Affordable phones are getting better and better, so there's never been a better time not to pony up for a pricey iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S. The latest budget phone to impress me is the Oppo R11, a solid 5.5-inch device with a great camera and impressive battery life. The Oppo R11 is worth your money -- though it lags slightly behind the even-more-worth-your-money OnePlus 5 ($729 at Amazon).
You may not have heard of Oppo, but it's currently the world's fourth biggest phone manufacturer, thanks mainly to its popularity in China. And it's been making affordable Android phones for years.
The company makes a big deal over the new R11's selfie camera, which clocks in at 20 megapixels. Those extra pixels didn't seem to make that much of a difference in selfie quality, though my colleague Claire Reilly loved the beautifying software. Instead, the real stars of the show are the dual 20- and 16-megapixel cameras at the back.
The phone sells in China for 2,999 yuan and the official price in Australia is AU$649. If you're in the US or UK, you can import it for around $440 or £340. That's around $300 (or £300) or so less than you'll pay for the similarly sized iPhone 7 Plus ($470 at Amazon Marketplace) or Samsung Galaxy S8 ($600 at Amazon). Despite the smaller price tag, the camera stands up to the shooters on those high-end phones.
