Dubai: Oppo may not be a name you came across as it is new to this region but it has come out with a smartphone that can stay head to head with the branded phones like Samsung S5, HTC One (M8) and LG’s G3.
The Chinese manufacturer’s Oppo Find 7 has all the high-end specs like 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 CPU, 3GB of RAM, Adreno 330 GPU, 32GB storage capacity and expandable up to 128GB via micro SD.
It runs on older Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with heavily tweaked user interface known as ColourOS 1.2 version. It uses the old-style Android menu button instead of the multitasking button found in the newer models. Updates are a bit of a concern but it has added few innovative software features that cannot be seen in other handsets.
The 5.5-inch IPS LCD device has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels with 534 pixels per inch density. The back of the device is made of polycarbonate with carbon fibre texture. Wear and tear weighs on the back cover and becomes smudgy. It weighs 171 grams.
The colour reproduction is a bit off in terms of accuracy as whites are not pure white but rather blue and reading outdoors is challenging.
Contrast isn’t that strong and on low brightness or off-axis viewing in particular, it just doesn’t pop out colours and colours appear cold and lifeless.
It has added gesture controls to activate many features. For example, when the screen is sleeping, drawing a circle on the screen turns the camera on, drawing “V” on the screen opens the flashlight and double tapping turns the screen on. Users can define their own drawings like calling someone or recording audio to pre-made gestures for different utilities which I found it interesting.
Swiping up from the bottom of the screen to display the gesture board, and use custom gestures for quick operations.
The ‘Skyline’ notification light just below the screen is noteworthy, a stylish alternative to the blinking LED dot found in other devices.
The 13MP Sony Exmor RS, f/2.0 autofocus with dual flash produces decent photos with plenty of light. The app is clean and simple to use. Changing modes like slow shutter, GIF, Panorama and HDR is handled by a separate menu. It can shoot ultra high-definition (4K) photos in 50MP. It can shoot at 30 frames per second in the 4K mode. What it does is it takes a series of 10 shots and stitches the best four together into s single 50MP image but details are lost compared to shooting the same picture in Full HD mode. The HDR mode does a decent job of brightening the picture.
In low light conditions, the phone struggles a bit with focusing and shows acceptable amount of noise. The dual LED flash is not very strong but illuminates the scene evenly from a five-feet distance
The favourite was to shoot in RAW mode but the processing time is sluggish.
It can capture videos in 2160p at 30 fps, 1080p at 60 fps and 720p in 120 fps.
The 5MP with f/2.0 lens can records videos in 720p resolution. The images produced are decent enough but not that great.
Media playback is very good as it uses sound enhancements from Waves MaxxAudio. The sound produced from the single rear speaker is decent and loud.
In the HD video test, it lasted for just more than five hours, which is not below average. One good thing is that it can charge to full in one hour via a separate VOOC fast charging system. The 3,000mAh removable battery struggles to last for one full day. It lasted for just over six hours in heavy use.
Regarding connectivity, it has 4G LTE, WiFi, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and DLNA.
The only problem Oppo will face is that it is a relatively unknown brand and paying Dh2,199 for a new brand might not come easily.
