Oppo F11 Review: Its all about Camera

Oppo F11 is the standard variant of Oppo F11 Pro, launched in March 2019 in India. We have used Oppo F11 for more than three weeks as our primary smartphone and this Oppo F11 Review is based on that experience. The main difference between Oppo F11 Pro and its standard variant is the absence of the pop-up camera module in the standard variant and hence it uses a teardrop with a small notch display instead of a notchless display in the Pro variant. In terms of pricing, it was launched at Rs. 19,990 but is now available for a price of Rs. 17,990.

At the moment, Oppo has only launched the 4GB RAM + 128GB internal storage variant of F11 which was also our review device. Here is brief specifications of the phone.

Oppo F11 Specifications

• Display: 6.5-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels), Gorilla Glass 5
• Operating System: ColorOS 6.0 based on Android 9 Pie
• Processor: MediaTek Helio P70
• Memory: 4GB RAM
• Storage: 128GB, expandable up to 256GB with microSD
• Battery: 4,020 mAh, VOOC Flash Charge 3.0
• Main Cameras: 48MP f/1.8 aperture + 5MP f/2.4 aperture
• Selfie Camera: 16MP, f/1.8 aperture
• Misc: Hybrid Dual SIM, Fingerprint sensor,
• Connectivity: 3.5mm headphone jack, micro USB, 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz/5GHz, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/A-GPS
• Colours: Purple, Marble Green

Design and Build Quality

In terms of design and build quality, Oppo F11 impresses with the design having the polycarbonate unibody design. You may feel the size of the phone as too big if you are coming from a smaller device yet you will get accustomed to the size in 1-2 weeks. Obviously this is not a one-hand device thanks to the 6.5-inch display and a battery of 4,000 mAh having a weight of ~188 grams.

It feels and looks like a premium smartphone. The rear panel looks shiny with a metallic ring or edge around the dual camera module and fingerprint sensor. The Oppo Branding along with “designed by Oppo” text and camera Module & fingerprint sensor alined in the middle perfectly. The power button is set apart with a shiny green colour while the volume rocker buttons on the other side are almost invisible. Same goes with the SIM card slot which is nearly invisible. At the bottom, there is the MicroUSB port which should have been the USB C port. The 3.5mm audio jack is present at the bottom side.

Performance and Software

The phone is powered by MediaTek Helio P70 processor which may feel like a letdown for a device priced more than Rs. 15,000. We have seen MediaTek Helio P70 in entry level devices priced below Rs. 10,000 such as Realme 3. Yet, in terms of performance you wont feel any issues with your daily day to day usage and it runs smooth, unless you start playing heavy games such as PUBG. Even PUBG runs without any issues under medium graphics settings, yet you should not expect smooth performance as with high end devices such as Poco F1.

We are ot such a big fan of Custom UI over the stock Android and same goes with Color OS 6 even though it is based on the latest Android 9.0 Pie operating system. It does come with some additional features such as Gestures, App Locks, Dual App support, Split screen support and few other optimisations which is great. One of the letdowns is the presence of bloatware apps that are preinstalled and too many notifications popping up due to these apps. Good thing is, you can uninstall or delete most of the bloatware. Also, each app on opening asks for too many permissions that may be a nuisance for many users.

Faceunlocks works almost perfect though it did misses sometime. It managed to unlock the device even with Helmet on the head, but yet it missed sometime under heavy sunlight. The fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate but not too fast. There is a smart assitant available too which comes with too many customisation options giving you a interface to access everything just by swiping the home screen. We have seen similar stuff with Oxygen OS. It also includes a step tracker that lets you know about the number of steps along with distance over daily, weekly or monthly basis.

In terms of Antutu Benchmark, it scores around 139k+ which is the expected score for a Helio P70 smartphone and it reflects in the performance.

Camera

Oppo F11 features a dual camera module aligned vertically in the middle with a 48MP primary sensor with f/1.79 aperture, 0.8um pixel size, 6P lens along with 5MP secondary sensor . On the front, there is a 16MP snapper with f/2.0 aperture for selfies & video calls. Thanks to the 48MP sensor, the main rear camera shot some great photos under day light conditions with good colour reproduction and saturation. Yet the details were missing if you try to zoom these images. Under low light or during night, it produced decent shots though the balance of exposure appears more excessive and should have been better.

The dynamic range was good under normal daylight but if you are using it under intense sunlight (which was often the case with Delhi hot weather during the review period), the dynamic range ifaltered a bit yet produced some great shots. The portrait shots were good enough though its some better software optimisations. Coming to the selfie camera, it produced some good selfies under normal lighting conditions but it faltered when you are taking the selfies under intense sunlight outside.

The camera app comes with modes such as Slo-Mo, Night mode, Portrait mode, Expert Mode and includes support for Google Lens. The expert mode may be slightly confusing for many users and we expected it to come with sliders as we have seen in many other devices. Another issues is, the camera app switches to 12MP inspite of changing it to 48MP from settings. The moment you are out of the camera app, it switches to default 12MP instead of 48MP. So if you want to take shots with 48MP, you need to check everytime if its set as 48MP in settings.

Check out the Camera Samples below:

Battery life

Oppo F11 excelled when it comes to battery performance. The phone lasted for almost two days even under heavy used that included running hotspots for 4-6 hours each day. Under normal usage it lasted for more than two days. Keep in mind, in both the scenarios, we were not playing any games on the device. For gaming intensive or even moderate usage, the phone should last for more than one day. The VOOC Flash Charge 3.0 support adds additional convenience which helps you charge the device fully in approximately 1.25 hours from zero to 100%.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a smartphone with big display, good design, Great Battery Life and camera performance, Oppo F11 excels. But if you are looking for a CPU intensive device with good performance or clean software such as stock Android, then you have better options available at this price range one of them being the Poco F1.