Oppo Find 7a review:

Introduction

Oppo has been consistently living up to its name as an innovator in the mobile space and actually over-delivering in terms of user experience and features. To be fair, it's only going to get harder for them - this was easily a brand to approach with low expectations, but not anymore. The Oppo Find 5 was a flagship to be proud of, and the N1 raised the bar even higher.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; penta-band 3G with HSPA, quad-band LTE
• 5.5" 16M-color 1080p IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 401ppi
• Android OS v4.3 Jelly Bean with Color OS
• Quad-core 2.3GHz Krait 400 CPU, 2GB RAM, Adreno 330 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset
• 13MP autofocus camera, dual-LED flash; HDR, RAW, Panorama, long exposure (up to 32 seconds), Super Zoom mode producing 50MP high-quality samples
• 2160p video recording@30fps, 1080p@30fps, 1080p HDR, 720p@120fps
• Dual-band Wi-Fi ac/a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA; Wireless TV-out (Miracast)
• GPS with A-GPS
• 16GB of built-in storage
• microSD card slot
• microUSB 2.0 port, USB on the go support
• Bluetooth v4.0
• NFC
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• 2800mAh battery with fast charging
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• Cool notification light

Main disadvantages

• No KitKat at launch
• No FM radio
• Quite dim capacitive key backlight
• HDR videos are not as nice as the regular ones

Design, build quality and handling

The Oppo Find 7a is a premium device and definitely looks the part - as the company's high-end smartphones have done so far. It looks a lot like the Find 5, but with slimmer screen bezel.

Oppo continues to insist on the assertive, angular styling the Find 5 introduced to the series, and we don't mind that at all. The most notable difference between the two generations is the absence of a "chin" - on the Find 5 the white finish of the rear extends to the bottom front, which was a very nice accent. The 7a has a more conservative all-black front.

Controls

Speaking of controls, let's take a closer look at the Oppo Find 7a and see what's there.

Above the screen we find the familiar pieces of equipment around the earpiece: a 5MP front cam, along with proximity and ambient light sensors.

MicroUSB port and mic pinhole at the bottom • 3.5mm audio jack on top

The 13MP camera lens is at the back, along with a dual-LED flash and a prominent loudspeaker grille. The Oppo Find 7a has the so-called Super Zoom feature to create a 50MP image out of four 13MP shots.

Display

Easily one of the key selling features of the device, the 5.5" screen of the Oppo Find 7a has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, resulting in around 401ppi. Hardly a surprise for an IPS unit, the side viewing angles are excellent - it's a high-quality screen, no doubt about that. The screen's digitizer is super-sensitive and the phone can be used with gloves (if you turn that on in the settings menu).

Battery life

The Oppo Find 7a's 2,800mAh battery can be fully charged in about an hour, thanks to the high current fast charger. If in a hurry, a few minutes on the charger will give the Find 7a enough juice to last a couple of hours.

We ran our traditional battery test and the results are in. The Oppo Find 7a pulled an overall rating of 60 hours. The 60-hour rating means the Oppo Find 7a will last two and a half days on a full charge with an hour each of calling, browsing and watching video daily.

Color OS atop Android Jelly Bean

Oppo Find 7a runs on Oppo's proprietary Color OS v1.2, which is another name for a heavily skinned Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. The Oppo's launcher customizations run very deep, they keep all Google apps and services, and even bring quite a few of its own - themes support, new lockscreen, homescreen, app drawer and settings menu among others.

If you are not into custom UIs, there is a preinstalled theme called Jelly Bean, which would replicate the stock Android Jelly Bean UI for you as close as possible.

Final words

Oppo Find 7a is among the cheapest flagship smartphones you can get today. And while it costs less, the Find 7a does not skimp on quality and offers a great build, performance and user experience. You get top notch tech with a reasonable price tag - something you won't get from Samsung, HTC or LG any day soon.

It's not only that, but the Oppo Find 7a offers some unique features you can't get from any other device. First, there is the Rapid Charging functionality that allows you to charge your Find 7a super-fast. Then there is the Super Zoom interpolation to 50MP. The simplified Color OS based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean is also a nice departure from the custom UIs we are all used to see. Finally, the Find 7a offers a high-quality 5MP front facing camera for high-res selfies - a feature of increasing importance.

The Oppo Find 7a is powered by one of the best performing chipsets currently on the market - the Snapdragon 801. It comes with a beautiful 5.5" 1080p IPS display and offers an excellent build quality. The battery life is good too, especially for such powerful device.

You can tell we really liked the Oppo Find 7a and we enjoyed the time we spent with the handset. It is quite the looker and performer, and yet it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. And while we still think it one of the most amazing bang-for-buck packages out there, we are still going to explore the competition out there.

The closely related Oppo Find 7 (sans the A) is probably the phone many people are looking forward to. It looks absolutely the same as the Find 7a, but boasts a QHD display and its CPU is clocked higher at 2.5GHz. The Find 7 is going to hit the shelves next month and should go for about €100 higher than the €399-priced Find 7a. Anyone, who wants a QHD flagship today - Oppo Find 7 is one of the best bets.