OPPO F11 Pro First Impressions: Brings Pop up selfie camera and full-screen experience to masses

OPPO F11 Pro also boasts a 48MP + 5MP dual-lens rear camera, 6.5-inches FHD+ screen and runs on Android Pie.

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OPPO has added another smartphone to the company's Selfie centric 'F' series portfolio in the Indian market. The new smartphone- F11 Pro is priced at Rs. 24,990 and will be available on Flipkart, Amazon.in, Paytm, Snapdeal and OPPO stores from 15th March. OPPO F11 Pro boasts a 16MP Pop up selfie camera, a feature which makes the handset a direct rival of Vivo V15 Pro.

 
OPPO F11 Pro First Impressions

Vivo's mid-ranger V15 Pro also packs in an elevating front-facing shooter but the Megapixels count is exactly the double of what F11 Pro has to offer. OPPO's plan is to deliver the innovative elevating camera design to masses at the most affordable price-point. The strategy can work in the offline market where OPPO enjoys a strong presence.

OPPO F11 Pro also boasts a 48MP rear camera sensor, a feature which is gradually becoming a top trend in the smartphone industry and is going to be seen in a number of smartphones in the year 2019.

For the OPPO F11 Pro, the massive 48MP sensor is paired with a 5MP depth sensor which gives F11 Pro 2X optical zoom capabilities. The other three handsets that boast 48MP camera sensors are- Vivo V15 Pro, Honor View 20 and the recently launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro. The 48MP cameras on both F11 Pro and Redmi Note 7 Pro works on Sony IMX586 sensor.

How's the camera performance?
 

How's the camera performance?

I haven't got the chance to fully evaluate the camera hardware (front and back) on F11 Pro but I did manage to test its highlight feature- Ultra HD Night mode for a brief duration. The feature is touted to offer brilliant low-light portrait shots, which is achieved by F11 Pro's capable camera hardware and intelligent software. In theory, the phone's 'Tetracell technology' analyzes and combines the data acquired by four adjacent pixels to make it equivalent to a single pixel size of 1.6μm. This basically doubles the size of the photosensitive pixel and help shoot brighter and low-noise night portraits.

While this sounds really promising on papers, the results seemed pretty average in real-life during my initial testing. The pictures captured with Ultra Night mode enabled showed softer details and shift in color balance. The camera's software algorithm is pretty intense to kill the noise in low-light scenarios and thus softens the entire image. The sensor also struggled to capture the bright light coming out of light sources. The same shots captured on Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 (Night mode) showed better sharpness and control over light leaks from the originated sources.


Images captured with the 48MP sensor in daylight are very impressive. Even the 12MP shots are very detailed and vibrant. The 16MP selfie camera also does a very good job in capturing self-portraits. We will spend some more time with F11 Pro to test its camera to give you more clarity about the overall camera performance of the phone. Stay tuned for a camera comparison between OPPO F11 Pro, Redmi Note 7 Pro, and Vivo V15 Pro.

Design and Display

Design and Display

OPPO F11 Pro is quite a looker. The smartphone comes in two unique gradient color shades- Aurora Green (dual-tone shade) and Thunder Black (triple-color shade). Both the shades look appealing and are probably the best-looking gradient patterns in the market. The unibody construction of F11 Pro combined with a full-screen display with no notch of any kind gives F11 Pro a very seamless design. The handset feels quite premium and also sits comfortably in hands. A big 6.5-inches Full HD+ LCD screen without a notch takes up the entire front. The 19.5:9 aspect ratio screen offers a resolution of 2340 × 1080 pixels. Video playback and gameplay is very immersive but lacks a certain vibrancy in colors that can be experienced on AMOLED panels. Nevertheless, OPPO F11 Pro is still the best handset for multimedia playback in sub 25K price segment because of its seamless full-screen design.

Hardware- Hyperboost technology to maximize hardware utilization

Hardware- Hyperboost technology to maximize hardware utilization

OPPO F11 Pro is backed by MediaTek P70 octa-core CPU aided by 4GB RAM. The P70 is an efficient chipset for mid-range devices that offers lag-free performance during everyday tasks and while even pushing the phone to its limits. OPPO has also added its Hyperboost technology in F11 Pro to enhance the overall performance. The technology enables the phone to make the best use of available hardware resources for lag-free user experience. Ideally, the Hyperboost tech should maximize hardware utilization to offer better gaming performance, faster app loading, smoother animations and better memory management for a lag-free Smartphone experience. To what extent the technology improves the performance in real life is a thing to be tested in our comprehensive review of F11 Pro.

For the battery, OPPO F11 Pro uses a 4,000 mAh battery cell which should be enough to last one full day on a single charge even with heavy usage. The phone also supports VOOC 3.0 fast charging, which is essentially a slightly less effective version of the company's super impressive Super VOOC fast charge technology seen on R17 Pro. And as the VOOC technology works on microUSB port, OPPO F11 Pro skips the Type C charging port. The phone comes with a hybrid SIM card slot to offer support for one nano-SIM card and one microSD card or two nano SIM cards at a time.

 Software:  ColorOS 6.0 brings some good features

Software: ColorOS 6.0 brings some good features

OPPO's ColorOS is not the most preferred Android skin in the market and OPPO has worked hard to change the perspective. The F11 Pro runs on the new ColorOS 6 based on Android 9 Pie. The biggest change in the new skin is probably the inclusion of an App Drawer. The other visual changes can be seen in the form of a new Smart Assistant screen and notification panel. The entire UI now follows a more minimal and material UI format and it looks good.

Gamespace, Slider panel for app shortcuts and some new gestures have been added to further improve the overall software user experience of the phone. Overall, the new ColorOS by OPPO seems a step in the right direction. But it is too early to say how the software will perform in the long run when the device will be used as a daily driver. We will test this out to give you a better picture of the F11 Pro's software performance in the coming weeks.

 Verdict

Verdict

OPPO F11 Pro is a feature packed mid-range handset that can do really well in the offline space. The Pop up selfie camera, attractive design, full-screen display, and the massive 48MP sensor will certainly please masses in India.

OPPO F11 Pro works on MTK P70. The same CPU can also be seen on the recently launched Realme 3 budget smartphone. It is also worth mentioning that Xiaomi offers last year's flagship Snapdragon 845 CPU in sub 20K price point with its Poco F1 smartphone.

Having said that, if your sole purpose to buy a phone is based on chipset performance, clearly there are better options available in the market, but if you analyze other important factors like Full-Screen display, Fast charging, innovative pop up selfie camera and a big 48MP snapper, OPPO F11 Pro clearly steals the show in the sub 25K price segment. We will soon compare the F11 Pro's performance with Vivo V15 Pro which is the ideal competition for the two smartphones.

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