Oppo F11 Pro review

The Competition

India has often been the primary target for Oppo's F series and the F11 and F11 Pro are no different. But nowadays a lot is going on in this particular market, and a fierce fight awaits the F11 Pro on the road ahead.

It sure has the looks to impress, the capable hardware, and the camera to save your precious moments in high quality. The F11 Pro key feature is the notch-less screen and it does deliver a great full-screen experience, no doubt at that. But will this immersive view be worth the extra cash over the notched phones? Maybe, maybe not.

The first phone that comes to mind is the vivo V15 Pro. It shares a lot of similarities with the F11 Pro - a widescreen free of cutouts, a pop-up selfie camera, a 48MP main snapper on the back, a large battery - and all of that wrapped in a beautiful body with a gradient paint job. The V15 Pro has a bit more powerful Snapdragon 675 chipset and a third camera on its back - an 8MP ultra-wide snapper. Its most prominent feature is the Super AMOLED screen, while the Oppo only has an LTPS TFT panel. Those three extras will cost you around $130 (9,000 INR) over the F11 Pro price, though.

If you can live with a waterdrop-like notch, then there are a lot of options out there. India recently got the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro. It impresses with a dual-glass design, gradient colors included, and it also features the Snapdragon 675 chip, and has the same dual-camera (48+5) as the Oppo F11 Pro on its back. The Note 7 Pro also packs a large 4,000mAh battery capable of fast charging. So, the Note 7 Pro is inferior in just one thing to the Oppo, and it's the screen notch. But its cheapest version (4+64) is more than $150 (10,000 INR) cheaper, so it's up to you to decide if uninterrupted viewing experience is worth that amount of money.

The Xiaomi Mi A2 is an Android One-powered smartphone made of metal. It has a 6" with bezels, and that's why there was no need to cut the screen for the selfie camera and such. The A2 has a powerful Snapdragon 660 chipset, a very capable dual-camera on the back and a 20MP selfie shooter at the front with a LED flash. It doesn't pack an audio jack, and the battery life is inferior, but the Android purists may like it better. And it's about $130 (9,000 INR) cheaper than the F11 Pro, so there is that.

You should also consider the regular F11 model, which is pretty much the same device, but the selfie camera is within a small screen notch. It's $70 (5,000 INR) cheaper though, and many will see this acceptable, plus taking those selfies will be faster.

Finally, we'd like to suggest one more phone, even though it's way out of the F11 Pro price bracket. The Realme 3 comes with an incredibly low price at just $130 (9,000 INR), but it's really the one to go for if you are after high fps gaming on the cheap. The Realme 3 is also well designed, with gradient colors on the back, it has the same Helio P70 chip but behind a 720p screen and thus the massive boost in gaming performance. It also does pretty well in taking photos, and the battery will last you even more than the F11 Pro's. Oh, and it runs on the same Color OS 6 + Android Pie combo. Of course, screen sharpness suffers from the lower resolution but this tradeoff is fine at this price point.

vivo V15 Pro • Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro • Xiaomi Mi A2 (Mi 6X) • Oppo F11 • Realme 3

The verdict

The Oppo phones have often costed more than the competition and are considered to be more premium. Before it is arguable if the higher price was worth it based on merits alone, but it seems to be now. The F11 Pro is one of the cheapest smartphones to offer what's today considered as a 100% full-screen bezel-less screen, and a large one at that.

The F11 Pro has an adequate punch for gaming and multi-tasking, and it excels in both daylight and night photography. Its portraits turned out pretty great, too, but it's a pity the 4K video capture is a no-go.

The F11 Pro is also an instant eye-catcher as its three-color gradient is one of the most beautiful paint jobs you will see on a midrange smartphone today.

Then again if one tiny notch is not an issue then you can grab any of the equally capable competitors for much less money.

Pros

• Captivating design and you can't really tell if it's plastic or glass
• Notch-less wide screen with superb contrast
• Adequate performance
• Excellent battery life, super fast charging
• Excellent all-round camera experience and quality

Cons

• MicroUSB feels outdated, we're missing NFC
• No 4K video recording
• The price is not that competitive