Oppo, one of the most known brand here in the Philippines has again released a new device at a very affordable price, the Oppo a5s. This device might be Oppo’s upgrade to the A3S, and answers to Huawei’s Y6 Pro (2019) which is currently under the same price.
So let’s jump to the good part, the phone’s specifications.
Read: Honor 10 Lite User and In-Depth Review: Huawei Nova 3i’s Little Brother at P8, 990.00
Phone Specifications:
- Display: 6.2 HD+ Display (1520×720 pixel) Water Drop Notch
- Networks: 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, 2G, EDGE and GPRS
- Screen Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- Ram and Rom:
- 3GBs of RAM and 32GBs of ROM (Expandable up to 256 MicroSD)
- Processor : Mediatek MT6765 Helio P35 (12nm Octa Core)
- 4 Cortex-A53 x 2.3ghz and 4 Cortex-A53 x 1.8ghz
- Battery : Non-removable 4230 Li-Ion battery
- Operating System: ColorOS 5.2 (based on Android 8.1)
- Sim Card Slot: Dual Hybrid Sim (Nano-SIM)
- Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), proximity, compass and accelerometer
- 5mm jack (Bottom)
- Camera
- Rear: Main 13 MP + 2MP Depth Sensor
- Front: 8 MP (f/2.0 Aperture)
- Price: P6, 990
- You can purchase it on Lazada and Shopee
Looking at the above specs, the phone is looking pretty good for its price when it comes to its specifications. If you compare it to both the Huawei Y6 Pro 2019 and Oppo’s A3S, would definitely be the one that would stand out among the three taking into account the processor and screen size.
But if you’d like to know the device more, see our thoughts below on the overall capability of the phone.
Read: Huawei Y7 Pro 2019 Available for P9, 690.00 in Shopee
Camera
Oppo has always been known for its outstanding camera (especially the selfie cam) regardless of what level their smartphone is. Almost all of their phones (entry, mid and flagship) has most of the time dominated their counterparts in other brand and this one is no different. The main camera sports a dual sensor, one being a 13MP and a depth sensor of 2MP which gives portrait photos a nice bokeh effect. The main camera we’d say would be at par with the quality the honor 9 lite and 10 lite has. For low light shots, you can’t really expect a lot from it given the price but all in all it’s good.
Now over to the front selfie camera, it has an 8MP front shooter. Selfies in good lighting look really great, although beautification can sometimes be too harsh even if you set it 3 or 4 but you could always set it to your liking. In low-light, shots are filled with noise but the picture still looks good.
Body Material
The Oppo A5S’ design is good overall. The back is made of plastic but it doesn’t feel cheap at all. It doesn’t attract much fingerprint. The camera placement is different from what were used to and is placed horizontally at the top and fingerprint is placed in the top middle portion of the phone. It’s nice to see that they are reinstating the fingerprint scanner on this one unlike the A3s which only has facial recognition.
The sides of the phone is also made of plastic. On the right side, you’ll see the power button and on the left is the volume keys. Placement of both power and volume keys are good and are reachable even by small hands.
Read: Meizu M6S User Reviews at P8, 490.00
Display
The A5S has an HD+ screen with a PPI density of 271. It also has the waterdrop notch which maximizes the screen to body ratio. The HD+ screen when compared to other phones is outstanding. Colors are great and looks really natural. Although when you are under direct sunlight, you might need to put the brightness to maximum for you to be able to see everything on the phone.
Performance
Looking at the processor of the phone, in terms of using it as a daily driver, it can run all your needs from surfing the internet, watching YouTube and browsing through Facebook. Since it already has 3GBs of RAM, multitasking should be okay. The only downside of the Oppo A5S’s performance is in terms of gaming.
The Mediatek Helio P35 is not a bad processor but not the best as well. If you plan to play games like mobile legends, you can set it to all high but expect some hiccups here and there and frame drops as well. If you use High Frame Rate mode, it would run on 60 fps but if there are a lot of frame changes in your game, the frame rates usually drop to somewhere around 30 to 40 fps.
3For heavy games like PUBG Mobile and the likes, its best to set it at the lowest possible option to avoid the phone heating and have a smooth gameplay.
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Battery
The A5S is equipped with a 4230 MAH of battery which is really great. This surely is one of the good side to this phone since most phone under the entry level are equipped with 3000 mAh. Charging the phone however can take roughly around 2 hours since it doesn’t have fast charging.
We really tried hoping that Oppo was successful in equipping this one model with the VOOC quick charge but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Because of the HD+ screen of the phone, it would most likely last you a whole day if you are just using the phone casually for browsing the net, playing games, and the like.
Oppo A5S Review
Looking at Lazada and Shopee, only few people have tried the device, but a lot of people are inquiring about the specs of the product. But if you want a more in depth review and comparison, there are some YouTube videos available online that you can check comparing both the Oppo A5S, Huawei Y6 Pro (2019) and the Oppo A3S.
One of the most notable reviews done in YouTube would be Yugatech’s review. They follow strict format and they are honest with both the advantages and the downsides of the device.
The same as with our verdict, they also pick this one over the others.
Read: Best New Smartphones Under P10, 000 You can Buy in the Philippines
What are our final thoughts?
If you are looking for a device at the P6, 990 price point, this is really one of the best choices available as of this moment. However, there are some few options available as well, if you’d like to check them out, head over to our review on the RealMe 3 (RealMe is Oppo’s sub brand and is somewhat the low-end version of the brand), the Infinix Hot S3 and Infinix Hot S4 which was just recently released. All of these phones are below the P10, 000 range so it’s definitely considered to be a mid-ranged smartphone but with powerful specifications.
