Oppo A57 – Review – The budget friendly Selfie Expert

Oppo A57 is a brand new entrant in the selfie oriented mobiles. Oppo A57 boasts to click perfect selfies with its 16 MP front facing camera. To make a purchase decision, a selfie camera is not a primary criteria. So in this review, let us analyse the A57 in all segments and see if it is worth the price.

In the box

• Opo A57 Mobile
• Soft TPU back case
• Screen guard film
• SIM ejector pin
• Earphones
• Charger
• Micro USB cable
• User Manuals

Design

The design of A57 is very similar to the Oppo F1s, which by itself is an inspired design from other leading mobiles out there. The A57 has a metal-looking plastic body, mounted on a metal frame. It looks and feels premium. The 5.2 inch display on the front has on-screen menu keys. The fingerprint sensor is on the front, but it stands there alone as the other keys are on-screen. The mobile has dual SIM cards slot with a dedicated slot for SD card. This is a great feature, that we have been cribbing about in all the mobile released recently. The 3.5 mm audio jack is at the bottom with USB port and mono speaker on a dual grill.

The mobile is comfortable to hold and use, thanks to its flat body and light weight. Oppo A57 has a matte finished body and it gives it grip to hold. The design of the Oppo A57 does not thrill you, but with a sensible choice of material and physical features, there is nothing that can go wrong here.

Display

Oppo A57 has a 5.2 inch IPS LCD display. It supports 720p HD resolution. Yes, it is year 2017 and still 720p displays are alive. But the performance of the display asks me to look beyond the resolution count. It is bright and vivid and yet he colors are natural. Daylight visibility is perfect. It has got good viewing angles. The text and images are sharp, unless you use a magnifier glass to pixel peep. A57 display is protected by corning gorilla glass 4. So many positive points on the display and I forgive the fact that it is still a 720p display.

Hardware specifications and performance

A57 is powered by a Snapdragon 435 processor. It has 3GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. It has gyroscope to support VR content. The mobile is 4G VoLTE capable on both the SIM slots. It has Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, FM radio, USB-OTG, and GPS navigation. I installed my usual set of 40 applications which includes a mix of commonly used light weight and resource intensive apps. The mobile shows no signs of struggle and even the most resource intensive games was handled with ease. After continuous game play of more than 30 minutes, the mobile did heat up, which is quite normal.

The fingerprint sensor on the front is fast and efficient. It can be used to lock apps and files. The mono speaker on the bottom is fairly loud for call and notification alerts, but it is not a quality solution for media consumption.

Camera

Oppo A57 has 16 MP camera on the front and back. Though the mega pixel is same, the camera sensor and the way it works is different. The front 16 MP camera which is the USP of this mobile can click good selfies under ample light conditions. The details are good and the skin tone is lovely. It also has a blur feature under beauty mode. The background blur is artificial and I would stay away from it. The quality of the selfie is not that great under low light conditions.

The rear camera performance is also good under ample light conditions. Focusing is fast, but the low light performance disappoints. If you are to read about the camera performance of this mobile, your take away, that this is an average camera and does not blow you over. It is just a casual shooter. There are other mobiles in this price range that can click stunning selfies and photos. I find the V5 or the F1s to be a better camera over the A57.

Check out the camera samples below, linked to our Facebook page. Also don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for regular updates.

Software

A57 runs on Android 6.0 with ColorOS 3.0 on top. I like the ColorOS for its software/hardware optimization. It has a bunch of useful features and very less bloatware. The UI is fast and snappy. Take a look at our detailed articles on the Oppo A57 ColorOS to find out all the UI features on it.

Battery

The mobile has a 2900 mAh battery. That number looks very small these days. But the A57 lasts for a single day of normal usage. I get a screen on time of 5 hr and 51 minutes on the PC mark test. On my practical usage, I get 3 hours of screen on time, on an average. It charges pretty quickly. Considering the fact that it just has 2900 mAh battery, it takes less than 2 hours to charge to 100% from 0% flat.

Verdict

The mobile is priced at Rs 14999 and the best buy price would be around Rs 14000. If you are a person who would buy a mobile only on stores and you need a good selfie mobile and also running tight on budget, you can go ahead with the A57. If you can extend a bit, I would recommend the Vivo V5 or the Asus Zenfone 3 laser. If you can buy online, then there is a plethora of options for you like the Honor 6x and Redmi Note 4.