Oppo R11s review

Performance

The Oppo R11 was the first smartphone to use the Snapdragon 660 chip. Fast-forward six months later and the R11s is still among the very few to employ the upper mid-range 660 SoC. Considering the (un)popularity of the chip, we would prefer to still share some if its rather impressive specs.

The 660's processor a powerful octa-core housing Qualcomm's custom Kryo 260 cores - four of those cores are ticking at 2.2GHz, and the other four are at 1.8GHz. There is the Adreno 512 GPU which offers 30% performance increase over the 510 GPU inside the Snapdragon 653 platform.

Oppo R11s, just like the R11, has 4 gigabytes of RAM, while its Plus version will pack 6 gigs.

Geekbenching the Oppo R11s reveales the S660 superiority over the S625 inside the Mi A1, and the recent S630 inside the Moto X4 and U11 Life. The scores are not that far from the results of the flagship Snapdragon 835 inside the Mi 6 and OnePlus 5T.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  1960
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  1929
• Honor 9
  1876
• Oppo R11s
  1614
• Oppo R11
  1596
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  916
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  901
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  877
• HTC U11 Life
  873
• Motorola Moto X4
  866
• vivo V7+
  767
• LG Q6
  584

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 6
  6719
• OnePlus 5T
  6701
• Honor 9
  6457
• Oppo R11s
  5907
• Oppo R11
  5777
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  4292
• HTC U11 Life
  4140
• Motorola Moto X4
  4136
• vivo V7+
  3912
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  3783
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  3251
• LG Q6
  2011

The promised 30% jump in the graphics performance is there, alright, and the Adreno 512 is still our favorite GPU for the upper mid-range class. Sure, it's not match for the high-end Kirins or Snapdragons, but it's superior to anything else.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 6
  41
• OnePlus 5T
  41
• Honor 9
  33
• Oppo R11
  15
• Oppo R11s
  15
• Motorola Moto X4
  9.8
• HTC U11 Life
  9.6
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  9.1
• Oppo F5
  7.1
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  6.4
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  6.2
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  6.2
• vivo V7+
  6.1
• LG Q6
  3.8
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  3.8

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 6
  25
• OnePlus 5T
  24
• Honor 9
  15
• Oppo R11s
  8.7
• Oppo R11
  8.6
• HTC U11 Life
  5.4
• Motorola Moto X4
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  5.2
• Oppo F5
  4.2
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  3.7
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  3.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3.4
• vivo V7+
  3.3
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  2.6
• LG Q6
  2.1

The BaseMark X and ES3.1 scores say the same thing.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  38656
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  38541
• Honor 9
  29398
• Oppo R11s
  20914
• Oppo R11
  20350
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  14619
• Motorola Moto X4
  14479
• HTC U11 Life
  14286
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  10472
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  10446
• vivo V7+
  9955
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  9543
• Oppo F5
  9205
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  7004
• LG Q6
  6179

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 6
  861
• OnePlus 5T
  856
• Honor 9
  699
• Oppo R11s
  348
• Oppo R11
  345
• Oppo F5
  251
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  229
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  191
• Motorola Moto X4
  189
• HTC U11 Life
  183
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  136
• vivo V7+
  131
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  119
• LG Q6
  82

Finally, we come to the compound tests, which we deem the most important measures for a smartphone's performance. Here the Oppo R11s proves to be almost flagship-grade. Sure, it isn't as good as the Mi 6 and 1+5T with the Snapdragon 835, but it's miles ahead of the rest mid-range chips.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  179790
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  177326
• Honor 9
  143583
• Oppo R11s
  121638
• Oppo R11
  118677
• HTC U11 Life
  72854
• Motorola Moto X4
  71224
• Oppo F5
  63889
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  61762
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  61616
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  60767
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  58068
• vivo V7+
  57791
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  55657
• LG Q6
  37276

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  3632
• Xiaomi Mi 6
  3547
• Honor 9
  3072
• Oppo R11s
  2499
• Oppo R11
  2386
• Motorola Moto X4
  1532
• HTC U11 Life
  1342
• Huawei Mate 10 Lite / Honor 9i
  1309
• vivo V7+
  1290
• Xiaomi Mi A1
  1262
• Sony Xperia XA1 Plus
  1198
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  1050
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
  497
• Oppo F5
  424
• LG Q6
  275

Oppo R11s and its Snapdragon 660 are once again leading the upper mid-range class in terms of performance by a large margin. Qualcomm did a wonderful job with the 660 chip and we can't but wonder why more makers aren't adopting the platform. Money?

Obviously Oppo has a noticeable edge over the current crop of mid-rangers and makes the R11s an easy pick when performance is concerned. Some of the Snapdragon 835 phones now costs close to the R11s, which may eventually become an issue and that's why we left the Mi 6 and OnePlus 5T in the benchmark charts.

The S660 is manufactured at the 14nm process and is quite energy-efficient. We can applaud the R11s for keeping the shell cool even after going through various benchmarks for the better part of an hour.