OPPO R5 Mighty Metal

OPPO R5 might not be holding the title of 'The slimmest phone in the world' but it's definitely the slimmest phone available in Bangladeshi market. Just to make you understand how thin the phone is, let me draw a comparison: it's nearly 40% slimmer than the new iPhone 6 and nearly 50% slimmer compared to the Galaxy Note 4. It's so slim that it doesn't even have a 3.5 mm jack for headphones.

Enough with the figure, let's now see what's under the hood:

The phone comes with an 5.2-inch AMOLED display that features a 1920×1080 resolution which means 423 PPI. We found the AMOLED panel to able to render all colors vividly and without under saturating them. The touch screen was very responsive. It also was able to play some nice tricks: double tapping the screen would turn the display ON and writing some signs would turn on certain functions. The AMOLED screen also offers terrific viewing angles without much shift in colors.

OPPO R5 runs on a custom skin called Color OS 2.0. Color OS generally doesn't come with app drawers so all the apps are on the screen and manually. A quick swipe on the top of the phone will bring you the quick settings panel. It has some very necessary functions such as 'end all' and 'flashlight'. MaxxAudio is missing which might make you gloomy. But don't worry, there is even something cooler: gesture board. You can now activate some apps/camera just by drawing on the screen even when it's in sleep mode.

A 64 Bit snapdragon 615 octa-core processor coupled with 2 gigs of RAM pumps raw power in the R5. The phone's processor is quite snappy; good enough to handle all sort of everyday multi-tasking. The phone might feel a bit sluggish but that's just because the processor is trying to conserve battery. If you switch off the power saving mode, you are again good to go. The phone occasionally heats up, especially when multi-tasking. Thanks to the metal body, the heat dissipation is really fast.

The camera is another feature of R5 that we love. It's a 13MP shooter. It has Sony's famed Exmor BSI sensor. In addition to that it uses a custom image processing engine which renders images with a perfect balance of sharpness and saturation. Like all the standard flagships on the market, low light images have lesser details due to noise reduction algorithms in the image processing engines. The HDR worked perfectly, so did the white balance option. We also loved the customizable app option in the camera. Basically that enabled us to act like a power user and allowed us to take better pictures compared to the image processing engine of the device. The secondary camera of the phone is amazing as well. Sharp and Crispy selfies guaranteed.

The battery life of the phone is average. Since the phone is extra slim, thus it could only pack a 2000 mAh battery. And this 2000 mAh Lithium polymer battery has to power the 5.2 inch gorgeous screen and the Octa-core processor. On a full charge the phone lasted for a day. With power saver on, the juice lasted more than a day. The VOOC charger, a proprietary battery charging system of OPPO, enabled us to recharge the phone quickly. We were able to recharge almost 70% in only 30mins. 

SPECS

Display: 5.2 inches 1080 x 1920 (~423 ppi)
Camera: 13-megapixel, 5-megapixel secondary
OS: Android OS, v4.4.4
CPU: 1.5GHz Octa-Core
GPU: Adreno 405
Sensors: Accelerometer, proximity, G-Sensor
ROM: 16GB, RAM: 2GB
Battery: 2000 mAh 

Price: Tk. 39,900/-

VERDICT

OPPO R5 is undoubtedly one of the most stylish handsets we ever reviewed. All metal super slim body and crude ruggedness- it has both. The performance is more than decent and camera is more than average. The VOOC charger easily compensates the 2000 mAh battery life of the phone. If style is your game then this is a must have gem.