OPPO A79 5G — Stepping Up Their Game With Aesthetic, Sound, And Of Course, Camera.

INTRO

It’s been a while since I did a review on mid-range phones so you guys know what that means? Yes exactly I’m gonna do a review on a mid-range phone and this time around, I have eyes fixed on the dazzling OPPO A79 5G. So let’s get right into it.

DESIGN

Okay, I’m not gotta lie I do think OPPO had a great touch when it comes to the design of this unit. It features a 6.72” FHD+ sunlight screen display with that typical pothole camera right on the top-middle of the screen. The entire phone weighs 193g with a thickness of 7.99mm. The rim is composed of aluminum alloy but it’s an absolute delight to grip on, and you won’t find it easy to slip it off your fingers.

But the main highlights of the entire phone’s form factor stems from the rear side side of the phone. You see the OPPO A79 5G comes in 2 colours (at least in Malaysia) which are notably the Dazzling Purple, and Mystery Black. The one on my hand right here is the so-called Dazzling Purple, and Dazling it does be. The design of the rear looks like a glorified shiny marble table if the marble table were painted by Van Gogh. It’s shiny and shines in a mosaic-like pattern, reflecting lights in its most brilliant manner. So OPPO did nailed the design part I give them that.

Layout is as usual as you would expect, sound and power switch buttons on the right, secondary mic on the top, and primary mic below accompanied by a trio of speakers and headphone jack. The main attraction though, is the cameras which are situated on a rectangular island at the top left rear corner. It consists of 2 cameras, one being the 50 MP AI camera while the other being the 2MP portrait camera. The lens design kind of reminds me of those fancy big mechanical silver/gold watches. Captivating nonetheless. Scratch resistance-wise is impressive. No smudges were found on the lens after carrying it around for a week or so. However, the same could not be said for the frontal screen. It tends to attract smudge and dust all over the corner of the screen but interestingly it fares well when it comes to fingerprints.

CAMERA

Let’s jump straight into the core concept of the phone — cameras. As mentioned above the OPPO A79 5G has 2 cameras on the back and also a 8MP front camera for your selfie pleasures. I must say the camera did brilliantly when it comes to image capturing. The crisp, the sharp details, the AI-adjustment. It’s near perfect as it checks out all the boxes that a photography enthusiast needs. Vibrancy seems to be what OPPO is aiming for in this device as no pictures taken were rendered unviewable. Everything just clicks perfectly. Unless you wanna be nitpicky, then the zoom shot would prove you correct as anything that shots beyond 3x would cause pixelation, but not beyond unreadable per se, just lots of noises surrounding the focal point.

Portraits were as you expected, aside from the adjustable bokeh mode it’s as barebone as it can get. Pop up the camera and aim at an item of interest and the 2MP will do the rest as it should. All things aside though, the 2MP camera did, however, manage to capture sharp and acute pictures. Mainly due to the aid of the built-in AI. The brush-ups were remarkable and the blurring effect did not overlap the target with the background not even the slightest.

Now the reason why I would say the cameras were almost perfect, is due to the fact that night shots you see, didn’t exactly peak the performance of the cameras. Well yes, the images are perfectly viewable. But poor lighting would yield a rather unfavorable distraction for the overall image, and I’m referring to the noise. Secondly, it gets worse when capturing long-distance objects at night. But again, all minor flaws aside, I would say these aren’t entirely major issues for casual users and I do find ways to resolve such minor issues with the correct angle, albeit it took me some time.

Front camera, oh yes where do I begin? For starters the pothole does seem distracting, maybe it’s just me but hey, I can live with that. The 8 MP camera is, let’s say, it gets its job done. Decently and solidly. Capturing my face with a shaky hand while still able to see my acne is in my book, considered not bad. Gotta say OPPO’s AI is getting better and better with camera AI as it did a great job in adjusting the light exposure and touching up my selfies.

And now, let’s shift the attention towards the camcorder. Being a mid-ranger, the camcorder could record with 2 options: 720p and 1080p. As you would expect, despite outstanding camera work, the A79 5G did not come without a trade-off. And that is capping recording at 1080p 30 frames per second. But again I digress as it still manages to perform better by a noticeable margin than other mid-ranger phones out in the market. So this could be easily overlooked.

DISPLAY & AUDIO

Well, one thing that the phone nailed is the display. Boasting a peak brightness of 680 nits and pairing it with a 6.72-inch FHD+ sunlight screen, makes bouncing and scrolling between apps a joy for the evening, especially with a touch sampling rate of 180Hz. The clarity and vibrancy are nothing short of incredible with a high resolution of 2400 x 1800. Also, the screen-to-body ratio is an impressive 91.4%. Having plenty of viewing space for anyone to binge their drama on.

Other than display, of course, there’s audio. The audio is something else. The speakers below the phone may not look like much but the projection of sound is fantastic. The A79 5G houses its very own Dual Stereo Speakers that are capable of going beyond its maximum capacity and reaching a maximum output of 300% with its Ultra Volume Mode. Does it compromise the sound? Well not really, sound is still quite decent when it comes to this high amount of output. You could make your living room into a mini disco scene with this newly improved feature. If that’s your kind of thing of course. It doesn’t stop there, no not yet. There’s also a variety of sound modes you could hop between with the phone’s latest built-in Real Sound Technology where you can swap between Smart, Movie, Game, and Music modes on the fly. I always leave the Smart Sound setting on Smart mode as the AI will determine and assess the scenario that I’m at and provide a more optimal sound projection that best suits my environment. This is another clear evidence that OPPO seems to be prioritising more on their AI system because as far as you could tell, AI is everywhere and not just fixated on the camera alone.

PERFORMANCE & UI

The OPPO A79 5G is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 6020 Octa-core 5G chipset, delivering a smoother and powerful performance efficiency as compared to its predecessor A78. And as the titular suggested, the unit has a fully integrated 5G capacity as most mid-range phones out there in the market now. In addition, the phone comes with 256 GB storage with 8 GB of RAM and runs on the latest ColorOS 13.1 as of the date of review. With that being said, it is still subject to further security updates in the foreseeable future.

As for gaming, all that can be said is that the phone is not optimised for pro-gaming. While Genshin can still be played on the phone, the game will only run smoothly on the Lowest or Low settings. Anything that goes beyond the medium setting will “overclock” the phone; PUBG can be run perfectly, just that graphical-wise, it is best to set it between smooth-medium or smooth-high for optical performance. Simply speaking, the phone is suitable for casual play, not hardcore pro-gaming.

BENCHMARK

And of course, I couldn’t justify what I just said without some concrete and statistical evidence. With that being said, here are some benchmark scores for all of your perusals :

BATTERY

Having a 5000mAh battery capacity may not be that unique according to nowadays standards, but it is still enough to get you through the day when it comes to productivity usage. While using a normal and generic charger set, the phone would charge up to 5% in 5 minutes, 20% in 30 minutes, and 50% in an hour or so. So it would take approximately 2 hours for a full charge while using a normal charging plug and USB. However, the phone supports 33W SUPERVOOC™ fast charging. So need not worry about slow charging.

VERDICT

The phone’s main strengths are all centered around the camera, display, audio, and to a certain extent, the design. It is, at the end of the day, a phone catered for productivity and content creation. It may not be a heavy-duty phone nor does it have any groundbreaking features as expected for a mid-ranger phone. One could still appreciate the effort that OPPO put into the audio and camera. It did just fine. Although with a price of RM1,199, you could get other alternatives that satisfy some of the demands you expect for a mid-ranger phone. If that’s the case, I would say “To each their own” It all boils down to preferences. But for me at least, it’s worth a try for the audio and camera.

With that all being said, you can now purchase OPPO A79 5G at their official website, Lazada, and Shopee official store with a retail price of RM1,199.

TL;DR

Pros :
– Fantastic camera clarity
– Great sound
– Fashionista-friendly
– Won’t overheat easily

Cons :
– Not ideal for night shots

RATINGS (IMO)