Oppo has been advertising their smartphones as selfie expert and the F1S and F1 Plus comes with really good selfie camera. Now, Oppo is looking to capitalize the selfie trend into the sub 15k segment and launched the Oppo A57. The Oppo A57 comes with a 16MP front selfie camera and is the first device to come with Snapdragon 435 Octa core processor. It also features 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage and Android Marshmallow along with 2900mAh battery.
So, how does the Oppo A57 perform? Let’s find this out in the detailed review.
Here is the video review of the device.
Design and Build:
Design wise the Oppo A57 is similar to Oppo F1s but doesn’t feel as premium as F1s. That is probably due to the lower pricing of A57. It comes with a metal chassis with a plastic finished back panel. The plastic finishing in gold color looks quite decent, but in 2-3 weeks of our usage, we noticed few minor scratches on the rear plastic panel. The device is good to use as it comes with a smaller 5.2-inch display. The build quality of the device is decent.
On the hardware side, you have the volume keys on the left side while the power button is on the right side. The 3.5 mm jack and micro USB charging slot are located at the bottom. The front panel houses the 5.2 inch HD display, a physical home button which doubles as a fingerprint scanner and two capacity back buttons which are not backlit. The rear panel has a 13MP camera, LED flash and the Oppo branding.
Display:
Oppo A57 comes with a 5.2 inch HD display (1280 X 720p). While most of the smartphones in the sub 15k INR pricing have moved to 1080p or full HD displays, Oppo is offering only an HD panel on the A57 which is quite disappointing for the price it is being offered at. Even though the display is only 720p, the colors are quite vivid and look pretty decent. The viewing angles are also good. Oppo is providing a screen guard on the display.
The display is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and has support for Gloved and Wet Touch Input. While Oppo should have provided a full HD at this price, the display is quite good.
Software:
Oppo A57 comes with custom UI from the company called the Color OS. The Color OS is on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Similar to other Chinese OEMs, the Color OS also comes with multiple home screens devoid of an app drawer and has custom notifications and quick toggles area. The settings panel on the phone is also a customized one. There is no resemblance to stock UI on the Color OS.
The phone also comes with support for gestures which can be activated from the settings. There is also Themes app where you can download additional themes to customize the device. So, if you are the person who loves customizing the device with themes, icons and wallpapers, you won’t be disappointed. The security app allows you to clean up and accelerate the phone performance along with providing privacy and virus scan.
Overall, the software is quite decent in terms of customizations, it is nowhere close to what EMUI or MIUI offers.
Performance:
Oppo A57 is powered by the Snapdragon 435 Octa Core processor which has 8 cores Cortex A53 coupled with Adreno 505 GPU and 3GB of RAM. This is the first smartphone powered by the SD435 which is an upgraded version of SD430 which was found on Redmi 3S prime (review) and Lenovo K6 Note (review). The phone also comes with 32GB of Storage which is expandable and the good aspect of the phone is that it also comes with dedicated SD card slot along with dual SIM which supports 4G LTE and VoLTE.
The performance of the device in day to day task was quite good and there was hardly any lag or issues. But the real issue was with gaming. We tested the gaming performance of the device with heavy graphic rich games and the performance was just average and there was a slight heating issue with the temperature rising to almost 46 degrees with intensive gaming.
The phone comes with fingerprint scanner located on the front panel and integrated with the home button. The fingerprint scanner performance was quite good in unlocking the phone. The call quality and the speaker performance was good on the device.
Camera:
Similar to the Oppo F1S, the Oppo A57 is also a selfie focused smartphone with a 16MP front camera and 13MP rear camera. The camera interface of the Oppo A57 packs most of the features including Panorama, beauty mode and other filters. It is a fairly good interface and works pretty well. Talking about the photos taken in daylight conditions, they were quite good with good colors and decent sharpness levels. But when it comes to low light, A57 struggles and you can clearly see noise creeping in. The front facing 16MP camera can take some good selfies in daylight, but there is no front flash for low light, instead it uses screen flash which is quite average. If you are looking for the best selfie experience in sub 15k price segment, Oppo A57 won’t disappoint you. Here are some samples taken with the device.
Battery Life:
The Oppo A57 comes with a 2900mAh battery and the performance of the device with respect to the battery is quite decent. We tested the battery with social apps, emails, browsing, gaming, using the camera and calls and we could easily get a day of usage with the battery. The battery won’t disappoint you on Oppo A57.
Verdict:
Priced at Rs 14,999, the Oppo A57 is tough to recommend unless you are really focused on selfies. While the device fares well in performance and also comes with decent specs, it is not even close to what Redmi Note 4 or Honor 6X offers in terms of value for money. The device is also priced higher than the competition. While Redmi Note 4 and Honor 6X are online only, Oppo A57 sells in local stores as well.
