OPPO F5: The return of the selfie expert

Firstly, the phone looks gorgeous- design wise. It's everything you want in your new phone – a trendy metal-finished exterior, a slim form-factor, a bit tall yet not too tall for your fingers to play around and of course a near-edge-to-edge display. It measures 6 inches diagonally with a 1080X2160 pixel display – meaning the aspect ratio is 18:9.

Secondly, the performance of the phone is average or a bit above average. It sports a fairly new processor: MediaTek MT6763T, which comes with eight ARM Cortex A53 cores, four of which run at 2.3GHz while resting of the four-run at 1.65GHz. The phone also packs a Mali G71 MP2 graphics processing unit. We tried playing some of the graphics-demanding games and it was able to render those at medium settings. A bit of stuttering was noticed when we went to the highest settings. Aiding the processors was a 4GB RAM module. The phone does also have a 6GB version which does come with a sizzling red colour. The phones ROM or internal memory also varies according to the version: 4GB one has 32GB storage whereas the 6GB one has 64GB storage.

Now comes the most awaited part for most of our readers: the camera! Unlike the market competition, OPPO has kept itself in the Solo camera-sphere. Not that we are complaining- rather we have seen in the past how the single camera is good enough for most of your average photos and selfies. The back camera, which ironically isn't the primary camera of the phones, comes with a 16MP sensor and a f/1.8 lens. We loved the Auto Settings Detection for HDR. The shutter speed of the phone was a bit iffy, particularly with the auto settings.

The selfie camera, the single key focus of OPPO's marketing campaigns, is a bit larger (1/2.8") compared to previous generations. The AI part is more sort of a marketing gimmick too. What it truly does is draws a reference from its trained processor and brighten, lighten or sharpen up the photo no matter what your age, gender, skin tone etc. I honestly have never been a fan of camera-based photo editing. Instagram has always been my go-to photo editing tool –so clearly I should be saying much about the AI based photo editing of OPPO. Many of my colleagues have tried it and they sort of liked it.

Some stuff that we have to mention about the device: the fingerprint scanner is blazing fast. Works 99% percent of the time without any hiccups. BTW it's on the back now. One of the saddest demises on the phone is the VOOC charger.

Who is this for?

For the price-tag, OPPO offers a decent device. It offers a above average performance which many my find adequate. The 6GB RAM version runs the phone smooth even when multi-tasking.That's certainly one of the features that we love. However the problem with this phone is there are multiple brands that are offering almost similar configuration and  features. The camera from OPPO, as always, did stand out. It also boasts a tough competition in terms of form factor. But will it be able to win the hearts of the customer? Only time can tell.  

SPECS

Display: 6.0 inch touch screen

OS: Android 7.1.1

CPU: Octa-core 2.5 GHz Cortex-A53

GPU: Mali-G71 Mp2

RAM: 4GB/6GB

ROM: 32GB/ 64GB

Camera: Front-20 MP (f/2.0, 1/2.8") & Back-16 MP, f/1.8

Battery: 3200 mAh

Price: Tk. 24,990 (4GB) Tk. 32,990 (6GB)