Oppo F11 Review – Refining the best of the F series from the house of Oppo

oppo f11 7

Launched lately in India, the Oppo F11 is a premium mid-range smartphone from the company that primarily focuses on aesthetics, cameras and battery inspired by its elder sibling, i.e. the Oppo F11 Pro. And while the latter boasts of an all-screen display and a pop-up camera, there’s no such sorcery going around with the F11. But then again, it’s priced significantly cheaper and shares a similar set of specifications for the most part. So, should you buy the phone now after two months of its launch? Let’s check out the same in our Oppo F11 review.

Oppo F11 Specifications

Before starting with the Oppo F11 review, let’s have a glance at the device’s specifications, pricing and things we get inside the retail box.

  • Display: 6.53-inch IPS LCD display, FHD+ (1080 x 2340 pixels resolution), 19:5:9 ratio, 394 PPI density
  • CPU: 12nm-based octa-core Mediatek Helio P70 processor (4×2.1 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×2.0 GHz Cortex-A53)
  • GPU: Mali-G72 MP3
  • RAM: 4GB/6GB
  • Storage: 128GB, expandable up to 256GB via microSD (hybrid slot)
  • Software: Android 9 Pie (ColorOS 6)
  • Main Camera: 48MP primary sensor ( f/1.8, 1/2.0″, 0.8µm, PDAF) + 5MP depth sensor (f/2.4, 1/5″, 1.12µm)
  • Selfie Camera: 16MP (f/2.0, 1.0µm)
  • Connectivity: Dual SIM (4G), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, FM radio, micro USB 2.0
  • Cellular: Dual SIM
  • Fingerprint Scanner: Yes, capacitive
  • Battery: 4,020 mAh, Li-ion Polymer, non-removable
  • Charging: VOOC 3.0, 20W

Price: Rs. 17,990 for 4/128GB | Rs. 19,990 for 6/128GB

Box Contents

A complete list of items you get inside the box:

  • Oppo F11
  • VOOC 3.0 Charger
  • micro-USB cable
  • Earphones
  • Silicon Case
  • Sim Ejector Tool
  • Documentation

Oppo F11 Review

Design & Display

The first thing you’d notice about the Oppo F11 is its design. While there’s no fancy pop-up camera or notchless display, the device boasts of a polycarbonate body with a gradient tint, making it feel a lot more premium than it actually is.

The Fluorite Purple colour we have here has a gradient purple finish that exhibits pinkish hue in response to the light. The phone looks quite minimal with a water-drop notch up front and dual camera setup at the back, followed by the typical Oppo-styled oval fingerprint scanner.

The power button is given to the right while the volume rockers sit on the left, right below the hybrid sim tray. The MicroUSB port, 3.5mm audio jack and speaker grille, as usual, are situated at the bottom.

The display used here is a 6.53-inch full-HD+ IPS panel that touts excellent viewing angles, looks sharp and offers vibrant colours. Now it’s not as bright as we would’ve liked, but then again we didn’t face much difficulty using it under harsh sunlight.

Performance & Software

Under the hood, the Oppo F11 gets powered by octa-core MediaTek Helio P70 SoC, paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Notably, the phone performs flawlessly when it comes to day to tasks like watching movies, texting, using social media apps, navigating through GPS or listening to music.

Furthermore, the Helio P70, being capable SoC even manages to play graphics-intensive games like PUBG Mobile on medium settings. We played the game for almost an hour and didn’t notice any throttling/ heating issues.

As noted, the phone runs the company’s custom ColorOS 6.0 on top of Android 9 Pie. And it indeed is one of the biggest limitations on its smartphones. Despite being akin to the iOS, it luckily gets an App drawer which can be revealed by a simple swipe on the home screen. Furthermore, you get to choose between Pixel-styled pill gestures or the new full-screen gestures for a more immersive experience.

The UI also includes several motion and screen gestures to play around. However, there’s a good amount of bloatware like DailyHunt, Opera, UC Browser, ShareChat, Web novel, etc. which, fortunately, can be uninstalled in the settings.

Amongst other features, we have Hyper Boost and Game Space modes grounded on AI. Furthermore, there’s a dedicated Riding Mode to manage calls and notifications while riding, followed by a Smart Assistant, which proactively provides you with information you need, similar to the Google Assistant.

All-inclusive, ColorOS is a highly skinned and customizable version of Android. Hence, if you’re someone like me who loves stock Android, then you’re definitely going to have a hard time getting used to the ColorOS.

Cameras

The Oppo F11 gets a dual-camera setup at the rear, comprising of a 48MP Sony IMX 586 primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture and a 5MP depth sensor. For selfies, there’s a 16MP shooter with f/2.0 lens housed in the waterdrop notch.

By default, the phone uses oversampling or pixel binning technique to produce relatively brighter and detailed 12MP images from that 48MP sensor. You can manually change camera settings to shoot at 48 MP, though.

The camera takes well-detailed, sharp and vibrant images in ideal lighting situations. Dynamic range is perfect, and the colours are slightly on the saturated side. The phone also manages exposure very well. The secondary 5MP camera, on the other hand, is used only for depth information when taking portraits.

In low-light situations, the images are well-lit, have decent contrast and level of details, but the results aren’t best in class. This is where the Night mode comes to rescue. And while it recovers back a significant amount of detail, the noise levels are intensified and visible on zooming in.

Moving further, while the Helio P70 can do 4K videos, the Oppo F11 maxes out at 1080p@30fps. Thankfully, videos have plenty of detail and are pretty stable due to EIS. Coming to the front shooter, it produces great results with enough details and good dynamic range but suffers from Oppo’s typical skin smoothening techniques.

Battery & Charging

The built-in 4,020mAh battery, when coupled with ColorOS’s battery optimisation techniques easily gives an endurance of over a day to two on an average when you’re not pushing the phone’s limits.

As an added perk, the VOOC 3.0 charger juices up the phone rapidly from 0-50 per cent in just 30 minutes while the full charge takes about an hour. Note that the fast charging only works with the supplied power brick and micro-USB cable. That said, we wish if Oppo included a USB Type-C port for better feasibility.

Pros

  • Looks sturdy and premium
  • Gaming-friendly performance
  • Good overall Cameras
  • Long-lasting battery life
  • VOOC 3.0 fast charging

Cons

  • No 4K video recording
  • Dated micro-USB
  • ColorOS is annoying

Oppo F11 Review Verdict- Should you buy it?

The Oppo F11 is a solid smartphone that offers a rich and premium design, coupled with excellent performance and promising cameras. It doesn’t disappoint on battery life either. Overall, it’s a perfect smartphone with a very few compromises such as ColorOS, and lack of 4K video recording.

But then again, there is a lot of great competition around. Cheaper phones like Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) and Realme 3 Pro (Review) offer better performance while the lately launched Realme X brings in a pop-up camera, AMOLED display and much more for the price you pay for.

Buy Oppo F11 from Amazon.in

About the author

Ritik Singh

An avid media student who is highly passionate about technology since childhood. He has good experience in video production, gadget reviews and is ardent about writing on tech.