For those familiar with the OPPO Reno series, you’ll know that these are the company’s flagship smartphones. But now we have a new entrant: the OPPO Reno11 F 5G, a brand-new phone launched in Singapore in late March. Though it carries the Reno name, it is a more affordable version of the OPPO Reno 11, much like how the “a” series is to Google’s Pixel phones.
Being cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a lesser device. Yes, some specs are toned down, but in addition to the same processor, this phone has features that aren’t present in the original Reno11. If you are already looking to get the vanilla version, the OPPO Reno11 F 5G might help save you more than a few bucks while providing a similar experience.
Design and Build
There’s a somewhat standardised aesthetic about flagship range smartphones. Yes, they usually look sleek, but you can predict what it will look like whenever a new generation is released. Occasionally, you may get some cool colours to come with the phone (Samsung is one such company that does so with its devices), but typically, it is the same plain blacks, whites, or greys. Thankfully, the OPPO Reno11 F 5G does not follow this trend.
The OPPO Reno11 F 5G is all about style and boldly commits its look to that aspect. There isn’t an option to choose from the aforementioned colours. Instead, your variant options are Palm Green, Coral Purple, or Ocean Blue. Each colourway brings its own unique aesthetic, but I want to highlight the Ocean Blue version, which is the one we have.
The Ocean Blue variant has a pleasing azure tint and white waves to emulate the look of water. While other phone designs may just use a solid colour, this one reacts dynamically. Slowly wiggle the phone about, and you’ll see the waves ‘move’—just like water ripples. It is an incredibly unique take on a phone design and adds some cool factor whenever you show it off.
But attractive design aside, the phone’s build does showcase why it is priced as it is. It uses a plastic frame and back, contributing to a cheaper feel for the device. That being said, cheaper does not mean less secure. OPPO has managed to include an IP65 rating for the phone, which even the more expensive Reno11 doesn’t have. It means complete protection against dust and resistance to water splashes, which is certainly reassuring when taking the phone out in rainy conditions.
While the plastic build is a slight downer, it does help the device be lighter. The phone weighs just 177 grams and feels great in the pocket, especially since it is also pretty thin at 7.54mm.
Performance
The OPPO Reno11 F 5G may be a mid-range phone, but it has features that many people are looking for. Take the screen, for instance. It is a generous size at 6.7 inches and runs at a dynamic refresh rate of 120Hz. It even hits a peak brightness of 1100 nits, higher than the OG Reno11.
The display is surprisingly decent, much of it owed to the AMOLED panel. Not only does it get nice and bright, but it also presents colours vibrantly. The screen also has HDR10+ support, which further makes it an excellent device for watching movies or TV shows on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, which have such content available.
And since the screen uses a hole-punch camera cutout, you’re getting more of the display to enjoy. A giant immersive screen to watch your videos—what’s not to like?
Perhaps the only thing keeping it from being a great all-round device for your media are the speakers. It only has a mono-speaker setup at the bottom, which means that the sound is less full and brings a dampened audio experience.
To give it some credit, it does get pretty loud, and the phone even has a feature called Ultra Volume that gets it all the way up to 300%. The percentage itself is a misnomer, though, since it is only a tad louder than at 100%. Either way, the audio quality isn’t the best, as the sound gets muddled at the higher volumes.
As for the phone’s performance, the experience is somewhat mixed. The OPPO Reno11 F 5G uses ColourOS 14 as its operating system, and it is pretty close to stock Andriod in look, though it does have quite a few unnecessary apps installed inside. Bloatware aside, the OS does have some nifty features of its own. I’ve already mentioned Ultra Volume, but there is other stuff like the incredibly useful screenshot gestures and Smart Image Matting, which is basically like Apple’s subject selection feature that creates stickers from images.
Equipped inside the phone is the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 with 8GBs of RAM, the source of most problems. The processor simply does not perform well.
I’ve noticed that the phone lags and stutters occasionally when navigating the UI, and even booting it up takes a long time compared to other phones. I can’t imagine how it’ll function when there are lots of apps running on it over time.
Camera
The OPPO Reno11 F 5G has a triple-camera system at the back: a 64-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera.
Like the Reno11 and Reno11 Pro, OPPO touts the Reno11 F 5G as ‘The Portrait Expert’, where you’ll get great portrait images through its Portrait Expert Engine. And it lives up to the moniker; portrait images are very good here.
It takes some adjustment to get things right—it can sometimes be finicky—but once you do, you get a nice bokeh effect in the background that blends in well with the subject without any obvious cutout effect. There’s also an aperture slider that you can adjust before you take the shot, but if I’m being honest, I’m not seeing much change to the background blur.
The camera works a little less well for normal photos. The colours on images appear more realistic, which sometimes means that photos don’t pop out as often as you’d like. I myself am partial to Samsung’s implementation, which perhaps isn’t real-to-life but is certainly more eye-catching and sharable.
Meanwhile, ultra-wide photos are of decent quality, showing much on the frame without too much warping around the sides. However, it is best to restrict yourself to using the cameras at 2x zoom; anything beyond that produces very bad images that are blurry and not nice to look at.
While that may be it for the cameras, did you know that the OPPO Reno11 F 5G comes with an AI photo-editing feature as well? Well, kind of. When I initially got the phone for testing, there was indeed an option to remove objects from images, but it wasn’t AI. Suffice it to say the feature isn’t outstanding; it looks like a giant splosh is on your screen in place of the removed object.
However, OPPO is providing a proper AI Eraser feature via an OTA update. It will function more similarly to what Google’s and Samsung’s phones have been able to do, using generative AI to detect the background and seamlessly fill it in.
Battery
Unsurprisingly, such a big phone can fit in a big battery. Inside, the OPPO Reno11 F 5G has a 5000mAh battery, which provides excellent battery life.
I was able to get through almost two days worth of use with the phone, and I know I could have squeezed enough life out of it to make it to the 48-hour mark. This was done with a mixture of web browsing, video watching, and photography.
Getting the phone back to life is also a dream. It supports 67W SUPERVOOC fast charging, which OPPO says will give enough battery for over 90 minutes of YouTube streaming with just a 5-minute charge. From what I tested, getting it to full health took less than an hour. Unfortunately, there’s no wireless charging, though that is probably too much of a good thing to ask.
Verdict
Aimed squarely at the mid-range market, the OPPO Reno11 F 5G provides many good features for those looking at devices in that price range. Its unique design is begging to be shown off, and it has a great portrait mode and amazing battery life—that is a lot of plus points.
However, a device is only as good as it can be if it works, and the performance of this phone is certainly a concern that potential buyers need to consider.
The OPPO Reno11 F 5G is available for purchase on various online shopping platforms, including Shopee and Lazada. A full list of retailers can be found on OPPO’s official product page.
Photos by Eshani N J of the DANAMIC Team.
