlus is less than evident. You do often get photographs with great detail and strong colours, but for the most part, it seems like a whole lot spent on a partnership that isn’t quite understandable.

Rapid-fire charging

The battery is 5,000mAh but more pertinently it charges at 100W, given the right charger and cable. And that’s supplied in the box. The charger is a huge chunky thing that isn’t going to be easy to cart around anywhere, so one has to plan one’s charging schedule accordingly. Luckily, the phone charges so fast, it’s possible to just plug it in while getting ready in the morning. In about 30 minutes it’s done from zero to finish. There are vociferous complaints about the lack of wireless charging but it’s difficult to see why anyone would want to opt for the slower wireless method instead of just plugging in to top up completely at high speed.

There are granular controls for overcharging once the 80% mark has been passed. You can opt to slow charge through the next few hours. There is also some amount of self-learning the phone does with charging patterns.

The OnePlus 11 5G (an unnecessary 5G in the name there) comes in at ₹56,999 for the 8GB RAM variant and ₹61,999 for the 12GB model. It makes for a very solid alternative to the top flagships if one doesn’t necessarily want to spend twice the amount.