OPPO’s Reno lineup was initially launched to bring a sharp focus on mobile photography in smartphones. It’s safe to say that OPPO has successfully done that over the years. So, where does that leave the Reno 11 and the Reno 11 Pro? Well, aside from iterative updates, we’re struggling to see where OPPO can push the bar further. That said, with the rapid improvements in camera technology, OPPO is trying to show us otherwise.
The Reno 11 series has to be one of the most streamlined Reno series in recent years. Even looking at the specifications on paper, we clearly see where OPPO is putting its focus. Is that going to be enough to set the Reno 11 Pro apart from its competitors? We’re taking a deep dive in our in-depth review of it.
Design
OPPO isn’t shying away from dolling up its smartphones. The OPPO Reno 11 Pro is no exception. The smartphone is kicking 2024 in gear when it comes to design. It’s pushing some boundaries when it comes to the price point. But, what’s more important is OPPO is making design choices that make sense while keeping things aesthetically pleasing. There’s three colours that are available for the Reno 11 series: Pearl White, Rock Grey and Wave Green. But since this is a Reno 11 Pro review – we’re focusing on the Pearl White and Rock Grey.
We got the Pearl White in for review. So, let’s start with that. The Pearl White comes with an iridescent finish that mimics the sheen of a mother of pearl. OPPO has also textured the finish with irregular swashes of white with a hint of white shimmer as well. The back is of the phone is finished with a matte finish. This has to be one of the best design choices on this phone as it prevents fingerprints from populating your smartphone. The overall design brings pizzazz to what can be one of the more drab colours when it comes to smartphones.
The Rock Grey is a more subtle design with a more subdued finish. It comes with a metallic grey colour which is reminiscent of the gunmetal grey we used to see. The deep hue of grey is brightened up with a touch of metallic shimmer. This gives it a deeper, more emotive finish. It comes with the same matte finish that is used in the Pearl White version.
Design isn’t just about the colours with the Reno 11 Pro. OPPO has even made the camera hump a little more interesting. The camera sensors of the Reno 11 Pro are housed in a slightly raised, metal pill. What’s more, unlike a lot of the newer camera configurations, the Reno 11 Pro comes with all of its sensors in a row. This is such a refreshing change, especially when you’re in front of the camera. You don’t have to worry about the exact position of the sensors as the arrangement makes it easy to focus in just one place. The camera hump also comes with a ridged finish around the perimeter. It’s a pretty nice touch of texture.
The smartphone comes with a dual-curved finish. Both the display on the front and the back of the phone melt seamlessly into the metallic frame of the smartphone. The frame also comes with some quirky finishes that give the phone a little bit of personality. The buttons bubble up the clean line of the metallic frame. On the bottom, you have four holes for your speaker, the USB-C port and the SIM tray.
Hardware
The OPPO Reno 11 Pro isn’t shying away from pushing the boundaries of what defines a mid-range. It marries capable processing and RAM. However, when you look at the specs of the Reno 11 Pro, it’s as clear as day that OPPO is focused on delivering a camera experience that is beyond normal.
Specifications – OPPO Reno 11 Pro (CPH2607)
| Processor | MediaTek Dimensity 8200 1×3.1GHz Cortex A78, 3×3.0GHz Cortex A78, 4×2.0GHz Cortex A55 |
| RAM | 12GB LPDDR5X |
| Memory | 512GB UFS 3.1 |
| Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) | Mali G610 MC6 |
| Display | OLED panel 6.7-inch (~435 ppi) 2412×1080 pixels FHD+ resolution 20:9 Aspect Ratio 120Hz Refresh rate HDR10+ 950 nits peak brightness |
| Operating System | Android 14 with ColorOS 14 |
| Battery | 4,600mAh SuperVOOC Charging (80W) |
| Connectivity | Dual SIM (nano SIM), Dual Standby 5G/4G LTE/HSPA/GSM Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6(ax) GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS A2DP Bluetooth 5.4, LE, aptX HD OTG Support USB 2.0 (Type-C) NFC InfraRed Blaster |
| Camera | REAR: Triple Sensor: 50-Megapixel (Wide) Sony IMX890 24mm, f/1.8, 1/1.56″ All Pixel Omni Directional Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) 32-megapixel (telephoto) Sony IMX709 47mm, f/2.0, 1/2.74” RGBW 5x optical zoom 8-Megapixel (Ultrawide) Sony IMX355 16mm, f/2.2, 112° FOV LED Flash HDR Panorama 4K Video recording (30fps) 1080p Video recording (30/60fps) 10-bit Video FRONT: 32-Megapixel (Ultrawide) Sony IMX709 21mm, f/2.4, 1/2.74” RGBW 4K (30fps) 1080p (30/60fps) Autofocus |
| Sensor | Accelerometer Proximity Sensor Fingerprint (Optical, under display) Gyroscope Compass |
| Miscellaneous | Dual SIM |
| Retail Price (Malaysia) | |
| Retail Price (EU) |
User Interface
The OPPO Reno 11 Pro runs on ColorOS 14 atop Android 14. This iteration of ColorOS comes with a bevvy of improvements. These come in the form of new features and improvements that come with Android 14 as well as new features that come exclusively with ColorOS 14.
ColorOS 14 builds on the Aquamorphic design of ColorOS 13. It’s not a complete overhaul of the UIs. However, OPPO has done quite a few tweaks that bring a whole new dimension to customizations and personalisation on ColorOS. They’ve improved on Android 14’s UI customizations with better colour fluidity – even when it comes to theming.
That said, ColorOS 14 still maintains its simplicity. In fact, ColorOS 14 on the Reno 11 Pro brings quite a few improvements when it comes to intuitiveness. Certain UI elements like pop-up notifications and even persistent notifications are easier to interact with. One of my personal favourite improvements is OPPO’s approach to folders. With ColorOS 14, you have the option to have conventional Android folders or expand them to display up to 4 interactable icons. This makes it possible to have your most used apps in these folders still accessible on the fly in one tap.
The improvements to ColorOS 14 bring a level of speed and fluidity to the UI that makes using the Reno 11 Pro really enjoyable. Stutters and lags are rare with these improvements. What’s more, OPPO’s approach to Android 14’s improvements not only makes sense to its users but also improves the overall experience without making it necessary to relearn features.
Performance
OPPO’s focus on bringing the best experience when it comes to camera performance hasn’t distracted the company from upping the ante with overall phone performance. The improvements to ColorOS’s fluidity help with overall performance but OPPO’s tweaks under the hood are what truly matter when it comes to performance. Of course, as always, we’re not focusing on benchmarks. Instead, we’re looking at the actual day-to-day experience.
Multitasking & Productivity
Of course, when multitasking always takes centre stage when we talk about performance. The reason behind this is simple – most of us are using our phones as extensions of our computers to keep productive on the go. With the OPPO Reno 11 Pro, you’re not going to be falling back when it comes to performance.
In fact, if anything, OPPO has made it easier to be productive without AI functionality – something that we’ll be seeing in releases this year in droves. Instead, OPPO’s approach is to bring features that allow you to get things done more intuitively. ColorOS 14 on the OPPO Reno 11 Pro brings one feature that enhances the functionality of the sidebar. In addition to pairing up apps, and having apps you can launch with a swipe and tap, the sidebar is now able to store documents. These documents can either be recent ones or ones you’ve dragged and dropped using the OPPO file explorer.
In addition to this, the Reno 11 Pro also introduces AI-enabled features that allows users to take and create notes more interactively. You can take screenshots and use AI to extract text or pictures in the screenshot without needing to save it to your phone. Extracting pictures or elements of a picture could not be easier with the Reno 11 Pro too.
Overall, the smartphone isn’t missing out on anything when it comes to multitasking. The performance-centred MediaTek Dimensity 8200 allows you to have multiple apps running in the background without much problems. Having things like YouTube running in the background or in split-screen while working on emails and note-taking is no problem. The only time the phone really struggled was when it came to video editing on apps like Adobe Rush and Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. This is also due to the intense processing that these apps need particularly when it comes to exporting videos. Aside from this, there was little to no hiccups when it came to productivity performance.
Call Quality & Connectivity
OPPO’s Reno 11 Pro is really pushing the bar when it comes to midrange smartphones. The experience when it comes to call quality is pretty good. When it comes to midrange smartphones, we’ve become accustomed to some concessions including a little bit of quality when it comes to call audio. However, the OPPO Reno 11 Pro’s call audio is crisp and warm. It didn’t sound metallic or hollow like other midrange and entry-level smartphones.
It also comes with flagship-level connectivity with Bluetooth 5.4 and Low Energy and support for WiFi 6. These connectivity options allow for faster WiFi speeds as well as support for features such as multi-device connectivity over Bluetooth. This is most apparent when you’re using cross-device features like Windows Phone Link or even OPPO’s multiscreen apps. These apps had quick, stable connections that allowed near-instantaneous interactions with the phone even from the laptop screen. OPPO’s LinkBoost technology is definitely on display when it comes to this. This technology even helps you get connected faster after exiting an elevator.
One of the most welcomed features of the Reno 11 Pro is the return of the IR Blaster. This feature allows you to control your TV, air-conditioner and other appliances straight from your phone. I found myself using this feature to control my room and office air conditioner from my smartphone. It was just a matter of convenience.
Gaming
Gaming is probably one of the only areas where the OPPO Reno 11 Pro was pushed to its limits. As always, we used a wide range of games to push the smartphone. This time around, we used games like Diablo Immortal, Pokemon UNITE, Asphalt 9 and PUBG Mobile. What we found was that the Reno 11 Pro does have some limitations when it comes to graphical processing.
This was most apparent when playing Diablo Immortal. Diablo Immortal tends to push smartphones to their limits when it comes to the number of events happening on the screen at any one time. You can be overrun by hordes of enemies in seconds and with all of them using attacks that cause some form of animation on screen, the smartphone’s GPU is usually maxed out. This was exactly what we saw on the Reno 11 Pro as we were being overrun by a horde of enemies. There were dropped frames, stuttering and even completely missing visual events. However, this was made more bearable by lowering the graphics settings. That said, it didn’t completely remove the stuttering.
Aside from this, the smartphone was able to perform commendably with the other games. Where it was struggling with graphical events in Diablo Immortal, the Reno 11 Pro was able to irk out when it came to Pokemon UNITE. Even when there were team battles in the arena, the Reno 11 Pro didn’t miss a beat. This could be due to the lower amount of graphical events happening overall in UNITE as compared to Immortal. Asphalt 9 and PUBG Mobile were no issue for this smartphone.
The smartphone does get a little warm after a few minutes of gaming. However, it doesn’t get warm to the point that you’re unable to use it or hold it. OPPO’s cooling system in the Reno 11 Pro is able to dissipate the heat pretty effectively. It also cooled down pretty quickly after a gaming session.
Battery Life
The OPPO Reno 11 Pro excels when it comes to battery life. It was a task getting this smartphone to drop even 1%. We were literally running YouTube at max volume while multitasking to drop the battery percentage a single percentage to get footage of SuperVOOC kicking in.
That said, it comes as no surprise that the OPPO Reno 11 Pro is able to irk out more than a day’s worth of battery on a single charge of its 4,600mAh battery. I was easily able to get about 12 hours of battery with my day-to-day usage. This includes syncing more than seven email accounts and running apps like Canary Mail, and Gmail, and also social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Even with continuous gaming, I was able to irk out at least 4 hours of battery life. This was even with games like Diablo Immortal.
Display
The display of the OPPO Reno 11 Pro is an FHD+ OLED panel. The 6.7-inch curved OLED display is commendable when it comes to display performance. It covers 100% DCI-P3 colour space with certifications for HDR10+ and 10-bit colour. This means that the display supports up to 1.07 billion hues and 950 nits peak brightness. It also has a dynamic refresh rate supporting up to a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s also got 93% coverage of the face of the smartphone.
This combination is a winning one when it comes to the Reno 11 Pro. It’s able to bring true-to-life colour when you’re watching videos and gaming. That said, the colour is more important when it comes to capturing photos. With the Reno 11 Pro, photos are nearly what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) from display to actual printing.
That said, OPPO’s concessions on display could be one of the few that would have given it a better edge over the competition. I’m excluding the camera setup when it comes to saying this cause, OPPO’s approach to it is on another level altogether. However, while it may be a concession, it doesn’t compromise the value of the overall package of the smartphone.
The smartphone’s display is, however, one of the better ones we’ve seen on a smartphone in its category. Its colour reproduction, bit depth and support for HDR10+ give it an edge when it comes to delivering a user experience that is not only commendable but could also be a benchmark.
Cameras
The OPPO Reno 11 Pro is a poignant statement with its camera setup. Not only is it proving that you don’t need large 100-megapixel and 200-megapixel to get killer pictures. The smartphone comes with a 50-megapixel main camera sensor with a 1/1.56” sensor size and an f/1.8 aperture. This is complemented by a 32-megapixel, 1/2.74” sensor size and an f/2.0 aperture and an 8-megapixel ultrawide sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and 112°field of view.
The setup delivers on OPPO’s promise of the Reno series being “The Portrait Expert” and then some. This is thanks to OPPO’s own AI algorithms that kick in with post-processing. OPPO calls this its “Portrait Expert Engine”. With the Reno 11 Pro, they’re kicking it into high gear with better subject and scene recognition, skin and facial feature protection, better clarity, stereoscopic light and shading and better background optimisation and fusion. What all this jargon means is that the smartphone is able to produce near DSLR quality pictures with deep bokeh and sharp subjects.
We tested the smartphone’s cameras in auto, pro and portrait modes. The resultant pictures were not only commendable, but it was also some of the best photos we’ve seen in a while from a smartphone camera. The photos were detailed, sharp and had colour depth. For lack of a better expression, the photos felt more alive. Deep contrasts and vivid colours help bring the resultant picture to life. Even in low-light conditions, the camera is able to perform commendably. However, pictures under lower light are less detailed and noticeably noisier particularly when it comes to human subjects.
When it comes to the front camera, it’s more of the same. Under good lighting, the pictures turn out detailed and lively. However, in low light, the photos leave some space for improvement. This doesn’t make it any less of a performer when it comes to the camera. In fact, it’s probably one of the better front-facing cameras available on the market right now.
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That said, the camera’s performance on video is better than most. It’s able to shoot in 4K 30fps on both the front and back cameras. This is one of the few that can do it without being drained or heating up much. The resultant videos are clear, crisp and detailed. Audio recording can be a little noisy but it’s not unexpected.
The one issue that may crop up for more seasoned photographers with the Reno 11 Pro is the fact that the white balance on each of its sensors is different. The main sensor is very natural. However, when you jump to the ultrawide or telephoto sensors you get either a blue or green tinge that translates into the photos unless you compensate for it. It’s more obvious in videos. However, we don’t see this becoming a make-or-break situation for most users.
OPPO’s Portrait Expert Experience Refined While Striking a Balance Between Performance, Photography and Value for Money
The OPPO Reno 11 Pro is OPPO’s best foot forward when it comes to smartphone cameras within the RM1,500 to RM2,500 price range. While the company has made tweaks to its formula, it still delivers one of the best camera experiences in the price range. If they achieve nothing else, they are setting themselves apart from the competition with features that make their smartphone a real contender for a smartphone that is camera first. OPPO’s Reno 11 Pro not only ups the ante when it comes to photography, it’s setting a standard when it comes to midrange devices.
