The budget flagship segment is the right choice for one who wants the proper balance of flagship features/specifications at a well-balanced price. Recently, two competitors in the form of the Nothing Phone 2 (Review) and the OnePlus 11R are present in the market which have been very anticipated in the market ever since their launch as both of them give serious competition to each other.

The Nothing Phone 2 brings a unique design carrying the hereditary traits of a Nothing Phone 1 which in itself was a unique smartphone with those glyph LEDs placed on a transparent back. The Nothing Phone 2 has some new features like a 120Hz LTPO AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, dual 50MP cameras, and a 4700mAh battery with support for faster wired and wireless charging options.

On the other hand, the OnePlus 11R (Review) impresses with a 120Hz AMOLED display that is curved, a premium build and design, a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, a 50MP triple camera setup, a 5000mAh battery with 100W fast charging, etc. So which is the better pick of the two and for what reason should you consider either of them?

Let's find out in the full comparison.

In terms of build and design, both smartphones sport a different design philosophy the Nothing Phone 2 follows the typical Nothing design where you get a transparent back with those Glyph LEDs that light up whenever you receive any notifications, calls and other functionalities that are tuned with the Glyph interface. The back is completely flat except the edges which are rounded.

The back of the Nothing Phone 2 houses a dual set of cameras with an LED flashlight. On the other hand, the OnePlus 11R sports a smooth matte finish on the glass back which provides great grip while holding in its hands. The back of the OnePlus 11R has a circular camera module that houses the triple cameras with an LED flashlight. 

Compared to the Nothing Phone 2, the back of the OnePlus 11R is curved around the back which makes it easier to hold. Regarding weight distribution, the OnePlus 11R weighs around 204 grams Compared to 201grams grams on the Nothing Phone 2. Both smartphones are thicker at 8.6mm on the sides with the Nothing Phone 2 having a premium aluminium frame compared to the polycarbonate frame on the OnePlus 11R.

Both smartphones have a power button located on the right side whereas the left side houses the power buttons but the OnePlus 11R gets a signature alert slider to control different volume profiles to Mute, Vibrate or Ring. The back of the OnePlus 11R does not have any kind of IP rating whereas the Nothing Phone 2 has an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance.

At the bottom, both smartphones get a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone and a dual SIM card slot. There is neither any microSD card slot for storage expansion nor there is any 3.5mm headphone jack present. On the top of both smartphones, there is a secondary noise-cancelling microphone present but the OnePlus 11R gets an additional IR Blaster to control various devices.

On the front, both smartphones have uniform bezels around the sides with the punch-hole being located to the centre at the top on both smartphones. In terms of protection, the Nothing Phone 2 has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front as well as on the back whereas the OnePlus 11R only has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the back whereas the front has the DragonTrail Glass for protection.

Overall, the build and design are premium on both smartphones but in the end, it is a personal preference whether you like the simplicity of the OnePlus 11R or those attractive Glyph LEDs placed on the back of the Nothing Phone 2.

Both the Nothing Phone 2 and the OnePlus 11R have larger 6.7-inches displays but there are some differences. The Nothing Phone 2 has a 6.7-inch Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) OLED display whereas the OnePlus 11R has a 6.74-inch 1.5K (1240x2772 pixels) Fluid AMOLED display with both of them having a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. 

However, the display on the Nothing Phone 2 is a flatter one whereas the OnePlus 11R comes with a curved display which is curved to both sides and it does feel premium of the two while holding it in hands. Since both these displays are AMOLED, you get punchier colours with deep blues and blacks and also you get great viewing angles. 

Both the displays get support for a 120Hz refresh rate but the one on the Nothing Phone 2 is an LTPO panel where the display refreshes between 1Hz and all the way up to 120Hz depending on the content in the display. On the other hand, the OnePlus 11R display has an adaptive refresh rate where the display refreshes between 30Hz, 45Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz depending on the content in the display. 

The display on the OnePlus 11R has a 360Hz touch sampling rate which is slightly better compared to the 240Hz touch sampling rate on the Nothing Phone 2. Both smartphones have an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which works accurately and is faster on both. Both displays get their respective colour settings for the display to choose and you can either set them to a warmer or a cooler tone.

In terms of brightness levels, the Nothing Phone 2 can reach a peak brightness of 1600nits compared to 1450nits of peak brightness on the OnePlus 11R, but in terms of normal usage, you would not notice any differences while viewing the displays except when you are watching a video or viewing the display under direct sunlight, the Nothing Phone 2 feels brighter and provides punchier colours on its display.

Both smartphones' display has support for HDR on YouTube and also Widevine L1 is present so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms on either of these smartphones. Netflix, currently OnePlus 11R has support for HDR whereas there is still no support for HDR on Netflix on the Nothing Phone 2. Overall, the display is also a personal preference whether you like the curved display or the LTPO display. 

Both smartphones come with 2022's flagship Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset so definitely you get flagship-level performance as both of them can easily handle all the tasks like switching between different applications, playing games, streaming videos, taking images and videos, etc. without breaking a sweat. In heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc., both smartphones perform really well.

In BGMI, both smartphones can achieve HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates without any frame drops but the gaming experience for longer hours was slightly better on the OnePlus 11R as it maintained a steady frame rate while gaming compared to the Nothing Phone 2 where we saw some irregular frame drops but still, it is negligible.

The back did not get warmer on either of these smartphones due to the presence of a liquid cooling system underneath which does dissipate heat faster. In terms of benchmarks, the scores came out equally good on both. However, in the CPU throttling test, there were some differences noticed between both smartphones though they have similar chipsets.

After a 15-minute test, the OnePlus 11R could achieve a sustained performance of around 75-80 per cent with almost no throttling detected whereas the Nothing Phone 2 does throttle a lot and it could only achieve a sustained performance of around 65-70 per cent which is not so good considering it has the efficient Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.

In terms of network connectivity, there is support for good carrier aggregation on both smartphones, but in terms of 5G support, the Nothing Phone 2 supports 19 bands of 5G compared to just 9 bands of 5G on the OnePlus 11R. Overall, in terms of performance and gaming, it is definitely the OnePlus 11R that holds the clear edge over the Nothing Phone 2.

The Nothing Phone 2 runs on the latest NothingOS 2.0 whereas the OnePlus 11R runs on the latest OxygenOS 13.1 both of which are based on Android 13 out of the box. In terms of user experience, both user interfaces provide a lot of features which include customizations to icon shape and size, different colours, different styles for Always-On Display, fingerprint scanner animation, etc.

The NothingOS provides some really cool features where you get enlarged folders that can include certain applications, and you can use the quick toggles by placing them on the lock screen or AOD for convenient usage, other features include the Glyph interface which further includes a lot of customizations like Glyph Progress, different LEDs light up while playing notification or ringtone sounds, etc.

On the other hand, the OnePlus 11R comes with OnePlus's own Shelf which provides some handy features, then there is the Zen Mode, etc. Neither of these user interfaces provides any sort of bloatware which is really good except for OnePlus's own 2-3 applications. In terms of software updates, both smartphones will get another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security patches.

Overall, if you want the basic functionality in the user interface, then OxygenOS is a good choice but if you want features that are well-tuned with those Glyph LEDs at the back, then the NothingOS is a choice to go for.

The Nothing Phone 2 sports a dual camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX890 sensor for the primary camera and a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera whereas on the other hand, the OnePlus 11R has a triple camera setup that has the similar camera sensor i.e. Sony IMX890 sensor for the primary camera as that of the Nothing Phone 2.

The other two cameras on the OnePlus 11R include an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, the Nothing Phone 2 sports a 32MP f/2.4 Sony IMX615 sensor for the camera whereas the OnePlus 11R sports a 16MP f/2.4 Sony IMX471 sensor for the camera. 

The images from both smartphones' main cameras come out with sharper details and dynamic range but there are certain differences. The Nothing Phone 2 maintains a natural colour tone in all its subjects and background whereas there is some oversharpening present with the OnePlus 11R as it brightens the colours in the images slightly. 

The noise is slightly lesser on the Nothing Phone 2 when compared to the OnePlus 11R. At night, things do favour OnePlus as it captures better details and has a slightly better dynamic range with less noise in the background compared to the Nothing Phone 2. The colours look natural on the OnePlus 11R while there is some oversharpening present in the images taken from the Nothing Phone 2. 

The OnePlus 11R provides more details in shadows and handles exposure slightly better compared to the Nothing Phone 2. With the dedicated night mode turned on both smartphones, the details and dynamic range come out equally well on both of them but it is still the OnePlus 11R that holds the slight edge in terms of low-light photography when compared to the Nothing Phone 2. 

While none of the smartphones have a telephoto camera, they do use 2x digital zoom from their main camera which results in sharper details and good dynamic range still the Nothing Phone 2 has less noise and provides accurate natural looking colours compared to the OnePlus 11R which suffers from oversharpening in the background.  

In terms of images taken from the ultrawide cameras of both smartphones, since the Nothing Phone 2 has a larger 50MP camera sensor compared to the 8MP one on the OnePlus 11R, the Nothing Phone 2 provides sharper details and dynamic range with slightly less noise compared to the OnePlus 11R. The colours look saturated on the OnePlus 11R compared to the Nothing Phone 2 which provides a natural tone.

Other than that, there is a lot of distortion around the edges in the images but still, the Nothing Phone 2 manages to capture better contrast and does not make it brighter which the OnePlus 11R does. At night, the Nothing Phone 2 manages to provide slightly better details and dynamic range with less noise compared to the OnePlus 11R.

The ultrawide camera on the Nothing Phone 2 also doubles up as a macro camera. Hence, the macro shots have much sharper details, good dynamic range and less noise compared to the ones taken by the 2MP macro camera on the OnePlus 11R, which on the other hand, has a fixed focus. It does result in macro images with washed-out colours and poor dynamic range.

In terms of portraits, the Nothing Phone 2 provides good edge detection and slightly better details compared to the OnePlus 11R. The Nothing Phone 2 maintains a warmer skin tone compared to the OnePlus 11R which maintains a cooler skin tone. The background blur is not so well implemented on both of them as they blow away the highlights in the background.

In terms of selfies, the Nothing Phone 2 provides slightly sharper details and better dynamic range compared to the OnePlus 11R and also the skin tones look natural compared to the OnePlus 11R which provides saturated or cooler skin tones. The noise is also less in the selfies of the Nothing Phone 2 and it also captures a wider aperture compared to the OnePlus 11R.

The selfie portraits on both smartphones do suffer some amount of oversharpening in the background but you get slightly better edge detection on the Nothing Phone 2. In terms of videos, the primary camera on both smartphones can record 4K videos at 60fps and these videos come out with a good level of detail that looks sharper and similar is the case here.

The colours have a natural tone in the videos of the Nothing Phone 2 compared to the OnePlus 11R videos which provide saturated colours in the videos. In terms of low-light videos, it is the OnePlus 11R that holds a slight edge in terms of dynamic range and contrast with less noise in the background compared to the Nothing Phone 2. Both smartphones have support for OIS for stabilized video footage.

The ultrawide camera on the Nothing Phone 2 has support for 4K video recording at 60fps which is a clear advantage over the 1080p video recording at 30fps on the OnePlus 11R as a result, the videos from the ultrawide camera on the Nothing Phone 2 come out with sharper details, better dynamic range, less noise compared to the OnePlus 11R which does provide more noise and details look softer in the videos.

The videos from the selfie camera come out with sharper details on the Nothing Phone 2 as it can record 4K videos at 60fps compared to the OnePlus 11R which is restricted only up to 1080p video recording at 30fps. Overall, the videos on the Nothing Phone 2 come out with better dynamic range, and natural-looking skin tones compared to the OnePlus 11R which does apply some oversharpening in the videos.

Overall, whether it is the images or videos, the cameras on the Nothing Phone 2 are tuned slightly better than the OnePlus 11R but the latter impresses when it comes to low-light scenarios in terms of videos and images.

The OnePlus 11R sports a slightly larger 5000mAh battery compared to the 4700mAh battery on the Nothing Phone 2. With normal usage which includes casual gaming, scrolling through webpages, etc. both smartphones easily last for one and a half to two days whereas with heavy usage which includes playing games like Call Of Duty, taking images and videos, and attending continuous calls, both smartphones easily lasted for a day.

In terms of standard screen-on time with heavy usage, the Nothing Phone 2 provides slightly better 4-5 hours compared to 3.5-4 hours of screen-on time on the OnePlus 11R. With normal usage, the standard screen-on time was around 8-8.5 hours on the Nothing Phone 2 which was slightly better than the 7-7.5 hours on the OnePlus 11R. 

However, in terms of charging, there are differences between both smartphones. The OnePlus 11R sports a 100W SuperVOOC charger bundled inside the box that takes it from 0 to 100 per cent under 30 minutes which is very fast whereas on the other hand, the Nothing Phone 2 supports 45W fast charging but does not come with a charger bundled inside the box. 

If you use any third-party 45W fast charger, it takes the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent within 55-60 minutes which is good. One advantage that the Nothing Phone 2 clearly holds over the OnePlus 11R is that it supports 15W wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging both of which are not present on the OnePlus 11R. So overall, the battery life is slightly better on the Nothing Phone 2 compared to the OnePlus 11R. 

Whether you want the wireless charging features of the Nothing Phone 2 or the faster-wired charging of the OnePlus 11R is a personal preference. 

Both the Nothing Phone 2 and the OnePlus 11R sport a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately louder and clearer but the clarity is slightly better on the Nothing Phone 2 whereas on the other hand, the OnePlus 11R sounds louder of the two. The OnePlus 11R also gets support for Dolby Atmos which is not present on the Nothing Phone 2. Neither of them have a 3.5mm headphone jack.

It has been a very close battle between both smartphones and each of them has very good specifications for their price. Both smartphones offer a premium build and design, 120Hz AMOLED displays with stereo speakers, a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, a good set of cameras, good battery life with faster charging, and a cleaner software experience with no bloatware present.

However, there are a couple of differences between both smartphones. 

Compared to the OnePlus 11R, the Nothing Phone 2 has a uniqueness of its own with those Glyph LEDs placed on that transparent back which provide a lot of functionalities and look attractive. Other than that, it has an LTPO display with better brightness levels, a better set of cameras and slightly better battery life with features like wireless charging also NothingOS provides more features compared to OxygenOS.

On the other hand, the OnePlus 11R also has a premium build and design, the curved display makes it stand out from the crowd and has better overall performance and gaming capabilities, better low-light photography, good battery life and comes with a faster charger bundled inside the box which is not the case with the Nothing Phone 2. 

So on an overall basis, if you like the Glyph LEDs placed on the back and their functionality, want a feature-rich software experience, features like wireless and reverse wireless charging, an LTPO display, and a good camera setup though gaming not being the highest priority, no charger inside the box and that curved display, then the Nothing Phone 2 is a solid choice over the OnePlus 11R.

But if you want a simplistic premium-looking design and a curved display, gaming is the highest priority, a cleaner software experience, good low-light photography, and the brand recognition of OnePlus, then the OnePlus 11R is a great buy over the Nothing Phone 2. It is also priced slightly lower compared to the Nothing Phone 2 which also makes it a good value-for-money option.