This year has been filled with crazy good phones across price ranges, and it’d be easy to get lost among them all. People picking up flagships now are spoilt for choice, and it stands to reason that some of the flashiest phones will have most of your attention. So it was for me, getting wooed by the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. But there’s one flagship that didn’t have the topmost position on spec sheets yet delivered an undeniably premium flagship experience. This is the tale of the OnePlus 11, a flagship that has flown under the radar and is worthy of attention for a surprisingly great experience this year.
The OnePlus 11 followed a series of lackluster efforts from the company. Sure, the OnePlus 8, 9, and 10 series weren’t terrible, but they lacked the flair and appeal of the brand’s previous flagships. A general feeling of staleness had been surrounding OnePlus for a few years, causing my personal interest in its phones to dip. On paper, the OnePlus 11 was destined to be another notch in the series, but it unexpectedly changed all of that.