After making a successful intrusion in the mobile phone market in 2008, OPPO has been raising its bars when it comes to crafting premium class, budget smartphones. From 2014, the consumer electronics giants have been incessantly flooding the Indian smartphone marketplace with enhanced handsets that feature a horde of high-end customisations combined with potent chipsets.
Some of OPPO’s earlier releases like the OPPO N1, Mirror 5, R5, and the Find 7 were rather impressive, considering the price per utility ratio. After making their presence felt in China, the company has been persistently trying to make an imprint on Indian smartphone market.
Now OPPO has always laid high importance on the design aspect of a handset, which is irrefutably the second most indispensable factor, the first being performance. After the OPPO R7 proved to be a good mid-ranged device in the market, let’s see how it’s bigger brother—the R7 Plus—performs.
We have been playing around with the R7 Plus for a week; now it’s time to share our experiences about this ‘enormous phablet’ with you.
Design: The OPPO R7 Plus has a fabulous overall design and certainly gives an elegant feel when you hold this unibody device. The metallic body gracefully ends at the sides with rounded-off edges, making the handset look even more eye-catching. In fact, this handset looks exactly like a bigger adaptation of the R7.
The OPPO R7 features a sleek and graceful design
If you are a person who likes phablets or large devices, the mid-ranged R7 Plus can be a really good option. However, if you are more of an on-the-go user, the R7 Plus might not be alluring at all.
Even with its 7.8mm thickness, users might find it really difficult to hold this abnormally large handset using one hand. Another downside of the R7 Plus is the smooth finish, which makes it very slippery and vulnerable to drops.
The volume keys are placed traditionally like most other smartphones, and the power key is located on the right. Beside the power key is the external microSD card slot. On the front side, you can find the LED notification light on the top right corner just above the screen along with a proximity sensor, and the 8MP front shooter. Additionally, the fingerprint scanner is placed ideally on the backside of the device along with the rear camera set-up, and a single speaker.
Display: The OPPO R7 sports a massive 6-inch Super AMOLED HD display, but the 1080p resolution doesn’t bring out its true essence. You might often see signs of pixilation; however, the 367ppi pixel density is pretty good for viewing texts and all other media. When it comes to viewing the device from various angles, brightness, and color enhancement; the OPPO R7 performs significantly well.
OPPO R7's features a 6-inch HD AMOLED Display
Performance: In terms of performance, the core of the R7 Plus is identical to that of the smaller R7. A Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor along with 3GB RAM powers the device. Although, the RAM in the R7 Plus has downgraded from R7’s 4GB RAM, you won’t be able to spot any difference in performance. Combined with the smart ColorOS customisations, the handset performs slightly faster in terms of booting and app launching.
The OPPO R7 Plus is powerd by a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor along with 3GB RAM
After comprehensively using the phone, there is no doubt that it can perform adroitly without any hiccups. All applications run very smoothly on the device and gaming on the R7 Plus is amazing especially due to its large display. All highly configured and latest game titles run seamlessly, however, it does heat up if you keep on playing for 30 minutes or more at a stretch. Sure the phone heats up, but gladly, you won’t find any instances of over-heating.
Hardware and Battery life: The OPPO R7 Plus includes all significant hardware components found in other smartphones in the same price bracket—Blutooth, Wi-Fi, and 4G. Storage capacity is admirable: internal storage capacity of 32GB and an external microSD storage support of 128GB, which is more than enough to serve the storage needs of an average user. One of the snags in terms of hardware is the single speaker on the rear, which fails to strike an appropriate equilibrium between bass and treble. OPPO could have easily added dual speakers considering the handset’s price tag.
The Fingerprint scanner is one of the striking featues on the R7 PLus
The most attractive piece of hardware on the R7 Plus is a fingerprint scanner, which is gradually becoming a common feature in mid and high ranged smartphones manufactured these days. The scanner reacts reasonably quickly and is located just beneath the rear camera—an ideal spot to place the scanner.
Today, one of the most important things people seek in a smartphone is long battery life. Charging the phone over and over again is an unpleasant activity, and users hate it! OPPO has been really upbeat on this front with the addition of a 4,100maH battery. Honestly, one full charge is enough for the R7 Plus to last a day or even more. Another amazing aspect is the fast VOOC charging capability, which is an ideal addition for a device as big as this. A charge of roughly 30 minutes is enough for it to last at least half a day.
Camera: The 13-megapixel-rear camera sensor accompanied by a single LED flash on the R7 Plus is great for clicking pictures. With an aperture of f/2.2, laser auto focus, and a multitude of other picture optimisation applications, image quality for enhancing image quality. The 8MP front-shooter is pretty decent for standard video calls and selfies.
This image was shot in three different modes-- The first one is UltraHD followed by a regular shot and the last image was taken with Flash enabled (Click for enlarged image)
A few smaple images clicked in various light conditions using the OPPO R7 Plus
During the daytime, the camera is works like a charm, churning out sharp Images that are high on colour detail. Additionally, dynamic range, slow shutter image capturing capabilities further elevates the camera.
Moving on to its low light competence, the results are unbelievably good. Even though the shutter speed decreases, OPPO’s RGBW sensor enhances light sensitivity and greatly diminishes noise.
One of the camera traits worth mention is the Ultra HD mode—images clicked on this mode significantly enhance details, and Image sizes can go up to 10 MB. Other camera software includes slow-shutter, live filters, panorama, HDR, beautify for selfies and many more.
Software: The stock R7 Plus runs on a ColorOS 2.1, which is basically Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with a heavily customised interface. The earlier R7 ran on an Android 4.4 Kitkat OS. However, you won’t find any noticeable difference between the two, as the ColorOS shields every interface aspect of Android. All the apps are placed on the home screen and there is no additional menu. The UI is exceptionally user-friendly, really simple to use, and looks delightful.
OPPO R7's UI is really attractive and user friendly
There are a lot of additional camera settings to enhance image quality
Gaming graphics on the OPPO R7 Plus is very good
OPPO's handy gestures feature can save a lot of time
Moreover, OPPO customarily included its gestures feature, helping users to draw a variety of pre-loaded or customised gestures, which might come in handy a times.
Pricing and Conclusion: After determining all the aspects, we feel that the this handset will face a very tough competition in the market, as bigger players like Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus and even Xiaomi are offering similar phones at lower prices. Priced at almost Rs 30,000 (Rs 29,990), the device is a bit expensive, but with its metal body frame, large battery capacity, and feature-packed camera; the value of the R7 Plus seems quite justified.
You will love the OPPO R7 Plus if you use your device frequently to watch movies, read, and play games. However, it is not at all recommended for users who have to constantly use their phone constantly on the go. Even though the handset is not physically available in India, you can still find it online on selected online websites.
