OPPO F11 Pro Hands-on Review: Great Value for Money

Introduction

A few weeks back, OPPO launched the OPPO F11 Pro, first mobile device in Nigeria which kicked off their journey in Africa’s largest Mobile Market. The Chinese company which is part of the conglomerate BBK Electronics and sister of OnePlus, Vivo, and Realme is developing most of its devices (if not all) with a keen focus on photography (cameras).

Thus, in the OPPO F11 Pro, the Chinese brand combines technology, design and photography, with a sensor that reaches 48MP and another 5MP, to which the retractable 16MP camera for selfies is added. Also, note it has 6 GB of RAM and 4,000 mAh battery which is an interesting feature for a mid-range device. Before proceeding with the review, let’s check out what we can find in the phone’s box and share key specs of the device.

Unboxing of OPPO F11 Pro

What’s inside the OPPO F11 Pro box?

The OPPO Pro’s box is majorly white with a photo of the device, OPPO logo at the top with the phone’s name and a small gold sticker indicating its 6GB|128GB variant.

Upon opening the box, you’ll immediately see a flat box with the word “OPPO”.  Inside this are the SIM ejector pin and quick guide.

Underneath that is the OPPO F11 Pro smartphone itself. I got the Aurora Green colour variant while the other colour is Thunder Black. The other items found are the 3.5 mm audio headset, Micro USB cord and 2-pin wall power adapter.

Oppo F11 Pro Specs

Here are the specs of our review unit:

• 6.5-inch FHD+ LTPS Display (1080 x 2340 Pixels), 397 PPI
• Android 9.0 Pie Operating System with Color OS 6.0
• MediaTek Helio P70 Chipset
• 6 GB of RAM
• Dual Cameras (48+5 MP) with LED Flash
• 16 Megapixel Front Camera
• Dual SIM
• 128GB Internal Storage
• Expandable Up to 512 via microSD
• 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, 2G EDGE & GPRS Networks
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac (Dual Band)
• Bluetooth 4.2
• MicroUSB 2.0
• 3.5mm Audio Jack
• Fingerprint Sensor
• 4000mAh Battery
• VOOC Flash Charge 3.0
• Colour – Aurora Green & Thunder Black

Design and Build

We were given Aurora green variant of the device to review. OPPO F11 Pro is a smartphone that is not exactly compact.  its thickness of 8.8millimeters and its weight of about 190grams with 4000mAh battery which made it a little bit heavy and not always easy to use with one hand. Interestingly, you set the device to easily operated with one hand which we will talk about in the software section of this review. The build quality of the OPPO F11 Pro is excellent; more than what we found on flagship devices sold at double the price. The back of the phone has a glossy finishing which stores fingerprint and the edges are matte-finish. Dual rear camera with LED flash in the backside, a fingerprint sensor is just below it, followed by “Designed by OPPO”, and Oppo logo is written below it. The camera section has a very small protrusion to protect the glass of the cameras when you place the smartphone on a surface. It’s sad that the motorised camera, beautiful in every aspect, does not allow the smartphone to be waterproof.

On the right side of the phone, there is a red-themed power button. Right above it is a hybrid SIM tray, which can install microSD card with two sim or a sim. The volume in the left side of the phone is given. ion near it. Fixed 3.5mm headphone jack, micro USB port, mic and speaker on the bottom side.
On top of the phone, a rising pop-up camera is given. It has a secondary mic for noise cancellation

 OPPO F11 Pro Display

The smartphone comes with a huge 6.5-inch TFT-LTPS + 10 fingers multitouch capacitive screen. Which supports 2340×1080 pixels resolution. Its pixel density is 397 PPI. The brightness is excellent, as are the viewing angles and the definition of the image. It supports 18: 9 display ratios, but not interrupted by any notches or no holes. Its screen area is 90.99 per cent. This was possible by hiding the earpiece on the edge, inserting the front camera in a retractable mechanism and moving the sensor to the top of the device. The smartphone is completely bezel-less. The smartphone offers an excellent protective film pre-installed on the display.

Recommended Read: OPPO A9 2020 Hands-on Review: Where Beauty & Performance Marry

Software and Performance of OPPO F11 Pro

The OPPO smartphone is marketed in Nigeria with Android 9.0 OS and April security patch at the time of review. The entire smartphone is customized with the latest OPPO’s ColorOS 6.0 interface.  The device is very fast and among the most interesting features we find the gaming mode (called game space), the phone security manager, a driving mode (which reduces distractions), Google Assistant on pressing the power button, the navigation tools and sidebar that will always give you access to quick commands/apps.

The ColorOS software comes with a standard mode where all apps are displayed on the home screen and a drawer mode where all apps are displayed in drawers. Among the features, we find the one-hand mode (which can be activated from the notifications menu), a side menu to open overlay some messaging apps and also clone some apps.

The fingerprint sensor is very responsive. Also, you can set up face unlock in addition to fingerprint security. The face recognition is super fast despite the fact that the camera has to pop up out and go back in.

The Notification shade of the device is beautiful with some necessary shortcut like One-Handed Mode, Kid Space, Assistance Ball, etc.

Game Space is a great addition because It prevents everywhere possible distraction you might encounter while engrossed in the game. There are different performance modes and an option for you to set the brightness of some games.

Other Apps like Gallery, Music player, Video player, File Manager and FM radio app are preinstalled on the device.

Performance Test Results (PCMark & Antutu Benchmark)

Hardware

The OPPO F11 Pro is a cool mid-range smartphone with MediaTek Helia P70 Octa-Core 2.1GHz processor. For better gaming experience it has ARM Mali G-72 and 6GB RAM. The internal memory of the phone is 128GB and users can increase the phone memory by up to 256GB with the help of micro SD card.

The phone has 4G VOLTE, 4G, 3G network support.  I tested some Nigeria network provider on OPPO F11 Pro and it works fine with GLO 4G, MTN 4G, Airtel 4G, and Etisalat 4G. Ntel worked for a few minutes but it wasn’t stable.

Dual SIM support is present (2 nano sim or 1 sim and MicroSD), while the notification led is absent. The sound quality of the mono speaker positioned at the bottom of the smartphone is superb and loud.

Factors such as fingerprint scanners and face unlocking are provided for security. Too bad for the absence of NFC chips.

Recommended Read: Review: OPPO Reno2 vs OPPO Reno2 F: Is It worth the Extra Bucks?

OPPO F11 Pro Camera

OPPO F11 Pro is equipped with a dual camera. The main one is a 48 megapixel (f / 1.8 aperture) that takes 12-megapixel images by interpolating four pixels into one to collect more data. The second camera is a 5 megapixel (f / 2.4 aperture) that is exploited for the blurring of the contours and actually the help provided is valid given the quality of the photo with bokeh effect. The camera has an AI scene recognition feature that recognizes a scene like  Food, snow, pets (dogs and cats), sunsets, grass, among other scenes and tweaks all settings to suit the scene.

The quality of the photos with good light is remarkable and the HDR (which can also be activated automatically) does its job well. The colour balance is good and you will not find yourself in front of images that are too “false”. Interesting the possibility of activating a “dazzling mode” that essentially makes the image more “charged” with colours and more striking, but less realistic.  However, the effect is not too exaggerated and it is always pleasant to have this type of control. Among the other modes, we find the (expert)manual one, the slow motion and the timelapse. The photos in the dark are discreet, but not perfect: the night mode, however, helps.

The front camera comes with 16 megapixel (f / 2.0 aperture)which is very clear. The photos have good detail and the focus is good. When the selfie option is selected the front camera pops out fast. Sadly, this might be a problem in the future because it might get to a situation whereby the retracted camera becomes unresponsive when called upon. This can be as a result of dust or dirty affecting the mechanism. Take care to clean it often with a cloth.

Videos cannot be recorded up to 4K resolution but the full HD video really has good quality.

Battery

The battery of this OPPO F11 Pro is “only” a 4000 mAh. In fact, you might think that there aren’t that many for a big, heavy smartphone like this. In fact, the choice was probably made because of the space occupied by the motorized camera, but don’t panic. In addition, we have full support for SuperVOOC super-fast charging that guarantees you to charge 40% of your smartphone in just 10 minutes. Fantastic. Quick refill is missing.

OPPO F11 Pro Price in Nigeria

OPPO F11 Pro has a mid-range price with top-notch ideas: N149,000 on Jumia (Avengers Design) and N139,000 on Slot (Aurora Green). This is a price that is aligned and correct for the product, even if it places it in a band that has always been very difficult and full of competitors. This phone is officially sold on Jumia, Slot and Pointek.

Click the links below to buy from Jumia:

Buy OPPO F11 Pro – Aurora Green

Buy OPPO F11 Pro –  Marvel’s Avenger Limited Edition

[one_half]PROS

• Cheapest all-screen phone with pop-up camera
• Premium Design
• Full-screen bezel-less screen with great contrast
• Excellent  Camera quality
• 20W VOOC Fast charger
• Long Battery life & fast charging

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CONS

• Uses IPS LCD Instead of Amoled
• Plastic back cover
• No NFC
• Micro USB port
• No 4k Video recording

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