OPPO A95 Review: Cool Looking Phone For The Meta Crowd
November 15, 2021Packed with AI features, the A95 is trying to punch above its weight class
Performance: Qualcomm Snapdragon 662, 8GB RAM
Main Display: 6.43-inch Punch-Hole AMOLED (1080 x 2400)
Dimensions: 160.3 x 73.8 x 8 mm
Weight: 175g
Storage: 128GB
Battery: 5,000mAh
Features: 1080p
Rear Camera: 48MP (Wide), 2MP (Marco), 2MP (Depth)
Front Camera: 16MP
Rating: 7.5/10
Price: RM 1,099.00
When it comes to mid-range devices, OPPO never seizes to amaze us. The company seems to painstakingly craft each model to look as impressive as its flagship line-up. This includes its entire range of devices such as the A74 4G, A74 5G and Reno6 Z 5G. The same can be said of its newly launched A95, a mid-ranger with flagship-like appeal.
The phone is packed with all kinds of AI wizardry from memory management to image processing capabilities. It relies on said software to compensate for the shortcomings of its mediocre hardware. On paper, the A95 isn’t dissimilar from the humble A74. But I digress.
Design
At just 8mm thick, it’s one of the slimmest phones that OPPO makes. The wafer-thin dimensions give it a slender profile that make it extremely convenient to carry. It’s thin in spite of having a 5,000mAh battery. The rear shell, which is made from plastic, has an interesting look. It exhibits a sandstone finish with both matte and glossy reflective textures. The company refers to this effect as the “Glow Design”.
It’s something that you wouldn’t normally see on a mid-range device. And as a result, the black color scheme has a deep and vibrant hue that exudes flagship-like appeal. Complementing this is the gold OPPO logo at the bottom. The rectangular camera array protrudes out of the case, and it too features a similar finish. But it and the camera lenses are kept protected by a sheet of plastic that encapsulates the entire block.
The phone borrows quite a bit from the A74’s aesthetics, which isn’t a bad thing. The entire look is in keeping with OPPO’s A-series design language but the way that the company has made good use of the color scheme and material textures, help set the A95 apart from the rest of its brethren.
At first glance, this phone screams “premium” quality. It will easily stand out from the sea of boring beige smartphones of its segment. The rear shell curves towards the edges as it meets the similarly colored metal frame. Together, they give the phone a deep sinister look that is not only cool at look at, but masks a substantial number of fingerprints.
At the front, is a familiar looking 6.4-inch AMOLED display that offers a 1080p resolution. It has a 60Hz refresh rate, so don’t expect the same buttery smooth performance exhibited by the A74 5G’s 90Hz panel. That said, it performs on par with panels of the same refresh rate, which is nothing to write home about. There’s a hole punch at the extreme left to accommodate the selfie camera. It’s an ideal location because it doesn’t distract you from what’s going on.
Practicality
Since its only 8mm thick and weighs just 175g, it slips into any pocket easily. Throughout the day, you barely notice that it’s there. And unlike the competition, it doesn’t create a jarring pocket bulge as you walk about. From a safety standpoint, it would be best to fit this phone with a silicone case. Since its incredibly slim, it will slip out of your hands, easily.
It measures 160.3 x 73.8 x 8 mm in dimensions, which is about the same as that of the A74. but at this point, it’s difficult to say with confidence that the casings meant for the A74 will fit snugly over it. But one thing is certain, it has the same blisteringly quick under screen fingerprint sensor. It can accurately pick up your fingerprint within a second of you touching it.
Once you turn on convenience functions such as lift to wake, the sensor is primed to receive your fingerprint just as you pick the phone up. Other convenience tools include gestures & motions, where swiping your fingers or moving the phone in a certain way activates various functions. Split screen and Smart Sidebar allow you to multitask with relative ease.
In fact, this is an area where OPPO has the competition beat. The plethora of shortcuts, gesture support and quick access panels make its phones some of the easiest to use. The A95 and A74 are prime examples of this. The UI, ColorOS 11.1 which is based on Android 11, is designed in a way that is self-explanatory.
Through the use of common sense, you should be able navigate your way through its various menus and features without stumbling. If for some reason you can’t find what you’re looking for, then just access the search bar and type the keyword of your query. Since OPPO employs a common-sense type naming scheme, you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for, in an instant.
From time to time, helpful pop-up screens show up to inform you of new functions as well as those related to what you’re doing. Others including apps and RAM management help to ensure that you have enough resources to get things done. Game Booster works within the OS to ensure that enough power is allocated to said gaming for the duration of its use.
A helpful bar shows up to notify you of how much of your hardware is in use and what is currently available to run a game. Each time, you close a group of apps saved in memory, the UI notifies you of much RAM has been freed as a result of said action. It’s these little tidbits of information that keep you assured that the phone is working to keep you happy.
Performance
OPPO has given the phone a Snapdragon 662 chipset, which is the same hardware in its cousin the A74. While it may not be an absolute powerhouse, the 662 is more than capable of handling light to medium tasks and workloads. We’ve tested its abilities extensively and have come to the conclusion that it is more than sufficient for most people.
But you will notice bottlenecking when playing demanding gaming titles or opening multiple RAM heavy apps at once. But if you use your phone to browse social media content and chat on various apps, you won’t notice anything amiss. The phone does lag occasionally because the 662 chipset does need a little time to get up to speed, but this doesn’t happen that often.
OPPO has given the phone a RAM booster. On top of the 8GB RAM that’s available, the software can supplement that with another 5GB that can be reserved from the onboard storage. It’s a clever way of compensating for the hardware ceiling limit. But in reality, it’s rare that you’ll need more than 8GB RAM to handle most tasks.
In the company’s own words, the RAM expansion software is “specially developed to lower frame loss rate, reduce memory frag, and improve data reading performance.” Despite this, we didn’t notice major performance gains during our review period. The phone performed on par with that of the A74 and other phones of its ilk.
Cameras
The A95’s rear has a trio of cameras. The Main 48MP sensor is responsible for taking some pretty brilliant shots. But most of the credit has to be attributed to the clever AI software. It is able to identify a scene, prime the exposure and contrast to ensure you get a crisp and vibrant shot. It works most of the time, but it tends to overdo it on occasion.
The AI can accurately determine grass, other types of greenery, flowers, buildings and various other structures. Then it tweaks the camera settings for the best outcome possible. Its magic is in compensating for low lighting conditions. Somehow, despite poor appalling poor lighting, pictures that are captured look bright and sharp.
I’m completely dumbfounded by this. You don’t have to try to take great shots, the A95 will accomplish this on its own, your purpose is just to point the camera in the right direction, hold still and take the shot. Night Mode, takes this feature up a notch. After a photo is captured, some post-processing takes place in the background to adjust said image’s attributes.
Most of the time, pictures that are captured look clean and clear, something which is supposed to be impossible to accomplish with a mid-range device. But the OPPO A95 does this reliably for just about any lighting conditions. It tries to make do with whatever lighting that’s available at that moment, to make sure that you get the best results.
Sometimes the software is a little too aggressive, which results in shots that have too much contrast or are slightly out of focus. To ensure that the AI scene optimizer is working as it should, make sure that you ask it to focus on the area of interest. That way, it will know what you’d like to capture and adjusts the camera settings accordingly.
I ended up getting completely blown out images because I assumed that the phone knew what to do. While that might be true for most cases, sometimes, when there’s too much shrubbery in the background, the AI software has a difficult time choosing what’s important.
The lack of proper image stabilization doesn’t bode well for video recording. Though the software is able to compensate for light shakes, it can’t work miracles for the incredibly rough stuff. This isn’t the type of phone that you capture action shots with. It’s best left to nature stuff, family gathering and other static video recording sessions. But you can go crazy when it comes to photography.
This strength encompasses the phone’s entire selling point. It’s the device for people who love to snap photos and instantly share them on social media. It takes the tedium out of photo editing because it has already done the work for you. The same is true of its 16MP selfie camera. The AI focuses on your face and applies filters to ensure that you skin looks good.
It also allows you to make other “artificial” adjustments to tweak your features such as those to make your eyes look bigger, for your face to look thinner or adjust the size of your chin. It can’t work miracles here, but it does enough to accomplish the intended result.
Battery Life
The phone has a 5,000mAh battery which gives you at least one and half days of use without needing to recharge. Since it only has a 1080p, 60Hz display, power drain isn’t much of an issue here. With light to moderate use, you could get the battery to last for about 2 whole days.
Since the phone supports 33W fast charging, you should receive about 54% charge in just 30 minutes. This means that it needs to spend slightly over an hour connected to a charger to get to 100%. This negates the need to keep the phone charging overnight. Just plug it in when you get up in the morning, and the device should be fully charged by the time you’re ready to leave the house.
Should You Buy This?
If you’re looking for a mid-range phone that takes great pictures, then this is the device for you. The AI software is incredibly adept at making sure that you enjoy smooth performance and that your photos come out crips and vibrant. But its Snapdragon 662 is still the limiting factor. It’s best suited to light to medium workloads.
Games like Subway Surfer, Johnny Trigger and other arcade-like titles should run smoothly. More demanding stuff like GTA Vice City is still playable but you will constantly be dropping frames. All things considered, the OPPO A95 is a great mid-range device for the average Joe. It is relatively affordable yet is able to deliver on most fronts.
