Oppo R11 review: Selfie master

Performance

Oppo R11 is the first smartphone to feature the Snapdragon 660 chipset. The new chip by Qualcomm offers a powerful octa-core processor housing the company's custom Kryo 260 cores - four of those cores are ticking at 2.2GHz, and the other four are at 1.8GHz. Oppo says the new CPU will offer 20% performance bump over the Snapdragon 653 found inside the Oppo F3 Plus.

There is a new Adreno 512 GPU which should offer 30% performance increase over the 510 GPU inside the Snapdragon 653 platform.

Oppo R11 has 4 gigabytes of RAM, while its Plus version will pack 6 gigs.

Indeed, Geekbenching the Oppo R11 revealed a noticeable performance increase when processor tasks are concerned, both multi-core and single-core. It did better than the F3 Plus featuring the previous S653 chip, and not that far from the results of the flagship Snapdragon 835 inside the Mi 6.

Note: You can hover with your mouse on the benchmark results for details on the tested devices.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 6
  6719
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  6656
• OnePlus 5
  6604
• Oppo R11
  5777
• Oppo F3 Plus
  4695
• Sony Xperia XA1
  3611
• Huawei P10 lite
  3344
• Oppo F3
  2798

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1991
• OnePlus 5
  1932
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  1929
• Oppo R11
  1596
• Oppo F3 Plus
  1438
• Sony Xperia XA1
  887
• Huawei P10 lite
  834
• Oppo F3
  764

There is at least a 30% jump in the graphics performance as promised, and the Adreno 512 easily takes the spot of our favorite GPU for the upper mid-range class.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  33
• Huawei P10
  30
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  23
• Oppo R11
  15
• Sony Xperia XA1
  15
• Oppo F3 Plus
  11
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  6.2
• Huawei P10 lite
  5
• Oppo F3
  4.5
• Meizu M5 Note
  3.6

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  20
• Huawei P10
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  13
• Oppo R11
  8.6
• Sony Xperia XA1
  7.9
• Oppo F3 Plus
  6
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  5.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3.4
• Huawei P10 lite
  3
• Oppo F3
  2.4
• Meizu M5 Note
  1.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  38844
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  38541
• OnePlus 3T
  36958
• Oppo R11
  20350
• Oppo F3 Plus
  16695
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14717
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  10446
• Sony Xperia XA1
  9714
• Huawei P10 lite
  7588
• Oppo F3
  6148
• Meizu M5 Note
  5276

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  796
• Huawei P10
  716
• OnePlus 3T
  641
• Oppo R11
  345
• Oppo F3 Plus
  261
• Sony Xperia XA1
  191
• Huawei P10 lite
  145

Finally, we come to the compound tests, which we deem the most important measures for a smartphone's performance. Here the Oppo R11 proves to be almost flagship-grade. Sure, it isn't as good as the latest Galaxies and the Mi 6 with the Snapdragon 835, but it's very close to the still flagship-grade S820 platform. That's quite an achievement for a mid-ranger.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  180331
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  177326
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  174435
• OnePlus 3T
  165097
• Huawei P10
  126629
• Oppo R11
  118677
• Oppo F3 Plus
  91458
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  76186
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  61616
• Huawei P10 lite
  60895
• Sony Xperia XA1
  60707
• Oppo F3
  53008
• Meizu M5 Note
  47806

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  3601
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  3547
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  3376
• Huawei P10
  2910
• OnePlus 3T
  2678
• Oppo R11
  2386
• Oppo F3 Plus
  1890
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  1426
• Sony Xperia XA1
  1351
• Huawei P10 lite
  1284
• Oppo F3
  1085
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  1050

Oppo R11 and its Snapdragon 660 are easily leading the upper mid-range class in terms of performance. Qualcomm did a wonderful job with the 660 chip, while Oppo did the smart thing of adopting it first. This gives Oppo a big edge over the current crop of mid-rangers and makes the R11 an easy pick when performance is concerned.

The S660 is manufactured at the 14nm process and is quite energy-efficient. We can also appreciate how cool the R11 remains on the outside after going through various benchmarks for the better part of an hour.