Oppo A57 Review – New Sub-$250 Budget King?

After being teased and released mid-June, the $240/PhP 11,990 contenders from Oppo hits close to home by middling midrange pricing. Aptly named OPPO A57, it was set to capture the hearts of the Filipinos, like what the OPPO F3 did.

It’s not the best in all aspects, but knowing Oppo, this may have an ace or two up its sleeves, waiting to be revealed.

• Oppo F3 vs Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro

Design

It is, by all means, not an eye-catcher. However, expecting a unibody or chamfered sides may be a bit too much.

It’s not the best of the best, but it adopts the general look and design language that the majority of the OPPO phones have.

Oppo A57 Front

Oppo A57 Back

The metal back is definitely a plus for me. Besides providing better grip, it also provides a better scratch resistant than glass backings.

Button placements are lower than what I would have desired for people with my hand size.

As with most, 3.5mm and micro USB ports are on the bottom, along with the mono speaker. 

And yes, there’s a fingerprint scanner that seems to be also the one found on the OPPO F3 and F3 Plus.

Display

The 720p display was quite expected with the price point. Colors and contrast are similar to the F3 and F3 Plus. 

As with the other OPPO phones, Bluelight filter is present for fellow nocturnals. Customizability is out of the window, but I do find the colors a bit oversaturated, but not to the point that they are overbearing.

Camera

The 13MP main snapper is no surprise. It tends to perform better in well-lit areas and suffers a lot wherever lighting is scarce for its sensor. Colors are generally underwhelming and is even less prevalent in low-light shots.

Its video capabilities are then crippled too with hopefully an overall bad implementation of the sensor. Adding a night mode and an even more refined quick-fix post-capture would do wonders.

The front camera is where the OPPO A57 shines. Sure, it has 16MP and all, but need I remind you that resolution isn’t king. With a decent aperture of f/2.0, it does well of what is expected even in extreme low-lighting conditions.

Performance

With a bit dated Snapdragon 435 and Adreno 505, the OPPO A57 still does respectably well both in benchmarks and games.

Putting it on its paces, it gave an AnTuTu score of 46367, which is about half of the OPPO F3’s. GeekBench single-core scores gave an average of 661 while multicore scores gave a resounding 2785 average, which is well over 400% of the single-core average. And lastly, PCMark Work 2.0 scores rounded up to an average of 3765.

AnTuTu – 46367
GeekBench – 661 (single-core), 2785 (multicore)
PCMark Work 2.0 – 3765

Games tend to run well, especially 2D ones. The same could be said for the more intensive ones such as Vainglory, Asphalt 8, Modern Combat 5 and Mobile Legends, all running at above 30FPS all the time.

From a general standpoint, the OPPO A57 has been pretty responsive and also does well in Real Drum.

Speakers

The bottom-mounted speaker is nothing to be amazed of, but the volume is respectable for those sing-along sessions.

Battery

Sadly, for some unknown reason, the PCMark Work 2.0 Battery Life test crashes at around the 5-hour mark.

Well, in my practical daily usage of having both WiFi and Data on, not to mention GPS too, it lasted around 7 hours of on-screen use before having to need to dash and grab the nearest microUSB cable available. This is all thanks to the quite tiny 2900 mAh Li-ion battery.

Verdict

Is the OPPO A57 worth the buy? I’d highly suggest it for those who want to try Android without having to break the bank. Now that it comes in Rose Gold, Gold and finally, Black, it probably is the sleekest sub-12k smartphone that I have ever graced my eyes upon. What are your thoughts regarding the OPPO A57? Just comment down below and I’ll answer accordingly.

Oppo A57 Specs, Philippine price, Release Date