Review – OPPO A78 5G

Let’s take a look at OPPO’s brand new entry-ish level smartphone. This is an interesting take by OPPO. As 5G is getting more and more readily available in Malaysia, this phone is aimed toward the “affordable 5G smartphone” segment. That’s why OPPO also sent over a YES 5G SIM card for us to do some 5G tests on this phone too.

But before we put in a 5G SIM card, we have to ask the most important question – is this phone actually good? Let’s find out in today’s video.

Design

Let’s start off with… the design. Well, the design is pretty self-explanatory. All I have to say is – it uses the exact same design as the Reno 8T.

I have to say, this design is simple yet unique so it’s no surprise that OPPO reuses this design in other phones. Just maybe don’t saturate the market suddenly with a few phones having the same design.

Display

The screen is also fairly standard for an OPPO A-series smartphone. 6.56-inch of IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1612×720 – which means it’s a 720p phone, and has 90Hz refresh rate.

I mean, the display in itself is actually good. We used our colorimeter and yes, the display is indeed covering nearly 100% of sRGB color gamut and has a low Delta E number – but lacks the vividness of an OLED. They don’t pop out as much.

As for the maximum brightness, it’s quite disappointing. At only around 380 nits of brightness, using it outdoors is rather difficult. Even beside a window during broad daylight might pose some issues.

Cameras

Next up – the cameras. The OPPO A78 5G comes with a total of two cameras but only one of them can be used to take pictures as the second camera is a depth sensor only – and can’t be used to take pictures. I mean, it’s 2023 – and this shouldn’t exist anymore.

The main camera is rather decent – for its price range, of course. To have a look at all the pictures taken by the OPPO A78 5G, watch our video at the top of this review.

Performance

In terms of performance, it’s using the Dimensity 700 chipset. Honestly speaking, this is rather laggy. I tried installing Genshin Impact to try on it but – yeah this is definitely too much for the Dimensity 700 chipset. Even navigating around the system shows signs of sluggishness.

And that is because this phone did get a downgrade in terms of its chipset. As pointed out by Soya Cincau, the new OPPO A78 5G is using the older Dimensity 700 chipset, whereby the older OPPO A77 is using the newer and better Dimensity 810 chipset.

5G connectivity

But of course, OPPO wants to focus on the 5G aspect of this phone. Since they also sent us a YES 5G SIM card, we took it out for a few quick tests.

Firstly, we tested in front of the YES store at Lot 10 – a building that is owned by YTL who also owns YES, and the speed is obviously going to be great. Honestly, I’m surprised we get such speeds indoors.

Then, I tested again opposite Pavilion KL, and it was even faster. I’m just surprised.

Then, I tested at LUUMA, located at the 20th floor of Menara Sentral Vista. It’s not that good, but the speed is nearly half of what we got before – which I have no idea why. Maybe it’s the location? Maybe it’s because of the elevation? I don’t know.

After that, I tested in my room. For whatever reason, I can get 5G in my room and the speed is rather low. Granted, if I move the phone closer to the window, then I can get better and more consistent speeds.

So, as a 5G smartphone, this is actually quite okay. As we mentioned earlier though, 5G is still unavailable indoors so we’ll have to wait even longer to take full advantage of it.

Battery life

Then comes the battery life of that 5,000mAh battery. Using our standard PCMark battery life test at 100 nits of brightness, we get way above 12 hours and I’ll have to say, that’s mostly thanks to the superb battery efficiency on the Dimensity 700 chipset. You can actually use this phone for two days on a single charge.

Charging speed

As for the charging speed, it’s nothing special. Comes with a 33W charger and it charges from 15% to 100% in about 95 minutes. We also changed our methodology of charging speed tests and we are now able to log the temperature as well – and the phone is kept at the maximum of 40°C when it’s charging.

Software

For the software, this OPPO A78 5G is using ColorOS 13 on top of Android 13. I do like ColorOS in general as the settings menu and overall usability are actually decent, but unfortunately, the bloatware and ads are very annoying – and we do have a few of them.

We still have the Hot Games and Hot Apps alongside with the bunch of ads that OPPO’s own App Market kept pushing. I just think that if OPPO can tone down on the bloatware and make the ads less intrusive, it would be better.

Price

So overall, the OPPO A78 5G is priced at RM1,099. I can only describe it with one word – expensive. I mean, in the sea of smartphones that are available in the market now, I can’t find anything that makes this phone stand out from the others that can justify this price tag.

As mentioned in one of our videos from nearly 2 years ago at this point – never choose a 5G phone while sacrificing performance, screen, among other things. That being said, 5G is still not available in many regions – particularly indoors, so we can’t take full advantage of it yet.

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