OnePlus 11R 5G First Impressions: New 'Value' Flagship

The OnePlus 11R 5G is the new “value flagship” from OnePlus, succeeding the OnePlus 10R 5G (Review) with a better design and better specs, and without a big jump in pricing. The 11R 5G price is Rs. 39,999 for the variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and Rs. 44,999 for the variant with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It does not go on sale till February 28 but we managed to get a brief hands-on with the OnePlus 11R 5G at the company's Cloud 11 launch event in New Delhi.

The OnePlus 11R 5G looks quite similar to the OnePlus 11 5G, and although it weighs only slightly less, it somehow feels significantly lighter. There are no visible antenna bands along the glossy frame which hints at the possibility that this is made of plastic. However, I'm happy that OnePlus has kept the Alert slider on this model, and despite being less expensive than the 11 5G, the display still has curved edges on either side.

Speaking of which, the OnePlus 11R 5G has a 6.74-inch AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 1240 x 2772 pixel resolution. The display supports HDR10+ video playback, but not Dolby Vision like you get with the 11 5G. One of the highlights of the OnePlus 11R 5G is its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, which makes it one of the most affordable smartphones in India based on this SoC. You should expect very good gaming performance from this phone, which we'll be putting to the test in our full review.

The OnePlus 11R 5G has a curved-edge AMOLED display

The OnePlus 11R 5G also borrows a few features from the flagship OnePlus 11 5G such as the same 100W fast charging capability and 5,000mAh battery capacity. The OnePlus 10R and OnePus 10T did offer 150W charging, but this isn't slow either by any means. The main camera, which has a 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 sensor along with optical stabilisation (OIS), is also common between these models. The OnePlus more affordable 11R 5G also an 8-megapixels ultra-wide and a modest 2-megapixel macro camera.

It's hard to gauge the real-world performance of any smartphone after using it for just a few minutes, but going just by the fluidity of OxygenOS 13 and the specs, this could be a very good gaming smartphone in its segment in India. One interesting feature that I was surprised to see was an infrared (IR) emitter on the top of the 11R 5G for controlling IR devices such as televisions and ACs. An IR Remote app comes with the phone too.

We'll be bringing you more coverage of the OnePlus 11R 5G once we get our review unit. Till then, don't forget to check out all our reviews of the OnePlus 11 5G (Review) and the OnePlus Buds Pro 2 (Review).

Disclosure: OnePlus sponsored flights and hotel stay in New Delhi for its event.