Oppo A12 is the China-based company’s budget smartphone that has been launched in India recently. The smartphone falls under the Rs 10,000 price segment. We spent some time with it and today we are here with the review of this smartphone. Let’s get to know how it stands against other devices in the market, as there are a variety of handsets being offered by some major brands in the country in this segment. If you are also looking to replace your old mobile phone, but your budget is low or are confuses, which one should you go for then read our Oppo A12 review and decide.
Design and Display
Design is the foremost and most important aspect of any smartphone. It is as important as the gadgets’ specifications and features. Half of the battle is won if the manufactures manage to fascinate the buyers with its innovative design as everyone wants a good-looking phone. On unboxing, you get Oppo A12 donning a beautiful diamond-cut textured surface. And yes, this design makes it unique from what is being offered by other brands in the market.
Though the rear panel is made up of plastic, still it looks premium and you cannot stop ogling over it. The best part about the textured finish is that it makes it less slippery, smudge and fingerprints free. There is a horizontally placed dual rear camera module with an LED flash. The fingerprint sensor has been set just above the Oppo’s branding. Oppo A12 is being offered in two colour options. The review unit we received is the Black version, but you can also go for the Blue variant if you want a more vibrant colour.
Interestingly, the front of this mobile is similar to the ones we have seen on Samsung’s smartphones. Here also, you get a simple dewdrop style display. Though it has slim bezels but there is a fat chin. On the left side of the phone, there is a SIM tray and volume rocker button while the power button sits on the right side of the phone. At the bottom, there is a speaker grille, a Type-C port and an audio jack. Even though there is a 4,320 mAh battery inside this mobile, Oppo A12 is still light in weight thanks to the plastic body.
For some, the display might seem smaller but it fits very well in the hands. You get a 6.22-inch IPS LCD panel with an 89 percent screen-to-body ratio running 720×1,520 pixels of resolution. The display offers 450 nits of peak brightness and is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
The display panel is bright when indoors, but its performance under bright sunlight is not satisfactory. The colours just wash out. When it comes to watching movies, shows or playing games on it, it did not fail. The device comes with Night Shield so that your eyes don’t strain when used during low lighting conditions. On the flip side, there is no Widevine L1 DRM so you cannot enjoy HD streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. Bear in mind, in this price the display is good.
Performance and Camera
Oppo A12 is powered by octa-core MediaTek Helio P35 chipset, which is equal to Snapdragon 665. This is available in multiple memory storage combinations of 3GB+32GB and 4GB+64GB. The memory can be expanded up to 256GB using a microSD card. If you are going to play heavy games such as PUBG or Call of Duty and others then you should better think of getting a phone with a better GPU. Though you can run these games on low to medium graphics settings, it does get heated up after prolonged gaming sessions.
Here are the benchmark results of the phone, which we took to check the performance of Oppo A12:
Geekbench 5 CPU
Single-Core Score: 166
Multi-Core Score- 895
Oppo A12 was good at multitasking and handles day to day tasks easily. The device runs on ColorOS 6.1 skinned on top of Android 9 Pie out of the box. It comes with a lot of unwanted apps, which we hardly ever use. But these can be later removed from the phone by uninstalling them. Switching between the apps is smooth, however, the phone seemed to be a bit slow or less responsive when scrolling for apps or checking out Instagram or Facebook feeds. This might be due to a lower refresh rate screen. Also, we were advertisements are part of the package. That pop up now and then while using the phone and can be a nuisance. As soon as you turn on the data connection or Wi-Fi the ads come pouring in.
Next, we tested the performance of the camera and before we begin, we would like to state that Oppo A12 comes with a dual rear camera set up that includes a 13-megapixel primary sensor with f/2.2 aperture and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front, there is a 5-megapixel selfie camera with f/2.4 aperture.
We need to point one thing out here, while others are offering a 48-megapixel camera sensor in this segment you get a 13-megapixel main sensor on the Oppo A12.
OVer that, the camera app misses out on some of the important features and modes such a wide-angle, telephoto and macro lens. It cannot even record slow-mo and 4K videos. The camera app is standard and it only has a portrait option with few more camera modes such as Panorama, Expert, Time-Lapse and Sticker.
The primary sensor is supported by 6x zoom while the depth sensor uses AI, which automatically enhances and beautifies the portrait images.
But here is the kicker, the primary sensor surprised us with its high-quality images. The images stood stunning while maintaining perfect colours, contrast and details. Pictures shot in good daylighting are clear with good level contrast and colour exposure. While the low light images were also fine with less visible grains and noise effect.
On the other side, the selfie camera is also good. Selfies are clear with no over beautification. The images turned out natural with real colours so you get natural-looking selfies that Oppo A12 can offer in this price range.
As we said earlier the phone cannot record 4K videos. A video can be recorded here at Full HD resolution at 30FPS. The video recorded lacks stability otherwise is fine. We would have wanted 60FPS for smoother-looking videos.
The unlocking of the mobile has been made easy with a fingerprint scanner on the back along with face unlock system. We felt that the rear fingerprint sensor is comparatively quick to unlock the smartphone than the face unlock feature.
On the battery front, A12 is backed by a 4,230 mAh battery that is bundled with a standard 10W charger. The battery runs long thanks to the smaller screen, which automatically turns down the power consumption when needed. For us, the battery lasted for a day and a half. But if you watch a lot of movies or are into gaming, browsing the internet and YouTube then the phone can run for a full day.
Verdict
The features and the performance of Oppo A12 do justice to the price under Rs 10,000 category. However, bear in mind the competitors are offering a bigger, better display with higher MP cameras and the latest Android 10 OS. Nonetheless, for those looking for a stylish smartphone in this price range, this smartphone is recommended.
Pros:
Looks premium
Lightweight
Good battery life
Cons:
Runs Android 9
Cameras could have been better
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