This is a brand new, highest-end phone within OPPO’s A-series of smartphones – the OPPO A98. It is priced at RM1,399, and it is boasted to be one good affordable smartphone – but is that true? Let’s find out today.
Design
The OPPO A98 is a fairly simple phone overall – as you can see here, it uses a similar design language when compared to the OPPO Reno8 T 5G as there is this… cutout? I think? I don’t know how to describe it, but you can see it has some starry reflections going on.
Other parts of the back panel is made out of matte plastic which I really like because of that slightly rougher texture that is still smooth to glide my finger across. Practically no fingerprints at all, actually.
Surprisingly, this phone is also very nice to hold in the hands.
Screen
Flipping the phone around, we can see its 6.7-inch IPS LCD screen that has a resolution of 2400×1080 and also a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. Now, even though it is an IPS LCD screen, the color accuracy is actually quite good.
We can get 99% of sRGB color gamut coverage with the maximum ΔE number of just around 1.6. All these numbers just mean that this is a fantastic screen.
The only problem you’ll be having with an IPS LCD screen is the maximum brightness. The highest value that we’ve recorded is only 600 nits – which is barely okay if used under direct sunlight.
Performance
As for the performance though… this is where I’ll say the OPPO A98 is practically better than their own Reno8 T 5G. It uses the same Snapdragon 695 chipset and it obviously performs the same too.
You can play Genshin Impact at the lowest graphical settings but at the more intensive areas in the game, you’ll probably get somewhere around 20fps – which is going to be a horrible experience.
For lighter titles like Mobile Legends, then you’ll be fine. You can watch our previous gaming test on other phones that are also powered by the Snapdragon 695 to know more.
Cameras
And now comes the cameras. This is quite a doozy. You see, the camera bump makes it look like there are two big cameras, but there are only two usable cameras.
We also have a microscope camera that we’ll talk about in a while.
To have a look at all the pictures taken with the OPPO A98, watch our video at the top of this review.
Battery life
The battery life of this phone is actually quite good as well. Pretty much the same story as many other phones in the market today – 5,000mAh battery and we can get around 13 hours from our battery life test, just like other phones with the Snapdragon 695 chipset too.
Charging speed
The charging speed is also rather typical. It comes with a proprietary 67W charger in the box and can charge from 15% to completion in around 50 minutes while maintaining below 40°C. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Software
As for the software – well, I’ll have to say ColorOS is actually better than MIUI but the amount of bloatware is insane.
I am going to repeat myself again – we have the Hot Games and Hot Apps alongside OPPO’s own App Market which I will never use because we have the Google Play Store.
We also have a bunch of literal rubbish games that are included with the phone that we’ll have to delete ourselves.
But hey, OPPO does have the Shelf feature which I truly like. They could’ve made it so much better by letting us put home screen widgets onto the Shelf panel. That would elevate its usage by a lot.
Few more things to mention
And few more things to mention – obviously, this phone uses USB 2.0 at the bottom and still has an audio jack.
You can still place it in two SIM cards or a SIM card alongside a microSD.
Should you buy the OPPO A98?
Finally – to answer the question – should you buy the OPPO A98? Well, I do think that it has its own merits. ColorOS is indeed quite good and has its own specialty that I really like but the amount of bloatware is insane. Let’s not forget about the system ads pushed out by OPPO’s own App Market too.
The cameras though… as mentioned earlier – it’s situational. It’s okay in certain scenes, but once the brightness turns down, that’s when it struggles.
So, for the price of RM1,399, you be the judge. I think it’s still too expensive for what it has to offer.
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