OnePlus 11 review

Third-generation LTPO AMOLED

The OnePlus 11 comes with an upgraded 6.7-inch LTPO3 AMOLED panel with 1440 x 3216px resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Atmos HDR standard and 10-bit color depth. Aside from the improved energy efficiency of the new generation LTPO over the last, OnePlus also points out a smart feature allowing the display to recognize certain types of content and adjust its refresh rate granularly. Reading an e-book, for example, will tone down the refresh rate to 1 or 10Hz, while gaming will boost that to 120Hz. Admittedly, the granular refresh rate control isn't something new but more on that later.

Compared to the 10 Pro, the OnePlus 11 offers an upgrade in display technology as well as HDR capabilities, but it fails to impress in our brightness test. The maximum manual brightness we got was 487 nits, while in Auto mode, the device boosts up to 767 nits. While this is close to the advertised 800 nits, the maximum luminosity isn't flagship-worthy. High-end phones nowadays often push beyond 900 or even 1,000 nits.

Still, it's unfair to complain all that much since 767 nits are still enough to provide a comfortable outdoor experience, even on the sunniest of days. Additionally, the peak spot brightness is said to be 1,300 nits, so you will still be enjoying proper HDR content.

Speaking of proper HDR, OnePlus is still tying HDR to the display's current brightness level, which in turn is often tied to the automatic brightness. This results in low-brightness HDR videos and movies, which defeats the purpose of having HDR almost entirely. There's also High-brightness HDR mode, partially fixing the issue, but it's still not ideal.

Color accuracy, on the other hand, is unrivaled. In the Natural color preset, the display achieved an impressive average dE2000 of just 1.0, while the maximum measured dE2000 was 2.3.

HRR control

As was the case with the OnePlus 10 Pro, the 11's refresh rate is highly adaptable and it takes into account the content displayed on the screen, not just your interaction with it. Leaving the display idle with static content will result in either 10, 5 or 1Hz refresh rate, depending on the brightness. As you go up the brightness levels, the refresh rate goes down. Expected behavior given our past experience with LTPO OLED panels.

We saw some granular adjustments being made on the fly once content started to change in the Chrome browser, for instance. Moving objects will trigger a higher refresh rate, usually 60Hz, even if you are not touching the display. Video players will cap that to 60Hz, be it the native one, Netflix or YouTube. And depending on the video, the system can also serve 30Hz to match the video's frame rate, although 24fps videos are still played at 30Hz.

The system will also adjust the touch response rate depending on the content, but we can't accurately measure that, so we can only take OnePlus' word for it.

And perhaps the display is too smart for its own good. Remember the OnePlus 10 Pro issues we had with the variable refresh rate? Well, they are back on the OnePlus 11. When there's static and moving content on the screen, the display can't decide whether to scale down to 30Hz or ramp up to 120Hz resulting in scrolling issues and video stuttering at times. We've experienced this on Instagram and sometimes in Chrome.

Another issue we noticed is when playing certain 60fps videos using the YouTube app. The screen would become less responsive, requiring several taps to open up video controls and even register a touch on the pause button. It's really annoying and it can even render the screen completely unresponsive if you start adjusting the playback speed. App crashes are also possible. And video resolution doesn't seem to be related to the issue.

Battery life

OnePlus phones have been pretty lackluster when it comes to battery endurance for the last couple of years, with the 10 Pro being the small exception. However, the OEM took some notes and the OnePlus 11 offers exceptional battery endurance, even though its capacity is still 5,000 mAh.

The OnePlus 11 managed a solid Active Use Score of 11 hours. It didn’t do particularly well in the gaming test, but other than that, it scored alright. Its overall score is about on par with the Google Pixel 8 Pro, which does a bit worse in call testing. The Samsung Galaxy S23+ does outpace the OnePlus 11 in all battery tests, though, despite rocking a smaller battery pack.

Charging speed

As one would expect from a OnePlus phone, the charging time of the 11 is pretty fast. In just 22 minutes, you can expect a full charge from 0% thanks to the fast 100W charging. There are almost no rivals that can overtake the OnePlus 11 in this category except for the Xiaomi 12 Pro, which takes the lead with just one minute difference.

There's also a clear difference between last year's OnePlus 10 Pro and this year's 11 as the latter charges 10 minutes faster, which is quite the achievement in the context of fast charging in under 30 minutes. However, the OnePlus 10T, with its absurd 150W charging, appears to be marginally faster. But with a difference of just 3 minutes, we wouldn't say that the OnePLus 11's 100W is a downgrade.

Speakers

The OnePlus 11 runs the usual set of stereo speakers - one bottom-firing and one that doubles as an earpiece. And judging by the loudness score (-25.1 LUFS) and the overall sound quality, it's probably safe to say that the 11 borrowed the 10 Pro's speakers. Not that there's anything bad about that.

The OnePlus 11's speakers sound quite clean and are obviously tailored more toward vocals, movies and podcasts. Sound remains quite clean even at higher levels. That's not to say the bass is absent. It's more pronounced at higher volume levels and will likely appeal to people looking for a more flat, neutral sound. We've definitely heard fuller bass from other flagship phones. Our only complaint is the sensible imbalance between the left and right speaker. Surely, the left channel is always a bit quieter but we expected a bit more from OnePlus' flagship when it comes to balancing out the two speakers.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.