OnePlus 11 5G review | Ultra-fast charging and great performance

OnePlus has another flagship killer with the OnePlus 11 5G and its lighting fast charging, performance, and impressive battery life.

Following last year’s OnePlus 10T, OnePlus once again can’t be touched when it comes to charging speeds, and the price is just about perfect, but how does the phone hold up against other Androids?

I’m going to break down all of the pros and cons of the new phone, and there’s a lot of things that really stand apart against the competitors.

The OnePlus 11 5G is available for purchase now and retails for $699 USD and $999 CAD with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage; while the 16 GB RAM model with 256 GB of storage retails for $799 USD or $1149 CAD. Your can order the phone from OnePlus.com, Amazon, and Best Buy.

Battery life and charging

One of my favourite features on the OnePlus 11, like the OnePlus 10T, is the charging speed and battery life. The 5000 mAh battery lasted all day long for me, even while I was using it heavily.

And then there’s the 80W SuperVOOC charging. The phone charges from 0% to 100% in 27 minutes, and you can get quick partial charging in 10 to 15 minutes. When I was out for the day and needed to charge, that meant a quick coffee break could easily get the phone to the point where it could last me the rest of the day.

Since the phone comes with a charging brick and cable, those are the ideal conditions. If you’re not using the brick however, it’s worth noting that charging times are of course much slower if you’re only charging from a USB port. The phone also doesn’t come with wireless charging, as OnePlus chose to focus on the wired quick charging speeds.

That was perfect for me since I generally only charge my devices with a charging brick, but it’s worth knowing. Since the phone has such great battery life, I don’t consider this an issue.

Display and sound quality

The 6.7-inch 2K AMOLED display with LTPO 3.0 is bright and clear, with a variable refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz, making it excellent for gaming, while also more energy efficient when you’re using it more casually.

I like the display a lot, and it makes movies and games both look excellent, with slick, true-to-life colours, and that’s true whether you’re taking photos or watching something.

I also appreciate that OxygenOS 13 features a lot of extras for the display, from being able to customize app icons, to the way you can customize the always on display. The new OS also gives you controls to create larger folders for apps, or launch a smart sidebar with some of your favourite tools. I found that feature really useful for quickly getting screenshots, screen recordings, and even just pulling up the calculator.

The OnePlus 11 has stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support, delivering excellent sound quality overall, from playing music to gaming and movies. Paired with the Dolby Vision support, it’s a great device for streaming.

For one test I put on Daft Punk’s killer Tron: Legacy soundtrack, and it sounded very, very good. You could of course get better results with an external speaker or earbuds, like the new OnePlus Buds Pro 2, but when you just want to play music on the phone it’s better than similarly priced phones.

Design

OnePlus has kept the design for the OnePlus 11 very similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro, from the volume and power buttons to the notification slider, front camera and speaker placement.

The biggest differences in the design from recent OnePlus phones is the new rounded camera bump. The camera bump still has a similar three camera configuration to the 10 Pro, plus the flash/light, but the circular design is unique and refreshing. With an official case from OnePlus it’s very clean looking, and it’s unlikely anyone will confuse it for any other phones.

The phone maintains a smooth, rounded-edge design that feels premium, and in Titan Black, the nicely frosted matte glass back is almost impossible to get fingerprints on it. I like this style better than the OnePlus 10T, and it’s a big improvement from the 10 Pro, but I wish it was slightly less smooth. Still, it’s an improvement over most of the competitor phones.

The phone is also available in a beautiful Eternal Green, it offers IP64 water and dust resistance, and the screen is made with Gorilla Glass Victus.

Beyond anything else, I have to say that I prefer how OnePlus keeps the volume rocker on the left side of the phone, and the power button on the right side. It’s so easy to hold and use that way, and it makes them instantly usable.

Performance

The OnePlus 11 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, offering lightning speed and performance, especially with the 16/256 GB edition of the phone. Those specs mean that you can edit video quickly and easily, play the most CPU-intensive games, and multitask with ease.

Editing video in Adobe Premiere Pro and exporting them was smoother and quicker than other phones. All my apps were incredibly fast and responsive, and this tracks with CPU benchmarking that scored higher for the OnePlus 11 than any previous OnePlus phone.

In CPU tests that I’ve seen from Geekbench, the new phone scored among the best of any Android phone available right now, and a big improvement over last year’s impressive OnePlus 10T.

For the price, and compared to other Android phones, the OnePlus 11 balances very good performance and speed without breaking the bank.

Cameras

The OnePlus 11 has a triple camera system that includes a 50 MP main camera, a 32 MP portrait lens, a 48 MP ultra-wide camera, and a 16 MP front camera. Once again OnePlus also worked with Hasselblad for the 3rd collaboration.

The Hasselblad collaboration brings natural colour calibration to the phone, with a 13-channel multispectral sensor to better identify colour, plus the Hasselblad portrait mode offers results that are DSLR-like, including depth-tracking, bokeh, and effects.

There are a lot of improvements here, especially compared to the OnePlus 10T. While I liked that phone’s cameras quite a bit, the Hasselblad partnership is a pretty big deal, especially for portraits.

There’s also the addition of improved HDR for the main camera, and the phone captures up to 8K 24 fps for video, which is a rarity on mobile phones. I still need to do more tests in 8K but the results there are good if you’re looking to get started at higher resolution.

Overall, the only drawback to the OnePlus 11 is that the zoom is made for portraits, and the digital zoom is underwhelming. I hope the future of OnePlus will deliver a more impressive telephoto camera, and I hope we’ll also see improvements to the selfie camera as well.

The cameras on the phone are better than other similarly priced phones, and I had greats results in daylight and well lit places. Night mode works well though, in most cases, and I love Pro mode, XPan mode for its very unique film-like style, and Dual-View Video. My only other wish, and this is the same for other Android phones as well, is that special features like Depth of Field video mode will be offered in 4K video modes.

Final Thoughts

The OnePlus 11 5G is an excellent phone, the performance, display, design, battery life, and charging are all better than most competitors, and the price is hard to beat, especially for the 16/256 GB model that not only performs better for gaming and multi-tasking, but offers way more space for photos, video, apps, and games.

I was a big fan of the OnePlus 10 Pro as well as the 10T, but the direction and improvements from the OnePlus 11 5G make it clearly the brand’s best phone.

The phone also includes the option to choose between a dual nano-SIM, or using an eSIM, making it even easier to get your phone connected.

If you are willing to pay more, there are competitor phones that offer better camera zoom quality, however they can’t compete at all with the OnePlus battery and charging speeds. For anyone who struggles with charging and battery life like I do, you’ll have a hard time going back from a OnePlus phone once you realize you don’t have to keep your phone plugged in for 90 minutes to get it to 100%.

Paired with all of the OxygenOS features, the speedy processor, features like spatial audio with the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 earbuds, great video quality in 4k and up to 8k, and alongside the affordable price tag, I am a big fan of the OnePlus 11 5G.