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Does the OnePlus 11 have eSIM? Everything you need to know

Tushar Mehta
By

The OnePlus 11 is the latest premium smartphone from OnePlus and is crammed with generational upgrades in every area. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, faster charging that tops up the large 5,000mAh battery in around 30 minutes, and more efficient storage and RAM are just some of the many upgrades we see on the flagship phone.

On the connectivity front, the OnePlus 11 gets a broader set of supported 5G frequency bands, Bluetooth 5.3, and theoretical support for Wi-Fi 7, which will be activated later following regulatory approvals per region. But there’s one connectivity question on many people’s minds: Does the OnePlus 11 have eSIM? We’ve yet to see a OnePlus device ship with eSIM support — including last year’s OnePlus 10T and OnePlus 10 Pro. eSIM is a handy feature to have and can be a great convenience, so is it available on the OnePlus 11?

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The OnePlus 11 comes with eSIM in select regions

OnePlus 11 titan black color with the SIM tray ejected and kept on a white and gray table top.
Tushar Mehta/Digital Trends

The OnePlus 11 is the first OnePlus phone to feature an eSIM. It’s one of the least anticipated — yet timely and favorable — additions to the OnePlus 11’s suite of connectivity features. An eSIM (or embedded SIM), as the name suggests, is a microchip that replaces a typical SIM card and can be activated on your phone by scanning a QR code or remotely by your carrier. It is intended to make switching carriers or networks easier — especially while traveling to a different country or location — and even assign multiple connections on a single eSIM.

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Besides the suggested ease of use, an eSIM can also be a valuable tool allowing you to have multiple active connections on a phone — like an iPhone — that features only a single SIM slot. Furthermore, an eSIM is usually encrypted, which makes it difficult for bad actors to tap your conversations or tamper with the SIM card.

eSIM page on the iPhone 14.
Joe Maring/Digital Trends

OnePlus’s move to add eSIM support to its flagship device is seemingly inspired by Apple’s move to rid away with a physical SIM slot on the iPhone 14. While OnePlus stays from launching a smartphone without a physical SIM slot (the move would have likely brought similar criticism to what Apple received for removing the physical SIM cavity from iPhone 14 models sold in North America), it is adding additional support for anyone who wants to dip their toes in the current.

One caveat to OnePlus 11’s eSIM support is that only OnePlus 11 models sold in North America will feature an eSIM, while units in other regions may skip it. We are unsure if global models also feature the eSIM hardware that is disabled through software, but you will not be able to use eSIM at the time of the OnePlus 11’s launch if you are outside of North America.

How to set up eSIM on your OnePlus 11

To set up an eSIM on your OnePlus 11, you first need to make sure you have a supported model. Then, contact your carrier to help you generate a code for the eSIM. Once you have the code handy, go to the Settings app and then to Mobile network.

Under this section, you will see an option for eSIM. As you tap the option, you will be directed to another page where you first need to enable eSIM on your device.

Next, options for Add eSIM and Reset show up on the same page. Tap Add eSIM and then Next on the following page. You can then scan a QR code provided by the carrier to add the network. If you don’t have a QR code to scan, tap Need Help to manually enter a long cryptic code.

Once done, you will be able to enjoy voice and internet services on your OnePlus 11 even without inserting a physical SIM card. Note that when the eSIM gets active, your old SIM will become useless forever (if you transferred your phone number from it to the eSIM). If you need to go back to the physical SIM or need to switch to another phone, you will need to contact your carrier again to issue a fresh physical SIM or eSIM code.

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