TAKING ON THE BIG BOYS
Oppo R9s offers a similar look as the iPhone, with a big drop-off in price − and performance
In recent years, Chinese smartphone brands like Huawei and Oppo have enjoyed a great surge in popularity and positive consumer impressions, blending decent performance with relatively attractive prices. They can’t exactly put up a realistic fight against the biggest boys on the block just yet, but they’re getting there fast.
The Oppo R9s, the brand’s latest flagship handset, is an apt example of the Chinese brand’s burgeoning dominance in the mid-range smartphones market. With a decent 4GB of RAM, an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and a very decent 16MP back camera, the R9s delivers an enticing, 15,000 baht package for people who want a little oomph to their smartphones without shelling out almost twice that price for one of Apple’s or Samsung’s products. The phone isn’t without its faults, however, as a middling GPU (graphics processor), oversaturated and over-sensitive screen and a muddled OS makes it slightly annoying to handle at times.
DESIGN
From the rounded edges, minimalist rectangular design and the placement of the various buttons, the R9s is clearly designed to invoke the familiar design of Apple’s flagship device, which probably makes the phone look and feel more expensive than it is. The all-aluminium back cover gives the phone a pleasant, smooth texture when held in the hand, and is decently fingerprint resistant, even if it can be a little slippery to the touch.
Like an iPhone, the R9s features a 5.5-inch full-HD AMOLED display that stretches from one side of the phone to the other, leaving almost no bezels on the side. Everything else — from the lock and home buttons, the volume rockers, the SIM card/micro-SD card tray or the 3.5mm audio jack — is exactly where you would expect to find them on the iPhone. The only difference the device has with the iPhone are the two invisible Android buttons to either side of the home button, which only become visible when you push them.
All told, there isn’t much to say about the phone’s design, with perhaps the most significant element being that it is essentially an iPhone rip-off. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the device’s clean, familiar design gives it a solid look and feel that is lacking in many Android phones in the same class. My main complaint about the design would be the practically non-existent side bezels, which — when paired with the extremely sensitive touch-screen — causes the phone to mistakenly register accidental touches from my palm or fingers on the side as swipes or taps. It can be annoying when you’re reading an article on the phone, only to have the page suddenly scroll up or down unintentionally every time you try to adjust your grip. The colours on the phone’s screen seem noticeably oversaturated too, and even tinkering around with the settings doesn’t seem to solve this problem, minor though it may be.
PERFORMANCE
While an octa-core processor and a passable 4GB RAM means the R9s is more than capable of smoothly running your standard gamut of social networking, video streaming or photo-editing apps, its older GPU struggles to keep up with the heavier games out there, and will start to noticeably drop in performance.
Testing the phone on the MOBA game RoV, which features plenty of fast, precision-based movements and graphics, I was able to play the game just fine for the most part, with performance drops generally occurring while the game downloads assets or after prolonged sessions. There were certainly more than a few moments of stuttering and lag, and the game even crashed completely more than once, though these glitches only seem to happen over extended play sessions, and shouldn’t be a common problem for most users.
To be honest, I suspect that part of the reason for the phone’s average performance has to do with Oppo’s Color OS 3.0, the brand’s own modified version of Android 6.0, which adds an extensive list of extra gestures, shortcuts and apps that will most likely go unused by the majority of users.
Meanwhile, the phone’s 16MP front and back cameras offer mixed results. The back camera, with its Sony-made IMX398 sensor, offers excellent photos when it works. The phone seems to occasionally struggle at running its camera app (which also looks exactly like the iPhone), as the app occasionally fails to register shutter presses or freezes while I try to change the camera mode. Nevertheless, the back camera is ultimately one of the phone’s strong points. The front camera, while lacking the fancy Sony sensor, offers equally decent photos, though you may want to stay away from low-light settings.
Another one of the R9s’ stronger points is its 3,010mAh battery, which easily offers at least 10 hours of standard use. Even more impressive is the battery’s fast-charging capabilities, getting over 70% charge in about 30 minutes. That’s a little over 10% charge every five minutes, which could even be useful for emergency charging situations.
VERDICT
Oppo’s Color OS 3.0 adds an extensive list of extra gestures, shortcuts and apps that will most likely go unused
While ultimately still squarely in the mid-tier range in terms of performance, the R9s is still a very reliable phone for common day-to-day use, offering a little bump in power compared to many Android phones on the cheaper end of the price range.