Oppo A5 Review | High on Battery, Low on Price

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Oppo A5 is one of the devices from Oppo in the budget range. It looks quite similar to the Realme 1 from the back but houses a Dual Camera unit. Also, Oppo A5 has a solid battery life and decent performance. Let’s take a closer look at the complete in-depth review.

Design and Build

Oppo A5 is no doubt a good looking device. It has a solid design with polycarbonate back which has a diamond cut design similar to the Realme 1. Although, it's not Glass but look and feel quite impressive, however, it can get scratched easily so you have to be careful. With that being said, the Oppo A5 is surely not slim at 8.2 mm but feels pretty comfortable to use at 168 grams. The edges are slightly sharp but nothing much. However, the device is pretty big and not meant for single hand usage. Also, there is no IR rating or any type of water resistance in this device.

Oppo A5 is available in two color options only which are Pink and Blue. Upfront, the device sports a huge 19:9 display with a notch which houses the front camera, proximity, earpiece, and an ambient light sensor. On the side, the volume keys and the Dual SIM tray with a dedicated MicroSD slot are on the left while the power button is on the right. At the bottom, there is a 3.5mm audio jack along with Micro USB charging port and a speaker. Moving to the back, there is a Dual camera unit placed horizontally in the top left corner and a Fingerprint scanner. Overall, it has quite a solid build quality but not the best in the bunch.

Display

One thing that surprised me when I first get a hold on the Oppo A5 was the gigantic display. However, when I turned it ON, the flaws became visible. It houses a 6.2 inch IPS LCD display which has a resolution of 720 x 1520 pixels and pixel density of 271 pixels per inch. Such a big display with such a low resolution took away all the sharpness. The low pixel density can be noticed while reading text on the display as pixelation is visible.

Nonetheless, if you really don’t care about the resolution or the Pixel density, the display is pretty big and have some nice colors to it. This makes watching movies pretty enjoyable because of the immersiveness. However, the display is not completely bezel-less as there are bezels around the side and a significant chin at the bottom. Talking about the sunlight visibility, it’s pretty decent to be viewable outdoor under shades but not too much in direct sunlight.

Overall, the display is pretty big to be enjoyable but the resolution and pixel density is what let it down.

Performance and Software

The performance on the Oppo A5 is pretty mediocre. It's due to the fact that it is powered by Snapdragon 450 chipset. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 is a mid-level Octa-core chipset with a max clock frequency of 1.8GHz. Coupled with the Adreno 506 GPU, the overall performance is pretty great when it comes to general usage like Social media apps, web browsing, navigating through the UI etc. However, intense games like PUBG, Asphalt 9 suffers on the Oppo A5 due to the weak chipset. Heavy games are playable but at low or medium graphics setting. Performance is one of the sectors in with A5 is pretty weak while the smartphone in the same segment has better chipsets.

Talking about the storage and RAM, there is only a single variant of the A5 which includes 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage. However, the memory is also expandable up to 256GB through the dedicated MIcro SD card slot. Overall, Oppo A5 does multitasking well but not with heavy apps and games.

The Oppo A5 runs on the Android 8.1 Oreo which Oppo's own Color OS on top. If you have ever used MiUi, the Color OS might look pretty familiar as there is no app drawer. The device also comes with pre-installed bloatware some of which can't be removed. Although, there are a couple of useful features too. But the part which really bothers is the software updates. Oppo isn't known for providing fast software updates and A5 being a budget device will hardly get a software update. Hardly, it may get Android Pie but nothing over it.

Camera

Talking about the camera, the performance is pretty decent. There is a 13 Megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture and a 2 Megapixel depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture. The camera app is from Oppo and has all the basic features like Panorama, HDR, Video and also a Portrait mode.

With that being said, the quality of the photos is pretty decent when you shoot them in broad daylight. The images contain a nice level of details but the colors appear a little washed out. Also, the dynamic range is pretty average too and the HDR doesn't help much. The quality decreases at night as plenty of noise can be seen in the shots. Also, there is no OIS to help during the night and hence the quality suffers.

Portrait mode is there too but the quality is pretty mediocre. The edge detection is finicky and images are OK for social media usage but nothing more. The Front sensor is an 8 Megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture and the quality is pretty average with decent colors and dynamic range. However, the quality degrades at night a lot as images turn out to be blurry. Overall the cameras on the Oppo A5 is pretty decent

Battery Life

Oppo A5 has one of the best battery life in the budget bunch. That’s because the A5 houses a 4230 mAh non-removable battery. During our test cycle, the A5 manages to last more than a day and sometimes touched the mark 2 days battery life. However, that’s quite subjective because different users have different types of usage.

Our battery life test included frequent social media, web browsing all the time, watching come episode of Dragon Ball Super (Yeah I know it’s too late), casual phone calls, some camera usage, and Youtube. With such usage, the device managed to last for around 1.5 days before the battery dropped to 0. Oppo A5 takes around 2-2.5 hours to get from 0% to 100%. With it’s pretty straight but let’s mention it, A5 doesn’t support wireless charging.

More Features

Oppo A5 comes with Dual SIM and Dual standby support. It also comes with a dedicated MicroSD card slot which means you don’t have to trade off the second SIM for an SD card. Other connectivity features on the A% includes WIFI, Bluetooth v4.2, and AGPS. The list of sensors available on the Oppo A5 includes Accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and compass. Just like other budget smartphones, it lacks NFC and also an IR blaster.

Oppo A5 comes with a fingerprint scanner which is placed on the back. It is a pretty fast and accurate scanner unlocking the device with just a tap on it. Although, it is still not as fast as found on high-end devices like OnePlus 6 or others. It also comes with a Face-Unlock feature which unlocks the device pretty quickly but isn't reliable. 

The A5 comes with a single down-firing speaker which is pretty OK for the price but nothing great to enjoy the music in a small gathering. However, there is still a headphone jack which can be used to connect external speakers or good quality headphones.

Should You Buy?

Oppo A5 is quite a mixed bag and buying it depends upon the requirements of the user. It surely has a great design but the performance is not on par with other smartphones in the segment. Also, the screen is pretty good and immersive but the resolution is where it disappoints. The software is another issue with A5 as the Color OS is a bulky skin and may not be preferred by everyone so that’s subjective. But remember that the Software updates may not be coming to the A5.

The camera on the Oppo A5 is pretty decent and captures some good images is great light conditions. Also, it has one of the best battery life in the segment with a gigantic battery but still uses the old school Micro USB port for charging. It keeps the headphone jack but lacks NFC and IR Blaster. Hence, it comes down to the priority of the features. If you like what Oppo A5 have, it’s surely a great deal. Else, there are plenty of budget options to choose from.    

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