OnePlus recently launched OnePlus 11R Solar Red Edition in India. It is identical to the standard OnePlus 11R with mostly aesthetic differences.
The Solar Raid Edition was initially unveiled in China as a Genshin Impact special edition. The Solar Red is essentially the same phone without the special packaging and software personalization.
The main feature of this variant is the attractive red vegan leather back, complete with leather texture in the middle, faux stitched pattern and a ribbed texture around the edges for grip.
Visually, the design is quite solid but not so much in the hand. The material is quite hard and stiff and has none of the plushness or texture of genuine leather. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to make a softer material, but that would make it wear out quicker and I’m not sure vegan leather has the same attractive patina as real leather.
The rest of the phone is externally similar to the standard 11R. The edges are still made of glossy plastic which also surrounds the camera. There is the same curved display in the front. Viewed from the front, the Solar Red Edition looks no different from the standard models.
The story continues in software as the Solar Raid version has no additional software features or customizations. Not a single extra wallpaper.
There are some differences on the hardware front. Solar Red comes with an astonishing 18GB of system memory and 512GB of storage, both of which are more than you get from other colors.
However, the 18GB of memory is of the slower LPDDR5 variety, not the LPDDR5X found in the 8GB and 16GB variants. Having said that, you’re unlikely to notice a difference in usage as the difference in peak memory bandwidth between the two is quite small. We also saw this in benchmarks as there were no notable differences between Solar Raid and other variants.
Overall, nothing out of the ordinary but it’s a good option if you want something other than the usual glass back. OnePlus 11R Solar Red is now on sale in India and is priced at Rs 45,999.