OPPO F7 vs Asus ZenFone 5 – A.I. Powered Smartphones Comparison

The OPPO F7 and Asus Zenfone 5 are two of the most talked-about smartphones this H1 2018. With almost the same price, which Artificial Intelligent powered smartphone is the best for you? Check our OPPO F7 vs Asus ZenFone 5 – A.I. Powered Smartphones Comparison

Design

The two phones we got here has a slight difference in size, weight, and build. The OPPO F7 is slightly bigger and heavier than the Asus Zenfone 5. When we look at the back portion of the phones, it’s not hard to identify which is which since both have the respective brands written at the rear – just below the fingerprint sensors.

The Oppo F7 has a stunning red rear with an all-plastic body. On the other hand, the all-new Zenfone 5 offers a double sided glass design. There’s also ASUS’ signature light patterns on the rear that shines stunningly when you move it around. The Asus smartphone has a dual camera setup at the rear, while the OPPO F7 offers only one rear camera.

Going to the front, the iPhone X-like notch is very visible on both the OPPO and ASUS handsets. However, the notch on both smartphones are a bit smaller compared to Apple’s notch. The notch bears the front-facing camera, the earpiece, and some sensors.

Display

The OPPO’s screen is at 6.23 inches with 1080×2280 pixels IPS LCD while the ASUS is at 6.2 inches IPS LCD Display with a resolution of 1080 x 2246. Both displays have great quality and colors look dynamic as well. Viewing videos and movies on both smartphones look amazing. There’s a catch though, these both handsets feature the notch that was popularized by Apple. Although people are getting used to the notch already, just like we did, there are still so many consumers that will get annoyed.

We actually think that both brands might add a feature to hide the notch in future updates, just like what we’ve seen on the P20 series. We also took our OPPO F7 and ASUS Zenfone 5 outside to see if we’ll have problems using the devices under broad daylight, it can take strong lighting well as we didn’t encounter any problems viewing our shots.

Camera

The cameras of these handsets are powered by AI, which means these handsets can automatically the detect the subject the users are shooting and will adjust the perfect settings on its own.  The OPPO comes with a massive 25MP front-facing camera and a 16MP rear camera. One of its special features is the Vivid mode.

On the other hand, the Asus Zenfone 5 has AI-powered dual 12MP+8MP rear camera and an 8MP selfie snapper. The cameras of the Asus Zenfone 5 can take GIF animation photos, similar to Instagram’s boomerang feature.

On our first sample shot, the OPPO F7 photo is slightly brighter than the Asus Zenfone 5 shot. However, the Zenfone shot leaned on to a more natural look in terms of color. The details on the sky are also more apparent on the Asus shot compared to the latter.

At a first glance, you’d automatically see the color differences on both sample shots. The OPPO F7 photo is again, significantly brighter and delivered a more vibrant result. The Asus shot depicted closest to the real-life look but it looked a bit dull. The OPPO shot on this sample set looked like it has been post processed already.

We turned on the portrait mod here. Both have a solid bokeh effect and showed pretty detailed outlines of the cake. If you look closely, the blurr on the Asus Zenfone is strobger thna the Oppo’s.

In this low-lit assisted sample set, we turned on the portrait mode again. But for some reason, it didn’t work on the OPPO F7. The Asus shot gave a pretty nice looking bokeh effect that it blurred out the “coffee” signage at the back. The Oppo shot, on the other hand, gave out an “instagrammable” vibrant photo.

The same phots but with Oppo F7 Vivd mode turned on. 

This time, we turned our focus on the coffee sign. The Asus handset was able to capture the details on the sign more accurately and vibrantly than the OPPO smartphone did. The highlights on the edges of the sign stood out in the Zenfone 5 shot.

Taking portrait shots on both smartphones is pretty easy and works like a charm. But we like how Asus blurred out the background of the subject on this one. How acout you?

Color-wise, the OPPO F7 has the brighter and more vibrant output, but the bokeh effect is stronger on the Asus shot. 

Going to the selfie shots. the selfie from the Zenfone 5 gave a bright output that even the shirt looked lighter than it actually is in real life. The OPPO F7 selfie looks soft and made the violet hair vibrant. Also, the OPPO selfie didn’t change the color of the shirt and stayed natural.

The portrait mode and HDR were turned on when we took these shots. The background of the Asus shot turned super bright that the details aren’t visible enough. The selfie from the OPPO smartphone looks really good and has color balance, the bokeh effect looks good as well.

User Experience

First of is the security. both handsets feature Face Unlock and Fingerprint scanner that works like a charm. The face unlock works even if the user is wearing eyeglasses. Asus Zenfone 5’s face recognition can’t unlock the phone in extremely dim lighting condition though but the OPPO F7 can. Also, it’s a good thing that it doesn’t unlock the phone without pushing the power button on the side. For me, it’s annoying when the phone gets unlock when I lift my phone when I just want to check the time.

Both fingerprint sensors work great but the sensor works faster on the OPPO F7.

This Oppo smartphone is powered by MediaTek Helio P60 processor coupled with a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU and 4GB of RAM while the ASUS Zenfone 5 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 636, coupled with 4 or 6GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage. We tried some benchmarking tools and here’s the result:

We played PUBG and other games on these phones and gladly, we did not encounter any problems. The games run smoothly, no irritating game lag occurred. When we tried to play Asphalt 8 on the Asus Zenfone 5 though, it heated up so fast that we needed to stop playing.

If you get irritated easily when it comes to un-proportional things, you’ll get super annoyed playing games and watching movies on the OPPO F7 because of the protruding notch. Users can ditch the notch while watching a movie or any video on the Zenfone 5 by pinching the sides. The video will be displayed in a smaller size, making the sides look black. Also, the notch hides in some games, just like the Asphalt 8 and PUBG.

Watching movies on both devices is also great, colors are vibrant and accurate plus the details look crisp and sharp as well.

Battery

Although the OPPO F7 and ASUS Zenfone 5 may not be the beasts at the battery department, these handsets still pack great juice to last you a day of usage. The Zenfone 5 has an AI Boost option and it can drain the battery life faster but will make your gaming experience better.

Audio

The audio is significantly louder on the ASUS Zenfone 5 because of its stereo speakers. Both smartphones’ audio quality tends to sound scratchy when the volume is maxed out. Listen for yourselves.

Verdict

Our verdict? These two phones are worth every penny. The OPPO F7 and the Asus ZenFone 5 can take amazing photos, both have AI capabilities, can run games smoothly, and offers great performance. The OPPO F7 retails for PHP 17,990 while the Asus Zenfone 5 at PHP 19,995. Price-wise, the OPPO F7 is more worth it with almost the same specs and performance with about PHP 2,000 difference. But this is just our opinion, it still depends on which smartphone suits best for each consumer.