The Oppo Reno 11F 5G is a great phone that doesn’t do much wrong. An excellent battery adds to its appeal. Unfortunately, Oppo is launching this device in a highly competitive price range where it faces stiff competition from both Oppo itself and its subsidiary brand OnePlus.

Oppo is once again present on the Belgian market with full conviction. This was celebrated with the launch of the Oppo Reno 11F 5G: a mid-range device with the promise of an excellent battery that it also keeps. However, the launch seems to be the result of impatience, since a few weeks later its successor, the Reno 12, was announced. The cheaper OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite is also now on the shelves. Does this Reno 11F have anything to do with our market?

Specifications

As is often the case, the answer is nuanced. At the launch, we learned that the F in Oppo Reno11 does not stand for F 5G damn greatand that actually seems to be a bit too enthusiastic a superlative. For 449 euros (incl. VAT) you get a balanced range of features:

• 6.7-inch 20.1:9 screen
• 2,412 x 1,080 pixels – 120 Hz, HDR10+
• MediaTek Dimensity 7050
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB storage
• 64 MP main camera
• 8 MP wide-angle camera
• 2MP macro camera
• 32 MP selfie camera
• 5,000 mAh battery
• 67-watt fast charging
• ColorOS 14

The Oppo Reno 11F looks finished and weighs little (177 grams), so it fits well in the hand. The camera island on the back is too big, as is the caption Innovative AI camera The lenses make an impression in their home market of China, but we still find them a bit strange here.

On the front, we have no complaints. The spacious and sharp OLED screen gives an immediate premium feel. The thin edges don’t get in the way. The strong Gorilla Glass we find on other devices in this price range is missing. Instead, Oppo opts for Panda Glass. That would be strong too, but maybe don’t test it too often. Oppo offers an IP65 rating.

When you use this smartphone, you won’t miss a thing. Apps open quickly and switching between applications is seamless. The everyday user with no special needs gets a premium experience here.

Slowly but surely

This does not mean that the Oppo Reno 11F is a speed demon. On the contrary: Oppo relies on a modest processor and we can see this in the equally modest benchmark results. The phone is much slower than, for example, the Samsung Galaxy A55 with a similar recommended retail price and even the cheaper Samsung Galaxy A35.

Good enough is good enough, though. For messaging, browsing, videos and photos, social media, and other everyday uses, this device also offers an acceptable level of performance. Forget about gaming: this phone’s 3D features are for smooth control of the screen and animations, not virtual racing.

Good battery, but where is the charger?

The Oppo Reno 11F is in the top class when it comes to battery life. The device performs above average in both the light video test and the more demanding performance test.

You can be sure that this device will get you through the entire day and probably most of the next workday without any problems.

By the way, the battery is Oppo’s biggest gripe with this device. Oppo boasts a four-year battery life, which means that after 1,600 charge cycles in four years, it should still have 80 percent of its original capacity. That’s double today’s industry standard and means that even after four years, you should still easily get through a workday on one charge.

If you do need to recharge, there is no need to panic. In 20 minutes you can recharge the Oppo Reno 11F halfway and in 36 minutes you are at 80 percent: enough to get through the day. We achieved these values ​​​​with a standard USB Type-C charger with the Power Delivery (PD) 3.0 standard, which charges the phone at 55 watts.

The smartphone can charge even faster (67 watts), but you need a special SuperVooc charger, which is only useful for Oppo or OnePlus devices. In addition, the manufacturer does not include a charger in the scope of delivery. It is a shame that Oppo does not fully support the PD standard for fast charging and instead relies on its own technology, which you have to purchase separately. Charging at the advertised speed would not be an option.

(Mostly) good cameras

For photos, Oppo uses a 64 MP main camera. It often works excellently, but not always. Sometimes the camera delivers insufficient results, and that is disappointing. The Innovative AI camera can sometimes seem a little too enthusiastic, causing images to suddenly become blurry in odd places after editing. The 8MP wide-angle camera performs better than expected in daylight. The zoom function is purely digital, but surprisingly sometimes produces better results than a non-zoomed snapshot.

The image above is fine and representative of most snaps you’ll take, but the deviation from the main camera does occasionally show up in our day and is most obvious in the photos below. Click on the 1X photo from the main camera and note, among other things, the bricks of the building on the right and the posts on the bottom left.

When zooming in, you can see the limitations of the 8MP wide-angle camera, but it works perfectly. The 2X photo is also pretty solid, without any oddities.

Thankfully, the effect isn’t that pronounced most of the time, although you can see it in the photos below too. Pay special attention to the boards to the left of the green beast. They lack a lot of detail compared to the 2X photo (with the same sensor but different post-processing) and even the 8MP wide-angle camera. We also note that Oppo delivers consistent colors across all photo modes.

When the AI ​​photo correction doesn’t cause any problems, as in the photos below, the colors are invariably vibrant but accurate, with beautiful results.

In addition to the 64MP main camera and the 8MP wide-angle camera, the Oppo Reno 11F also has a 2MP macro lens. We don’t quite understand what it’s all about, but this gimmicky camera serves its purpose on well-lit objects. As soon as there is some backlight, the snaps look washed out.

Lights out

Then we have the night photos. Somewhat surprisingly, the main camera performs much better there: we see more correct details both on the ground floor and in the bricks. The lighting is a bit exaggerated.

The 8MP wide-angle camera lacks optical stabilization and reaches its limits with blurry photos that no longer look as nice at full size. Even with zoom photos, objects further away quickly lose detail.

The oddities of the main camera in bright daylight are not really justifiable in a device of this price range. Fortunately, most of the photos are not as distorted as the first one we show, but we can’t help but feel Innovative AI camera does more harm than good here. That’s a shame, because Oppo also equips the Reno 11F with consistent cameras that deliver decent performance.

Too restrictive update policy

Oppo markets the phone with ColorOS 14: a version of Android 14. It’s a good operating system, even if we can miss advertising pop-ups for its own app market with things like Bubble Pop and other junk like Toothache.

Unfortunately, Oppo only guarantees two years of Android updates and three years of security updates after launch. That is very little and also noticeable. Oppo states that the battery lasts longer than the device software.

During the last guaranteed year, if the buttons still work properly and the battery is still in perfect condition, the software is outdated and you must use the device at your own risk. This is incomprehensible, especially in a business context.

Oppo knows how to make good phones, and the Oppo Reno 11F is certainly no stinker. The device runs smoothly, has a nice screen, and looks good. When the cameras work together, they also take high-quality photos.

beauty mistake

Unfortunately, we notice too many defects. The update policy contradicts the battery policy. Oppo uses its own charging standard, but does not include the charger in the scope of delivery; the software behind the main camera sometimes does more harm than good; the performance is significantly lower than with similarly expensive devices, …

None of these things are deal breakers, but when you add them all up, you might wonder if there aren’t more interesting options in this price range. For example, the older Samsung Galaxy A55 is painfully slow to charge, but otherwise hardly does anything wrong. Google also has a strong competitor in its portfolio with the Pixel 8a. Finally, there is the subsidiary OnePlus, which doesn’t achieve perfection with the OnePlus Nord 3, but offers better performance and longer updates. A Nord 4 is also just around the corner.

Not quite

In our opinion, the Oppo Reno 11F (449 euros including VAT) is somewhere in between. Perhaps Oppo thinks so too: barely two months after the launch of the Reno 11F, the company has already announced the arrival of the Reno 12 in Belgium.

Oppo has taken an interesting direction with the Reno 11F. We really like the focus on battery life, for example. With an adjusted update policy, we could recommend this device with more confidence. Now we lack an argument to recommend this device over one of the many competitors in the mid-range segment.

Android update policy: Oppo guarantees the Oppo Reno 11F at least two operating system updates and at least three years of security updates. The period for this started with the launch on April 22nd. Oppo follows the standard warranty period of two years.