A new year and a new flagship also for OnePlus, which has launched the new OnePlus 11 5G, a smartphone capable of combining respectable hardware, an innovative photographic sector created in collaboration with Hasselblad and a very elegant design in our opinion. OnePlus’ first flagship for 2023, it is positioned, they explain to us, as the successor to the 10 Pro (our review here) and the 10T (review). Together with the new phone, the Chinese house also offers a new model of headphones, the OnePlus Buds Pro2, which convinced us in terms of sound quality and performance. Our “everyday life” rehearsal lasted three weeks, that’s how it went.
OnePlus 11 5G: hardware features
OnePlus 11 is very light (just over 200 grams) and comfortable to hold, even with one hand and being also very thin (8.5mm deep) in your pocket it does not weigh and does not cause discomfort. It is sold in two colors: the black variant Titan Black (which we tested) which has a “porous” back side, resistant to fingerprints and anti-slip, and in the green variant Eternal Green, with a metal unibody shell. OnePlus 11 5G has the latest SnapDragon processor at its beating heart, the 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform version, which combined with an 8 or 16 gigabyte RAM memory and a battery with an excellent capacity (5,000 mAh) make the device powerful, snappy it is reliable. The screen is a 6.7-inch 2K AMOLED with LTPO technology that automatically adapts the refresh rate up to 120Hz based on what you are viewing, supports HDR10+ with 10bit colors for realistic and immersive video rendering and is set in the center of a frame reduced to the maximum. At a multimedia level, OnePlus 11 supports both Dolby Vision HDR – which makes video content extremely realistic – and Dolby Atmos on the two powerful speakers. Finally, the Alert Slider returns “by popular demand” (on the 10T model it had been eliminated), that sort of now “iconic” OnePlus switch that allows you to switch on the fly from ringtone mode to vibration only mode up to silent.
Charging and software
OnePlus has always accustomed us to super-fast and reliable battery charging, and the OnePlus 11 is no different: on board we find the 100W SuperVOOC charging system with Dual Technology which allows you to recharge the phone very quickly, especially in the first 15 minutes (in our test it reached 61 percent) while it takes less than half an hour to fully charge it: in our test 26 minutes. Charging performance that – ensured by OnePlus – guarantee that the battery remains performing for 1,600 cycles (which corresponds to approximately four years of intense use of the phone). Too bad for the charger a bit bulky. OnePlus wanted to insist, they explain, also on the issue of cooling: thanks to the Cryo-velocity VC Cooling System technology, the battery never exceeds 36 degrees, even in situations of extreme stress, thanks to a sort of very thin crystalline graphene plate that allows heat to be dissipated over the entire surface of the product. The smartphone is suitable for heavier workloads: in fact, it integrates a “Hyperboost 2.0” function which, through software algorithms, allows you to optimize the device’s performance based on daily energy consumption: the processor is thus able to “dosate” the battery depending on the specific apps you are using.
“Ram-Vita” does something similar: a machine learning technology that chooses how to best allocate the used Ram memory, freeing up some tasks and reallocating it on the heavier ones, giving, for example, priority to applications that use artificial intelligence or the photographic sector. At the operating system level we find OxygenOS 13 based on Android 13, with a very accurate interface and a new user-experience based on a design, they explain, “aquamorphic” that offers fluid and natural movements. Games are also excellent (among other things, the new processor supports hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing, which improves light effects such as shadows and trails – especially useful when playing games or working with high-quality video). Just as, again in the gaming field, there is the HyperBoost Gaming Engine, frame rate stabilization technology that adapts the performance of the screen to the needs of gamers, also managing energy consumption in the best possible way. Facial recognition and fingerprint recognition are snappy, the haptic feedback when typing letters on the keyboard is very “natural”.
The photos and videos of OnePlus 11 5G
The OnePlus 11 sees the return of the collaboration with Hasselblad, the famous Swedish camera manufacturer, with the third generation of Hasselblad Camera for Mobile. On board the OnePlus 11 we find three rear cameras set on a circular panel in relief: a 50 megapixel primary camera with Sony IMX890 sensor, a 48 megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that guarantees 115 degrees of viewing (with Sony IMX581 sensor) and a telephoto 32 megapixel photo particularly suitable for portraits, taken with Sony IMX709 sensors. In particular, the latter has achieved the optical standards of Hasselbad when it comes to professional portraits. There is also a color temperature sensor that allows you to reproduce colors more accurately; the Natural Color Calibration function has also improved which, thanks to the collaboration with Hasselbad, brings the color standards and studies carried out by the company to smartphones. Among other things, OnePlus and Hasselbad together have developed three unique color styles (Serenity for portraits, Radiance for people and cultural photography, Emerdald for landscape photos), useful for making semi-professional shots without any effort. On the phone screen, with the classic hole located in the upper left part, the 16 megalixel selfie-cam with Sony IMX471 sensor.
Again: it is possible to shoot ultra-stabilized five-axis videos and up to 8K quality (at this quality, however, we lose both the ultra-stabilization and the other cameras compared to the main one). Night photography has also improved, with the main camera which, thanks to Nightscape 2.0 technology, dedicates algorithms precisely to exploiting the brightness of the environment. Another interesting thing about the photographic sector: the telephoto lens is also used for portraits and has been designed to reproduce as much as possible the typical effects of reflex cameras. We have tried practically all the novelties of the OnePlus 11 photographic sector and we are very satisfied: the stabilized videos seem of professional quality, the colors are natural and not “artifacts”, the focus is very fast, the night photography is excellent.
Our experience, availability and prices
We really appreciated the new OnePlus 11, a flagship phone with an honest price that we would like to recommend to those who take lots of photos and videos, love to “play” with photo editing and filters, who need a phone with a super-fast and immediately operational recharge and also to gamers, with the many improvements introduced also thinking about this sector. OnePlus guarantees the update for four generations of Android and five years of security updates. Storage space of 128 or 256 gigabytes, prices starting from 849 euros.
OnePlus 11, Pros and Cons
PRO
- Professional photographic department
- Excellent battery management and super-fast charging
AGAINST
- Ultra-stabilized and 8K quality video with the main lens only
- A bit bulky 100W charger
OnePlus Buds Pro2
Together with the new smartphone OnePlus also presented the new OnePlus Buds Pro2 earphones which offer excellent battery life and an excellent level of audio reproduction. They are undoubtedly the ideal travel companions of the new OnePlus 11. The Buds Pro2 are among the first earphones to adopt Google’s space technology to offer users 360-degree immersive sound, wherever their heads turn. Connection to the phone is very fast thanks to the Android Fast Pair function, the headphones are very light, discreet and elegant, and have a touch surface that allows you to control the volume and answer phone calls. Among the features, also an equalizer designed in collaboration with the composer Hans Zimmer which – they explain – “allows you to enjoy a wide range of sounds, from the melodies of a symphony orchestra to the multidimensional sounds of an action film”. The “intelligent” noise cancellation is good, with various levels that can be selected based on the surrounding environment (maximum, moderate, small) and also personalized based on the structure of the ear canal: in our test it managed to cancel most of the noise ( except the more “acute” ones such as a child’s cry or the brakes of a train arriving at the station).
Source-tg24.sky.it