OPPO Reno11 F review: Reasonable performance, appealing design

OPPO Reno11 F review: Reasonable performance, appealing design
Rating

The smartphone experience on the OPPO Reno11 F

Apart from delivering enough performance for everyday use, the OPPO Reno11 F smartphone also sports a fancy design that you might enjoy. However, if you worry about accidentally dropping your phone, you may want to get a protective case and a screen protector thicker than the one that’s pre-applied. This is particularly important because the screen is protected by Panda glass, which is durable but not as tough as Gorilla Glass. But under all that glass, is one of the highlights of the OPPO Reno11 F: the large 6.7” screen, which is bright enough to see even outdoors on a sunny day. Furthermore, the high 120 Hz refresh rate makes every interaction with the display feel smooth and fluent.

The OPPO Reno11 F has a beautiful screen

The OPPO Reno11 F has a beautiful screen

On a usability note, I must say that holding and interacting with the phone with one hand was comfortable for me, though its large size might not be ideal for those with small hands or short fingers.

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The OPPO Reno11 F also does a good job in its primary role of being a phone. 🙂 I had no audio quality or signal reception issues while making calls. Plus, everyone I spoke with sounded clear, and they had no trouble hearing me either.

Phone call quality is good

Phone call quality is good

The OPPO Reno11 F performs well in everyday use (browsing, watching videos, listening to music) as well as in casual games. However, in more demanding games like Genshin Impact, you will have to make do with low visual quality and should expect occasional lags and stuttering.

The OPPO Reno11 F is not a phone for gamers

The OPPO Reno11 F is not a phone for gamers

There’s only one loudspeaker on the OPPO Reno11 F smartphone, and its quality is unimpressive. The volume gets relatively high, but the sound frequencies aren’t balanced well, with almost nonexistent lows (bass), poorly represented mids, and too much treble (high frequencies).

There's just one loudspeaker on the phone

There's just one loudspeaker on the phone

Having failed me only a couple of times, the fingerprint reader on the OPPO Reno11 F seems to be quite reliable, and the face recognition works well too.

The optical fingerprint sensor is reliable

The optical fingerprint sensor is reliable

In terms of energy efficiency, the OPPO Reno11 F is fantastic! I could use the phone for two days straight before needing to recharge. Plus, the 67W fast charging is impressive: it took me around 20 minutes to get the battery to 50% and 45 minutes to go all the way to 100%.

Fast charging to 100% takes 45 minutes

Fast charging to 100% takes 45 minutes

In daily use, the OPPO Reno11 F manages to deliver good performance. It also offers a beautiful display, long battery life, and fast charging. Nonetheless, it also has some drawbacks: audio quality is lacking, and you should not expect top performance when playing demanding games at high settings or framerates.

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The camera experience on the OPPO Reno11 F

The OPPO Reno11 F features a 32-megapixel selfie camera on the front and a triple-camera setup on the rear. The rear cameras consist of a 64 MP main camera, an 8 MP ultrawide camera, and a 2 MP macro camera. None of these cameras have optical image stabilization (OIS), and only the main sensor offers autofocus, while the others have fixed focus. As for the Camera app, the one on the OPPO Reno11 F offers a straightforward and intuitive interface. The various modes available are easily accessible by swiping the screen or tapping their names on the side of the viewfinder. Controls for the flash, timer, aspect, resolution, and so on are on the viewfinder’s opposite side.

The Camera app on the OPPO Reno11 F

The Camera app on the OPPO Reno11 F

The main camera found on the OPPO Reno11 F performs very well when capturing daylight photos. The results are sharp, well-exposed images with lots of detail, minimal noise, vibrant colors, and excellent dynamic range.

The main camera is excellent in daylight

The main camera is excellent in daylight

Despite its fixed focus, the selfie camera on the OPPO Reno11 F delivers impressive results also, capturing high-quality portraits with accurate skin tones, textures, and colors. Plus, the subject separation is also done properly, keeping the subject in focus.

Selfies are nicely captured

Selfies are nicely captured

Both the main and selfie cameras of the OPPO Reno11 F maintain decent performance in low-light conditions or at night. While some details may be lost, noise levels remain acceptable, and overall exposure is OK, especially when enabling night mode.

Night photos shot with the main camera are good

Night photos shot with the main camera are good

Having said all that, the ultrawide and the macro cameras are disappointing regardless of the lighting conditions, be it daylight or night. The quality of the photos shot with the ultrawide camera is below average for a mid-range Android smartphone, and the macro camera has such a low-resolution sensor that you might as well skip using it.

The macro camera is weak

The macro camera is weak

For more examples, check this gallery. It includes photos I shot in various lighting conditions using all the cameras on the smartphone, and they’re resized like the ones I’ve shown you until now.

Check out my album with pictures taken with OPPO Reno11 F

Check out my album with pictures taken with OPPO Reno11 F

When it comes to video quality, the OPPO Reno11 F falls short. The lack of optical image stabilization is even more visible here than when shooting photos. Furthermore, while the clips recorded with the main and selfie lens are OK in terms of brightness levels, contrast, and colors, the videos you get from the ultrawide camera are quite poor in all aspects, especially focus.

To get a better idea of what to expect, here’s a recording I shot with the main camera in 4K resolution and 30 frames per second:

And here’s a sample video with more movement involved, which I recorded in 1080p at 60 fps:

The OPPO Reno11 F is a smartphone that offers good main and selfie cameras. However, both its ultrawide and macro cameras leave much to be desired.

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Android 14, ColorOS 14.0, and bundled apps

The Reno11 F comes with OPPO’s ColorOS 14, a user interface built on top of Android 14. According to the company's policy, the smartphone should receive three major OS updates and four years of security patches. In terms of usability and looks, ColorOS doesn’t stray far from stock Android, but it does offer additional customization options (themes, wallpapers, fonts, etc.) as well as some tools and features designed to improve your experience. For instance, you get an assistant for quickly accessing frequent apps, contacts, and functions, as well as a game space that can increase performance while playing games.

The OPPO Reno11F comes with Android 14 and ColorOS 14.0

The OPPO Reno11F comes with Android 14 and ColorOS 14.0

Even though the user interface looks neat, the same can’t be said for the pre-installed apps. Besides the standard Google apps on any Android, you also get a lot of bloatware on this smartphone:

  • Amazon Shopping: the world’s biggest online store.
  • Animal Race-Flying Zoo: a racing game where you transform into animals like deer, fish, and birds, each with special abilities.
  • App Market: an alternative to Google’s Play Store.
  • Block Blast!: a puzzle game where you match and clear colored blocks.
  • Booking: useful for planning trips and accommodations on Booking.com.
  • Bridge Build Guys: a game about building bridges across terrains and obstacles.
  • Bubble Pop! - Shooter Puzzle: a bubble shooter game with puzzles and colorful bubbles.
  • Calculator: a friend when you have problems with math. 🙂
  • Candy Crush Saga: the popular puzzle game from King where you have to match candies.
  • Clock: tells you the time and allows you to set alarms.
  • Clone Phone: helps you transfer data from your old phone to your new Reno11 F.
  • Coffee Run 3D: a game about brewing and selling coffee.
  • Compass: an app for when you no longer know where you’re heading.
  • Facebook: the app of the well-known social network used mainly by millennials like myself.
  • Falling Sand Ball - Dig The Sand: a game where you control a ball’s descent.
  • Fruit Shooting - Ninja Knife: surprisingly, a game where you slice fruits. 🙂
  • Games: a central place to manage your games and optimize your phone for gaming.
  • Internet: a browser with a simple interface.
  • Joom: an online shop with all kinds of products, including clothing, electronics, and household items.
  • LinkedIn: the app of the popular social network focused on jobs and skills.
  • Music: a simple media player for playing songs.
  • My Files: handy for browsing and organizing files and folders on your smartphone.
  • Netflix: allows you to watch movies and TV shows streamed by the Netflix service.
  • Notes: useful for taking simple notes and for creating to-do lists.
  • O relax: plays ambient sounds and calming music for relaxation and better sleep.
  • Phone Manager: lets you monitor your smartphone’s health and make optimizations.
  • Photos: OPPO’s default picture gallery app; it has the same name as Google’s Photos, causing confusion.
  • Recorder: handy if you need to record audio using your phone's microphones.
  • Screen Lock: all it does is lock your phone.
  • Solitaire: the classic card game made for passing the time and building patience. 🙂
  • Spotify: the media player app for the Spotify music streaming service.
  • Temu: an online shop where you can buy clothes, home decor, handmade crafts, beauty products, clothing, shoes, electronics, and almost anything else you may think of.
  • Theme Store: an app where you can download and install themes, wallpapers, and fonts to make your phone prettier.
  • TikTok: where you lose track of time scrolling through endless content…
  • Tile Match: a game where you have to tap matching tiles to clear them and advance levels.
  • Triple Tile: another game about tile-matching.
  • Videos: a simple app for playing videos stored on your device.
  • Weather24: an app that gives you live weather tracking, including a rain radar and forecasts.
  • Weather: another weather app. Why do we need two apps?
  • Woodoku: a combination of a wood block puzzle and a sudoku grid.
  • Worm.io - Eat em All: a game where you start as a small worm, eat and grow by consuming food and sweets, and then battle other snakes.
  • WoW: Words of Wonders!: a crossword puzzle game to enhance your vocabulary.
  • WPS Office: an app for handling PDF, Word, Sheet, and PowerPoint files. While some features are free, others require a subscription.
  • Zen Space: can help you focus and reduce distractions. Its Deep Zen mode permits only essential calls, while Light Zen mode grants access to selected apps.

I like OPPO’s clean and customizable ColorOS 14 user interface, but I’m disappointed by the excessive bloatware on the Reno11 F smartphone.

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Performance in benchmarks

Now that you’re familiar with the OPPO Reno11 F smartphone’s design, specifications, camera quality, software, and overall user experience, let's check its performance objectively using benchmarks. Additionally, I’ll also show you how it stacks up against other similarly specced Android phones in the same price range: Samsung Galaxy A35, realme 11 Pro, and OPPO Reno10. However, please note that not all charts below include results for all the devices, as some encountered errors during testing, and for others, I didn't run all the tests I’m currently using when initially reviewing them.

I began benchmarking the OPPO Reno11 F with Geekbench. In the tests offered by this app, the smartphone got a Single-Core score of 893 points and a Multi-Core score of 2296 points. The GPU Compute scores were 2383 for OpenCL and 2369 for Vulkan. These results are close to those of Reno10 and the realme 11 Pro+ but are significantly lower than the ones I got on the Samsung Galaxy A35.

Benchmark results in Geekbench 6

Benchmark results in Geekbench 6

Geekbench ML is a benchmark tool for assessing smartphones’ performance in machine learning tasks. Depending on factors like app development and OS optimization, AI tasks can be delegated to the CPU, GPU, or NPU (neural processing unit) if available. In the chart below, you can see that the OPPO Reno11 F had lower scores than the Samsung Galaxy A35. I don’t have numbers for the other two phones because I didn’t run this test when I had them for review,, but it’s pretty clear anyway that the Reno11 F isn’t a device on which you should expect good performance in apps that use AI. Moreover, the NPU test didn’t yield any results either, always ending with the Geekbench ML app exiting unexpectedly.

Benchmarks results in Geekbench ML

Benchmarks results in Geekbench ML

The next app I used for benchmarking the OPPO Reno11 F was 3DMark. In the Wild Life test, the smartphone scored 2288 points, while in Sling Shot, it got 5103 points. These scores aren’t impressive and are notably lower than those of the Samsung Galaxy A35, but they align with the results of the OPPO Reno11 and realme 11 Pro+. While this means you can play casual games on the Reno11 F, you will have to use low graphics quality in more demanding ones.

Benchmark results in 3DMark

Benchmark results in 3DMark

Next, I evaluated the smartphone’s daily performance in realistic scenarios using PCMark for Android. The OPPO Reno11 F scored a decent 8694 points in the Work 3.0 performance test. While this result tells us that the device is powerful enough to offer a good experience in everyday use, it also tells us that for a similar price, you can get more from a smartphone such as the Samsung Galaxy A35, the realme 11 Pro+, or even OPPO’s last year Reno10.

Benchmark results in PCMark

Benchmark results in PCMark

Next, I assessed the wireless capabilities of the OPPO Reno11 F. Connected to my 1 Gbps Wi-Fi 6 network, Ookla’s Speedtest app revealed impressive speeds: 637 Mbps download and 592 Mbps upload. These results demonstrate the smartphone’s ability to stream 4K resolution videos and movies without any lags caused by content buffering.

Internet speed on a 1Gbps Wi-Fi 6 network

Internet speed on a 1Gbps Wi-Fi 6 network

Finally, I also ran PCMark’s Work 3.0 battery life test to evaluate the endurance of the OPPO Reno11 F. With the screen brightness set to 50 percent, the phone impressively lasted almost 18 hours! This far exceeds my expectations, highlighting the fact that the Reno11 F’s energy efficiency is exceptional! Unless you’re playing games or watching videos non-stop, you can expect it to run for two days on a single charge.

Battery life benchmark results in PCMark

Battery life benchmark results in PCMark

While the OPPO Reno11 F offers decent performance for everyday tasks, including work-related apps and casual gaming, its best feature is the outstanding battery life! However, this phone isn’t a good choice for intense mobile gaming, and there are alternatives out there with better performance at a similar price.

What’s your opinion about the OPPO Reno11 F?

I trust this review has shed some light on what you can expect from the OPPO Reno11 F both in terms of design, features, and performance. Are you considering purchasing it? Let me know in the comments below. And if you’re interested in more reviews like this, subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates.

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