OnePlus 11 5G launches in the US and Canada and what that means for Australia

One of OPPO’s sub-brands, OnePlus has today launched their 2023 flagship smartphone into the US and Canada in what could be considered a foreshadowing of details for the upcoming OPPO Find X6 Pro.

OnePlus has a reputation not only for releasing phones with some of the best hardware available but for releasing smartphones that have extremely similar hardware to those found in the OPPO smartphones. The new OnePlus 11 5G smartphone looks set to be no different with a massive rear camera island housing impressive cameras with a Hasselblad partnership.

OnePlus 11 5G

The OnePlus 11 5G looks to be a fully featured smartphone flagship with its hardware powered by the power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and up to a massive 16GB of RAM. This large amount of RAM allows users to have “up to 44 applications active in the background,” although I’m not entirely sure why you’d need that many active in the background.

Considering its relationship to OPPO it is no surprise to see the 5,000mAh dual-cell battery capable of charging at up to 100W thanks to the SuperVOOC charging technology. With charging this fast you can charge it from 1% to 100% in around 25 minutes.

The display is a massive, and beautiful, 6.7-inch 2K 120Hz AMOLED display creating a smooth experience without eating into the battery life excessively thanks to the in-built LTPO 3.0 technology that alters the refresh rate of the display based on what is on it at that time.

The all-important rear camera setup is not just on a massive camera island but houses an IMX890 50MP main sensor, a IMX709 32MP portrait lens, and an IMX581 48MP ultra-wide camera. Combined with third generation Hasselblad camera integration provides for accurate colour representation in your imaging.

In North America, the OnePlus 11 5G will go on sale on February 16 at 10:00 AM US ET. The device will retail at USD$699/CAD$999 for the 8+128GB variant and USD$799/CAD$1149 for the 16+256GB variant. Aussies who wish to get hold of it should look for third party importers such as Kogan who love to sell these at an attractive price. For a smartphone flagship, even with the importation costs from Kogan, the price promises to me extremely attractive.

But wait, there’s more

OnePlus also launched their new Buds Pro 2 alongside the OnePlus 11 5G, their new true wireless headphones with premium sound, support for Google’s spatial audio and active noise cancellation. These premium earbuds will be available at the same time as the OnePlus 11 5G and cost USD$179/CAD$269 on OnePlus.com and Amazon — don’t expect to be able to buy them from Kogan.

Why this matters to Australia?

I hear you asking, why does this matter to us? Why should we care? Because for the last few years the OPPO flagship smartphone has mirrored the OnePlus flagship with not just specs and hardware but also software features. Now that they are both under the one banner of OPPO they also share software teams which hopefully means great things.

We are already seeing leaks of the OPPO Find X6 Pro online and if they are to be believed the camera island on the OPPO flagship will be nearly identical to that on the OnePlus flagship. Inside we expect to see slightly better cameras with what looks to be a telescopic camera included. The Hasselblad partnership is also available on the OPPO smartphones meaning that the colours of images will once again be vibrant and true to life.

The display on the OPPO Find X6 Pro will almost definitely be exactly the same, although the size may vary slightly. I’d expect to see it support 120Hz refresh rate but also include LTPO 3.0 technology — that is how OPPO are able to have their smartphone batteries last an entire day even with such a high refresh rate and resolution.

The OPPO Find X6 Pro is rumoured to be launching at MWC later this month but we expect Australian details to arrive a few weeks after that. If the OPPO Find X6 Pro is anything like the OnePlus 11 5G, and there is little doubt in my mind it will be, you can be sure that it will be able to compete with the best on the market.