Oppo F11 Pro review

Color OS 6 on top of Android 9 Pie

The F11 Pro is the first Oppo smartphone we meet running on the latest Color OS 6, while the first ever phone was the Realme 3. The ROM is based on Android 9 Pie and features a lot of improvements since v.5.2.

The new OS is based on a light color scheme, mainly mixing a white backdrop with light color gradients. Oppo says the choice of white is meant to create an airy atmosphere. A major part of Color OS 6 is the new universal font - Oppo Sans - which Oppo has developed in cooperation with known Chinese typeface firm Hanyi.

And finally, Color OS is getting an app drawer. While it was turned on out of the box on the Realme 3, for the Oppo F11 Pro it's optional and not forced on you by default.

As usual ColorOS 6.0 has built-in machine learning that will freeze apps in the background, instead of closing them. The so-called AI application quick freeze will analyze your app activity for 2 weeks to learn your habits. You can configure/opt out of this behavior from the battery settings.

Despite the Pie-inspired graphic changes, the user interface is very familiar.

Lock and home screens, the app drawer

The fingerprint sensor is always-on, and it's fast and accurate. You can also set up face unlock in addition to fingerprint security - it's equally fast as the F11 Pro wakes up the moment you pick it up.

The face recognition is indeed blazing fast. It relies on 120 recognition points and supposedly can't be fooled by a picture. Surely, this implementation is not as secure as Apple's Face ID, but it works well and it's user-friendly.

Biometric security

As any other Oppo, you can spruce up the UI with Themes. The Theme Store features both whole themes and just wallpapers, sorted into categories (including free and paid ones.

Themes

The notification shade features notifications, quick toggles, and a brightness scrubber and has a brand-new look. The task switcher reminds of Apple's, though it has an End All button. And split screen is available for all compatible apps.

Notifications • Toggles • Task Switcher • Split screen • Split screen • Split screen

The Full-Screen Gesture model is available for the Oppo F11 Pro, though the default option is a mixture between gestures and keys - it's the same back and Home key combination as on stock Android as seen on the Google Pixel. A swipe from the Home key will launch the task switcher, while a long press will fire the Google assistant.

All other options are here to stay - various onscreen key combinations all the way to the full-screen gestures.

By the way, if you are keen on launching the Google Assistant with a hardware key instead of a virtual one, you can assign a short press on the Power Key to summon it.

Navigation settings

Clone apps and file safe functions are on board, as well as real-time translation thanks to an improved voice assistant.

There is a Phone Manager quite similar to what Huawei and Xiaomi have on their phones under the same name. It handles memory cleaner functions, app permissions and encryption, and virus scanning, among other things.

Game Space allows you to handpick which notifications to pass through when you are playing games and you don't want to be interrupted. There are also different performance modes and an option to lock the brightness only for certain games.

Game Space

Oppo provides multimedia apps of all sorts - Gallery, Music, and Video. There is also a File Manager and FM radio app.

Phone Manager • Gallery • Videos • Files • FM radio

Performance and benchmarks

The Oppo F11 Pro, just like the Indian version of the Realme 3, is powered by the Helio P70 chipset. The Oppo F9 Pro had the Helio P60 in charge and the P70 isn't much of an upgrade.

The Helio P70 CPU has an octa-core processor with 4x A73 cores at 2.1GHz and 4x A53 cores is running at 2.0GHz. This means the clock of the high-performance quartet is just 100MHz higher than same on the Oppo F9 Pro and its P60 chip.

The GPU hasn't changed since the P60, too. It's still the tri-core Mali-G72 MP3, but its clock speed has also been raised by 100MHz and now it ticks at 900MHz within the P70.

The Helio P70 and P60 have the same AI core and algorithms, too.

The Helio P70 processor easily aces GeekBench for this price bracket and the F11 Pro posted some excellent scores.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• vivo V15 Pro
  6527
• Oppo F11 Pro
  6020
• Oppo F7
  5901
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  5763
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  5673
• vivo V11
  5535
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  5411
• Realme 3
  4936
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  4927
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  4534

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• vivo V15 Pro
  2386
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  1650
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  1611
• Oppo F11 Pro
  1560
• Oppo F7
  1531
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  1497
• Realme 3
  1482
• vivo V11
  1457
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  1334
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  1252

The Realme 3 has a massive benefit when it comes to graphics because of its 720p screen resolution. The Oppo F11 Pro, like the rest of the phones in our chart all have 1080p screens and thus the lower btu still balanced performance.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 3
  26
• vivo V15 Pro
  14
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  13
• Oppo F11 Pro
  12
• vivo V11
  12
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  11
• Oppo F7
  11
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  9.7

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 3
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  8.3
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  7.7
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  7.7
• Oppo F11 Pro
  7.4
• vivo V11
  7.4
• vivo V15 Pro
  7.1
• Oppo F7
  6.7
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  6.5
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  5.9

If you are curious about the raw performance of the GPU, it is pretty much on par with the competition - only the V15 Pro's and its Adreno 612 GPU (S675) has an edge over the F11 Pro.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo V15 Pro
  17
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  15
• Oppo F11 Pro
  14
• vivo V11
  14
• Realme 3
  13
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  12
• Oppo F7
  12
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  10
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  6.9

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  9.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  9
• vivo V15 Pro
  8.8
• Oppo F11 Pro
  8.5
• vivo V11
  8.2
• Realme 3
  8
• Oppo F9 (F9 Pro)
  7.5
• Oppo F7
  7.5
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  6.3
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  3.9

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  1409
• Oppo F11 Pro
  1275
• vivo V15 Pro
  1206
• Realme 3
  1189
• Honor 10 Lite
  954
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  567

And because of that GPU boost the V15 Pro is the only phone to score higher on the compound AnTuTu 7 test than the Oppo F11 Pro.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• vivo V15 Pro
  180774
• Oppo F11 Pro
  150218
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2018)
  140500
• Oppo F7
  139414
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  139075
• Realme 3
  132764
• Motorola Moto G7 Plus
  117829
• Motorola Moto G7 Power
  107495

The Oppo F11 Pro offers balanced performance across the board. It's great for gaming, especially if you choose to tweak many of the possible parameters via the Game Space - this way you could excel at, say, PUBG or Arena of Valor. Oppo has this thing called Game Engine, which comes into play in games as well and should improve the experience.

As far as mid-rangers go, the F11 Pro is perfectly equipped to handle everything you throw at it smoothly and hassle-free. Same goes for the Color OS 6, which runs pretty hiccup-free.

Finally, even after long sessions of gaming or benchmark torture, the F11 Pro became barely warm and we did not notice any throttling.