Oppo R11 review: Selfie master

Oppo R11 hops on the dual-camera train

The Oppo R11 features a dual camera on the back; there is one 16MP IMX398 regular sensor with f/1.7 lens and a 20MP IMX376 sensor with f/2.6 telephoto lens. Those two are set up to provide 2x optical zoom with image processing handled by the Qualcomm Spectra ISP.

The camera interface has borrowed a lot from the iOS app. Most settings are on the left, while different modes can be selected on the right next to the shutter key. Strangely, the left-hand side also has a few additional modes that didn't find a spot in the right carousel.

Photo • Telephoto • Depth Effect • Filters • Manual mode

There are a few settings, including location tagging and guidelines, separated out in their own menu in the phone's settings. There is a total lack of any clear resolution control for stills. All you get is a choice of aspects, between the standard 4:3 one, 1:1 and 16:9. It's not clear which aspect ratio is native to the sensor, and how choosing any of the other affects the resolution of the images.

Expert mode is available for those seeking more manual controls. It comes with a handy horizon level and can change most settings on the primary camera (this mode doesn't work on the selfie cam). The shutter speed control lacks fine adjustment, good mostly for very low-light shooting - it starts at 1s and increments at full stops to a maximum of 16s. Manual focus adjustment is present as well.

Back to the sensors. Besides zoom, the dual camera offers Portrait mode where you can blur the background behind the subject. Even if you have to take your own photo, the R11 has a solid 20MP selfie camera on the front, which is also capable of similar simulated bokeh effect (or even better) thanks to the Qualcomm's powerful processing.

Here is the kicker though - you should forget about the resolution of the camera sensors. The R11 outputs 16MP regular stills, 16MP telephoto samples, and 8MP Portrait shots. We are not sure why the portrait shots in particular are downscaled in the post-processing; it might have something to do with processing speed, even though the chipset is plenty powerful.

Regular camera

The regular samples turned out great with lots of detail, excellent contrast, and lively colors. The dynamic range is quite high, too. There is little to no oversharpening and the only thing we can mention is the somewhat high noise levels in the sky.

Oppo R11 16MP camera samples

And here are a few more samples from Shenzhen, China.

Oppo R11 16MP regular camera samples

Telephoto camera

The telephoto camera does an excellent job at providing 2x optical zoom without any loss in quality. It is as good as the default one, though the samples are a bit sharper and this can probably be contributed to a stronger sharpening applied in the camera processing.

Oppo R11 16MP telephoto samples

And here are the telephoto samples corresponding to the regular ones we took during our trip to China.

Oppo R11 16MP telephoto samples

The telephoto camera is used only in good light conditions, just like the other dual-camera solutions by other manufacturers. If it's a low-light photo, the R11 will instead crop and upscale the image from the normal f/1.7 camera, which is better suited for low-light shooting thanks to the wider aperture.

Portrait mode

The portrait shots are taken at 8MP resolution, and the bokeh effect is as good as it can get. There are minor artifacts here and there, but those are definitely on par with what we've seen so far from other makers.

Oppo R11 8MP Portrait samples

Selfie camera

You can also take Portrait samples with the 20MP selfie camera. Surprisingly, here the bokeh effect sometimes turned out even better than what we got from the rear dual camera - especially when it came to the edge detection of hair, sunglasses, and clothes.

Bokeh, or not, the 20MP selfies are quite impressive with plenty of detail, high contrast, wide dynamic range, and lively colors. The R11 has one of the most powerful, skillful, and impressive selfie cameras around and should be on the list of any selfie fan.

Oppo R11 20MP selfie samples

Oppo R11 20MP selfie Portrait samples

Low-light

The f/1.7 lens is great for low-light shooting, and even though the Oppo R11 doesn't offer any kind of stabilization the night shots turned out great.

Oppo R11 16MP low-light regular photos

As we said, the telephoto camera is not used for low-light images, but the crop and upsize from the main camera works pretty well.

Oppo R11 16MP low-light "telephoto" samples

Slow-shutter shooting is available in manual (Pro mode) on both cameras. Using Pro mode we were able to force the use of the telephoto camera in low-light conditions. This turned out a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the differences between the light captured through the f/1.7 and the f/2.6 lens. Both samples below were shot at ISO 100 with 16 second shutter speed.

Oppo R11 16MP normal sample at 16s shutter • 16MP telephoto sample at 16s shutter speed

Panorama

Finally, the 180-degree panoramic images are flagship-worthy. They are about 2,500px tall and can continue for up to 25MP. The quality is on par with the still images with plenty of detail, excellent colors and contrast, and good sharpness.

Oppo R11 panoramic images

Picture Compare Tool

Finally you can head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the Oppo R11 handles the controlled environment of our studio. We've pre-selected the OnePlus 5 and Oppo R9s, but you can replace those with any other two phones you feel like.

Oppo R11 against the OnePlus 5 and the Oppo R9s in our Photo compare tool

You could also use our tool to compare the telephoto camera, if you like.

Video recording

The Oppo R11 is capable of capturing 4K, 1080p, and 720p videos at 30 fps. There is no optical stabilization available, nor there is a digital one. And unlike the OnePlus 5, Oppo has currently shared no plans of adding an EIS option later on.

The standard 2160p/30fps mode is encoded at about 42Mbps, on par with the flagship crop. Audio is recorded in stereo at 96Kbps - far from impressive.

The 4K videos turned out a bit softer than we'd have liked, but with enough detail and great contrast. The frame rate is steady, and we liked the color rendition. The dynamic range is among the things we liked, too.

We thought we can use the telephoto camera for video recording as the camera app still shows the 2x switch on the viewfinder. It turned out the R11 would just zoom digitally instead of switch to the telephoto camera and the video is far from inspiring.

The 1080p videos came out even softer than the 4K clips despite the 20Mbps high bitrate usually suggests the opposite. The resolved detail is mediocre, the dynamic range drops a notch, but the contrast and colors are similar to the higher resolution.

You can, of course, download untouched video samples, the way they came out of the Oppo R11 - 2160p at 30 fps (10s, 52MB) and 1080p at 30fps (9s, 24.5MB).

Finally, for some extra pixel peeping head over to our Video compare tool, where you can examine the Oppo R11's output against any phone we've tested before. We've pre-selected the OnePlus 5 and Oppo R9s, but you can of course pick your own set.

2160p: Oppo R11 against the OnePlus 5 and the Oppo R9s in our Video compare tool