The R11 is OPPO's iPhone 7 Plus

OPPO's latest smartphone - the R11 - is set to bring the iPhone 7 Plus' dual camera tricks to a more affordable price-point. 

Announced today in China, the R11 is OPPO's first smartphone to ship with a dual rear-facing camera configuration, and the functionality is very similar to what you'd get on Apple's latest and greatest.

Using two sensors on the back - a 20MP primary camera, and 16MP secondary camera - the R11 is able to simulate up to two times zoom by swapping between lenses. As with the iPhone 7 Plus, there's also a dedicated portrait mode which uses the two cameras to get a better sense of depth. This is then used to create DSLR-like bokeh - the soft of-out-focus areas in the background of an image.

While the R11 is OPPO's first smartphone with two rear-facing cameras, it showed off a prototype at Mobile World Congress earlier this year with 5x zoom capabilities. This technology is different to the camera found in the R11, which uses a more conventional dual lens array for 2x magnification, rather than a periscope configuration.

As with past OPPO phones, the R11 touts an iPhone-like design, but with a couple of OPPO twists. The R11's body is noticeably curvier and lighter on bezel, which makes the phone feel much smaller in the hand when compared to the iPhone 7 Plus. Both phones have 5.5-inch screens. 

Notably, the OPPO R11 will be one of the first smartphones to make use of Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 660 chipset. The 660 is Qualcomm's current top-end midrange processor, promising a 20% increase in CPU performance and a 75% increase in graphics compared to last year. While the beefier graphics processor means that smartphones powered by a 660 can use Quad HD displays, OPPO has held firm at 1080p for the R11's 5.5-inch panel.

The Snapdragon 660 is the first midrange Qualcomm chipset to make include the Spectra 160 Image Signal Processor, a technology that had been previously reserved for higher-end devices. Qualcomm says this should result in more natural skin tones, improved lowlight photography, and better power efficiency for smartphones with two rear-cameras.

Other key specifications for the OPPO R11 include a front-facing fingerprint reader, 64GB of expandable storage, 4GB of RAM, a 20MP selfie camera, and a 2,900mAh battery.

The R11 runs a new version of ColorOS - OPPO's customised take on Android - based on Nougat (7.1.1). ColorOS still takes on an Apple-like aesthetic, but OPPO has flattened out its design element, given the software a cleaner look and feel. It still looks more iOS than Android, but it's a little more in line with Android's out of the box visual style.

The OPPO R11 will be available in three colours, rose gold, gold, and black. It goes on sale in China this week, but Australian pricing and availability has yet to be confirmed. A local OPPO spokesperson did however say the R11 is expected to go on sale before the end of July. OPPO's previous R-series phone, the R9s, launched locally for $598.

WhistleOut travelled to Shenzhen as a guest of OPPO Australia

Alex Choros

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Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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