Oneplus 11 5G

Star of the big screen

The latest phone from Chinese firm Oneplus offers an amazing level of performance and value, as long as you’re willing to accept a few trade-offs. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the processor that first appeared in the Redmagic 8 Pro we reviewed in Issue 652. It’s also present in the latest Samsung Galaxy S23 models.

In our benchmark tests it proved smooth and fast. Games are the biggest challenge for any mobile processor, but on this device everything we threw at it ran without problems – having more impressive graphics than even the iphone 14.

The best thing about this phone is probably the price. It costs £729 for 8GB RAM/128GB storage, or £799 for the 16GB/256GB version. That may still sound expensive, but Oneplus intends this to rival the iphone 14 (£794 with a smaller screen) and the Samsung Galaxy S23 (£849, also with a smaller screen).

In fact, its screen is significantly larger than its rivals, measuring 6.7in across the diagonal, rather than 6.1in. Sometimes phones with larger screens skimp on resolution, but that isn’t the case here. Its resolution of 3216x1440 pixels provides a pixel density of 525 pixels per inch (ppi) – comfortably

SPECIFICATIONS

Eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor • 8GB or 16GB RAM • 128GB or 256GB storage • 6.7in 120Hz 3216x1440-pixel AMOLED screen • 50-megapixel rear camera • 48-megapixel wide camera • 32-megapixel telephoto camera • Wi-fi 6E • Bluetooth 5.3 • Oxygenos 13 based on Android 13 • 163x74x8.53mm • 205g • One-year warranty www.snipca.com/45226 beating the iphone 14’s 460ppi. It’s not the brightest screen available, but it makes up for that with strong contrast and vibrant colours.

Although the overall design is fine, it isn’t as refined as its rivals. For starters, it’s splash resistant, but you can’t immerse it in water, so if you drop it in the bath or a swimming pool it’s unlikely to survive. Also, as you hold the phone in your hands, you can feel its edges and seams, while the bezel around the screen is slightly thicker than we’d like.

The size of this phone means there’s room for a larger battery, which is rated at 5,000mah. However, there’s a bigger screen to light up and higher performance levels to fuel. We found it lasted all day, but only in basic use – it won’t survive the day if you’re playing a lot of games with the settings turned up. On the plus side, it can charge back to 45 per cent within 10 minutes, and achieve a full charge in around 25 minutes.

Competing with high-end rivals, it skimps on design in favour of performance

VERDICT A high-resolution screen and modern processor, at a price designed to lure you away from Samsung and Apple’s latest models

★★★★★ ALTERNATIVE

Redmagic 8 Pro Matte £579 An even cheaper model with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon processor, but while it has an even larger screen, its resolution is much lower