Home Tech Reviews OPPO A5s Review – The Best Entry-Level Smartphone in 2019?

OPPO A5s Review – The Best Entry-Level Smartphone in 2019?

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When you have around P7k to spend for a smartphone, OPPO A5s is one of your options out there. With a price of P6,990, you’re getting a dual camera setup with 3GB RAM and 32GB expandable storage to use. Other than that, you’re getting a large battery along with the luxury of a fingerprint scanner. Now, how do they all translate in the real world? Let’s find out.

READ: OPPO A9x launched: 48MP Camera, 6GB RAM, 4000 mAh for P15k price

OPPO A5s Full specs, Philippine price, and release date

  • Display: 6.2″ display, 720 x 1520 resolution
  • Dimensions: 155.9 x 75.4 x 8.2mm, 170g
  • Colors: Black, Red
  • CPU: MediaTek Helio P35
  • PowerVR GE8320
  • Memory: 3GB RAM, 64 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD
  • Front camera: 8MP, f/2.0 aperture
  • Rear Camera: 13MP + 2MP
  • Connectivity: LTE, HSDPA, HSUPA, Edge, GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo
  • OS: Android 8.1, Oreo ColorOS 5.2
  • Battery: 4230mAh
  • Price: P6,990
  • Availability: June 2019 Philippines

Design

OPPO A5s doesn’t try to stand out when it comes to its design. Every aesthetic is suiting for a 2019 phone, like the teardrop notch and the wider screen. However, the back finish is just of single solid color clad in polycarbonate material. But in exchange, you do get a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.

As for the buttons, we have the power button on the right side and the volume rocker on the other end. Right below, locates an audio jack, a micro USB port, and a speaker grille.

The A5s might not be trying to be flashy on the back, but its front is a whole lot sexier than its competitors.

Display

Speaking of the front, the display measures at 6.2″ with the use of an IPS LCD panel. Due to the panel, colors are natural at best. The use of 720p resolution doesn’t help in improving picture quality, but at least, it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection against scratches and accidental drops.

720p IPS LCD

Camera

Moving to the camera, the A5s has a 13MP f2.2 sensor alongside a 2MP f2.4 sensor. For what it’s worth, the main camera allows for 2x digital zoom.

You won’t have any problem when shooting in daylight as the cameras are capable of delivering sharp-looking photos. The same goes for indoors, so long there’s ample lighting. Although the quality is noticeably worse when using digital zoom, we have to say, it’s pretty impressive at this price point. When a decent light source is absent, photos are usable at best — in other words, it’s a noisy and blurry experience.

For selfies, the A5s makes use of an 8MP f2.0 sensor. In a typical OPPO manner, overexposure is present as it tries to evenly lit the subject. One downside to this — colors are a bit washed out. And without the assistance of a secondary sensor, portrait shots aren’t accurately good in separating the background and foreground.

In order to get the best photo quality out of the A5s, you will always need good lighting.

READ: Oppo F11 Pro Review- Best Midrange with 48MP camera?

Performance

With an Helio P35 chipset, the performance is OK. It gets the job done especially when browsing. For the most part, social media experience is smooth. But with only 3GB RAM to use, lags and delays are apparent. As for gaming, casual games are best suited for this type of device. You will also find 32GB of storage lacking, so best to take advantage of a fast microSD card.

As far as heat goes, it only gets warm when playing games. Even though you won’t be getting snappy performance out of this phone, we still love having that fast and accurate capacitive fingerprint scanner, which is better than first-gen under-screen scanners.

Audio

Not much can be said about the audio experience thru the speaker. We do appreciate that it’s not sharp to the ears when the volume is maxed out. Also, thank god there’s a headphone jack.

Battery

Adhering to 2019 standards, the A5s has no problem lasting us a whole day thanks to its 4230mAh battery. You can easily get at least 5 hours of screen time between light to heavy usage. Charging, however, is painfully slow at 2-hr mark.

Verdict

The OPPO A5s isn’t hard to recommend at this price point. Aside from long battery life, camera quality is surprisingly decent. We also liked the use of Helio P35, providing a slight boost in gaming and high-quality content streaming compared to the P22.

READ: Realme 3 Full Review: New Budget Smartphone King?

1 COMMENT

  1. Phone ng masa hehehe just like the A3s that came before it. Everyday when I commute to work and home, I always see this and the A3s.

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