Oppo R5 Overview

Chinese company Oppo has delivered the thinnest smartphone available, the Oppo R5.

Though Oppo is not that well-known outside of China, the company has been coming up with some great devices featuring unique capabilities. Their latest offering is an elegantly designed smartphone that is only around 4.85 mm thick – the
Oppo R5

In this review, we take a look at what the Oppo R5 has and doesn’t have to find out just what it offers besides a slimmed down appearance.

PROS

• Design: The Oppo R5 has the solid build quality that has come to be expected from an Oppo device.  The device uses premium materials and has a glass panel front coupled with metal sides and backs.  The metal back cover also has plastic inserts which are meant to help network connectivity problems. Thought the phone is undoubtably thin and sleek it doesn’t feel slippery.  The devices flat sides help the user get an firm grip on the phone

• • Thickness: At only 4.85 mm thick, the Oppo R5 is currently the thinnest commercially available smartphone.
  • Display: The Oppo R5 has a 5.2-inch AMOLED display.  The display has a 1080p resolution for a pixel density of 423.  The Oppo R5 display allows for vibrant and saturated colors – including deep blacks –and features good viewing angles.  The display can get very bright, making for good outdoor visibility, but can also be dimmed easily, to prevent eyestrain when reading at night.

• • Hardware: The Oppo R5 uses an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, with the Adreno 405 GPU and 2 GB of RAM.  Performance is good and fast.
  • Camera software interface is simple and easy to use. The camera has a fast shutter sheep which makes rapid fire shoots easy.
  • Has Oppo’s Ultra HD mode, which allows for 50 MPO shots.
  • Rapid charging: Comes with Oppo’s VOOC rapid charging technology.  This technology allows users to charge up to 75 percent of the battery in only 30 minutes.
  • Software: The device runs  on Oppo’s ColorOS 2.9, which Oppo has based on the Android 4.4 Kitkat. There is a gesture panel which has been placed on the bottom to minimize chances of accidentally opening it while accessing the notification shade. Gestures can be triggered even when the screen is off and there is a built-in tap to wake feature.

• • Theme app has a lot of different options to choose from allowing you to customize your phones look.

  CONS

  • Battery life:  Ultra-thin design results in the need for a small battery.  The Oppo R5 only uses a 2,000 mAh battery.  The Oppo R5 only has as about 10 to 12 hours of battery life and 2 hours of time with screen-on.
  • Only has 16 GB of on-board storage with no microSD so there is no option to expand.
  • Features an Air Gestures feature which allows you to scroll through home screens and your photo gallery by waving your hand over the phone. Currently a bit too easy to trigger.  Tilting the phone even slightly would trigger the feature.
  • Camera: The Oppo R5 had a 13 MP rear shooter with a Sony sensor and an LED flash. Because of the thinness of the phone body, the camera protrudes significantly from the body and this prevents the phone from lying flat.
  • Camera settings of the Oppo R5 are located in the bottom left corner of the screen.  Can be cumbersome when attempting to shoot a photo in the landscape orientation because not everything on-screen rotates.

  There is the tendency for overexposure, poor looking low-light shots and you need steady hands to prevent blurry photos.  The images taken are big so you may quickly run out of storage space

• • There is no headphone jack or external speaker.  This was another compromise made to ensure the ultra-thin design.  The Oppo R5 does, however, feature proprietary earbuds which plug into its microUSB port.
  • As the software used is still 32-bit, the phone cannot yet take take full advantage of its 64-bit processor.
  • Third-party keyboards cannot be used.

  Currently, Oppo has not announced an official release date in the US for the Oppo R5, but when it is released it will likely cost around $500.  There are different versions available for different bands so look for the version that is compatible with your own network carrier.

  The Oppo R5 is beautiful and well made phone.  Though some compromises have been made to ensure its title as the thinnest smartphone in the world; if you can work with those, especially the short battery life, the Oppo R5 will work well for you.

  Do you think you can use the Oppo R5?

  JR

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