Oppo Reno 11 Pro review: Excellent for portrait shots but Singapore price is high

The Oppo Reno11 Pro is one handsome smartphone. A shiny metal frame combined with an interesting-looking white glass back will catch the eye easily.

Though priced under S$1,000, it looks like a flagship phone. Measuring just 7.99mm thick and weighing in at 181g, it is a gadget that scores high on first impressions.

The cameras on the Oppo Reno11 Pro are also tweaked for selfies and wefies, which means they are perfect for content creators as well.

A 32-megapixel front-facing wide-angle camera has enough resolution to allow users to crop and edit the photos to their heart’s content.

Thankfully, the camera’s beautification features are less aggressive than previous Oppo Reno smartphones. The image processor has done well to retain skin tones, something budget phones struggle to capture.

Using AI retouching algorithms that power its built-in editing tools, the phone also improves on images featuring eyes and lips.

Out on the back, the 50-megapixel 1/1.56-inch Sony sensor with a 24mm full-frame equivalent primary camera and the 32-megapixel, 1/2.74-inch 2x zoom sensor also help capture better portraits.

Using a 2x zoom has the benefit of “compressing” and making an image look more natural. It also helps a subject to stand out from the background more. The added effect produces a more natural-looking bokeh, better than an AI-generated background.

Unfortunately, videos are not a strong feature of the Reno 11 Pro as it can only capture 4K resolution at 30fps (frames per second) and not more. I’d recommend another camera for better-looking slow-motion capture at higher resolutions.

Here, the deal breaker for content creators is the lack of an ultra-wide angle option for video capture. I find myself going for other smartphones that can capture a much wider perspective during a video test.

Notably, the Reno 11 Pro uses a mid-range processor by Taiwan’s MediaTek. The Dimensity 8200 processor is not the fastest horse in the stable, but it is made from a modern 4-nanometre manufacturing process, so power consumption can be kept low.

An efficient chip is useful when the phone only has a modest 4,600mAh battery. It’s a good thing Oppo’s 80W fast charger is at hand to recharge the phone quickly in an emergency.

The Dimensity 8200 chip may not be that powerful, but it still churns out respectable results with a score of 6,272 using 3DMark’s Wildlife test and 12,667 on PCMark.

The new phone does not quite match the Oppo Find X5, which sports an old Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and has a 3DMark score of 8,128. However, the Reno 11 Pro does improve on the older phone’s PCMark score of 12,236.  

I will not be using the phone to edit 4K videos at high frame rates but it will be enough for simple imaging editing for Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Accessing my e-mails and browsing the Web should also not be an issue.

At least Oppo has paired the phone with 12GB of RAM for quick app swapping and 512GB of storage to keep your favourite photos and videos.

It is good that the Oppo Reno 11 Pro’s 6.7-inch FHD+ OLED screen is vibrant with 950 nits maximum brightness and can show 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 gamut for true-to-life colour representation.

This makes it easier to edit photos and videos accurately. Thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate and smoother motion on the screen, binge-watching my favourite Netflix shows does not cause much eye strain.

So, is the Reno 11 Pro worth buying? If you are a content creator who needs to shoot both photos and videos, it misses the mark a little for its limited video features and ultrawide angle lens.

To be sure, the Reno 11 Pro is a capable smartphone if you shoot portraits. Costing S$899, it packs in a good amount of features at a price that is easier for students, young adults and even retirees.

It’s not cheap like a budget- or mid-range phone costing under S$700, but part of the reason is the list price in Singapore, which seems higher than across the Causeway.

In Malaysia, the Reno 11 Pro is sold at MYR 2,499 (S$709), which could keep it just on the higher end of a mid-range phone and make it more attractive.

If Oppo could sell the phone at that lower price, it would be easier to recommend it as a mid-range phone that offers features close to what’s expected on much costlier flagship models.

UDPATE at 31/01/2024, 1:10pm: After this review was published, Oppo reached out to Techgoondu with an update. In a statement, its spokesman said: “In the case of the Singapore market, product pricing is influenced by a multitude of factors, such as after-sales services, local regulations, logistics, and more. These factors contribute to the overall cost structure and pricing decisions for products in this specific market. Additionally, the Singaporean market has exclusive benefits for the Reno11 Series that are not available in other Asia-Pacific countries, such as the three-year battery warranty.”

CORRECTION at 27/02/2024, 1:38pm: An earlier version of the article misstated the Oppo phone’s battery capacity. This has been corrected. We are sorry for the error.