The OPPO Mirror 5: does it really have the ‘Shining Edge’?
Chinese smartphone manufacturers have a definitive approach for selling their smartphones in the Indian market—all of them come equipped with myriad features and are priced very economically. Today, a number of new Chinese smartphones manufacturers like Gionee, UMI, Huawei, Elephone and OPPO are churning out better devices to meet the demands of the growing smartphone market in India.
However, bigger players like Samsung, Motorola, and LG, who regularly come up with feature-packed, value-for-money smartphones dominate the market as compared to most other low-cost smartphones. Most of the Chinese brands fall short when it comes to competing in terms of features with the bigger players in the Indian market. However, times are changing rapidly and even Chinese manufacturers are coming up with better quality handsets that have superior design, a decent configuration, various functionalities, and premium class looks.
One such device is the OPPO Mirror 5, which is the company’s first shot at the budget/mid-ranged segment. The handset is priced at Rs 15,990 and is available through several e-commerce websites. The device is avaialble in two colours: blue and white.
The most distinctive trait featured by the OPPO is its unique design and premium-build quality, especially the distinctive crystal patterned back panel. But does the Mirror 5 have the qualities to stand out amongst the horde of numerous budget smartphones available in India? Let’s find out:
The OPPO Mirror 5's unique prism-shaped pattern on the back panel gives it a premium feel
Design, dimensions, and usability:
If there is one area where the Mirror 5 manages to shine, literally, is it's crystal-patterned reflective back cover design, which is one of its USP. In fact, OPPO's R1X also sports the same design and both the devices look exactly identical.
However, one drawback to the shiny back panel is its tendency to accumulate fingerprints and the same applies to the front side of the device, which also tends to do the same. The phone has a pretty glossy finish, making it slippery and susceptible to frequent drops.
The Mirror 5 weighs around 160 grams and has a thickness of 7.7 mm, which makes the phone comfortable to handle. The bi-metallic frame on the sides not only compliment the design but also make the phone strurdy. The power button and volume rockers are well positioned along the sides of the phone and provide good response while usage.
A look at the heavily theme-based Color 2.1 OS Interface
Like most other smartphones, Mirror 5 also has an LED notification light on the top right along with a 5MP front-facing camera on the top left. The three capacitive keys at the bottom work fine but would have been better, if they were illuminated. At this price range, We expected the phone to have a good user experience, but sadly multi-tasking is a tad difficult as compared to the other smartphones in the same range.
Display:
The Mirror 5 sports a QHD TFT 5-inch display, which is decent and serves the purpose, but will leave you disappointed if you’re expecting a crystal-clear display. Also, the resolution on the device, which is just at 960x540 Pixels, is very low in comparison to what its competitors are offering today. Most phones in the budget segment offer either HD or Full HD displays and clearly this is another major downside of the Mirror 5.
Even though the phone has auto brightness adjustment, it is still a bit blurry under bright sunlight, and you have to manually adjust the settings to increase the brightness. Quite surprisingly, the device comes without Gorilla Glass protection, making the Mirror 5 highly prone to scratches. It would be ideal for you to put on a protective screen guard to avoid any scratches or fingerprints in future.
In terms of display, the handset comes with fewer features compared to its value, as there are numerous lower-priced smartphones, which offer better display and resolution.
Performance:
Every mobile user looks at certain aspects of a product before buying it. A wise man once said “ In the end, its only performance that matters” and when it comes to devices or gadgets, most users are primarily concerned about how a device performs. The OPPO Mirror 5 uses a Qualcomm 64 bit Snapdragon 410 clocked at 1.2 GHz, which is relatively low, as compared to other smartphones in the market who offer 615 chipsets in the same price range or less.
Some of the high-end apps and games take a little longer to load completely, but overall performance seems to be fine on this low-end processing unit. However, OPPO did manage to provide 2GB of RAM, which is enough to support the phone.
The OPPO Mirror 5 uses a Qualcomm 64 bit Snapdragon 410 chipset paried with 2GB of RAM
The Adreno 306 allows the Mirror 5 to run most games-on-demand without any lag, but struggles to run high-end games like WWE Immortals. In fact, the lower screen resolution plays a big part in maintaining a steady frame rate while playing fast-paced games such as Need For Speed.
After using the phone, it can be concluded that the Mirror 5 is capable of running and navigating between different apps with ease and is also capable of performing tasks such as clicking pictures, watching HD videos, and editing without any hiccups.
Hardware and battery support:
The Mirror 5 supports Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS and Bluetooth 4.0. The device supports 3G and 2G but there is no 4G LTE connectivity for the Indian variant, which is unacceptable for a phone priced above Rs 15,000. The handset comes with an internal storage of 16GB and is expandable up to 128GB.
The rear speaker of the Mirror 5 sounds pretty good with no distortion at all and it also supports all kinds of audio and video formats. Additional formats can be played using third party applications available of Google Play.
The Mirror 5’s 2420mAh non-replaceable battery is good for average usage but extensive usage will drain the full charge before you know it. If you are a power-user, chances are that you will crave for more battery life. Casual users, on the other hand, will not have any complains. In addition, the OPPO Mirror 5 will also heat up really fast if you keep on multi-tasking on the device for more than 30 minutes at a stretch.
The phone also features a Super Power Saving mode apart from the usual power-saving mode, which lets you save that little bit extra charge during emergency situations. The Super Power Saving kills the running apps, dims the display, turns of networking and few others to help extend the Mirror 5's battery life. Overall, the handset is backed by decent hardware specifications, but not enough to give the bigger players a run for their money.
Camera:
The OPPO Mirror 5's rear camera has a 8MP sensor with single LED flash and a 5MP front shooter, which is surprisingly good for its price tag. The camera comes packed with all the usual camera settings, including Panorama, Face detection, night mode and HDR. They have incorporated another interesting feature—the beauty face—for enhancing the quality of the image. The Mirror 5 also lets you create Gifs.
Images clicked during the day are pretty sharp, have high-quality colour contrast and the images are not at all over exposed. The single Led flash helps clicking good, sharp images even during the night. However, an image does appear under exposed under low light conditions without the flash. The phone’s 5MP front shooter along with manifold editing options helps the users take good selfies.
The image on the left shows the low light capabilities of the Mirror 5 while the image on the right shows the handset's capability during the day (Click on the pictures to view original size)
In addition, the Mirror 5 is capble of taking good videos in full HD resolution (1080p), allowing you to record quality videos on the move.
Software and additional features:
The OPPO Mirror 5 runs on a Color 2.0.1i OS that is closely based on the Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop). The Color OS replaces a lot of stock android functions including settings, multi-tasking menu, launcher, and the lock screen. The OS is pretty interactive, fun to use and supports a wide array of themes, widgets, and interface optimizations.
One of the best offering of the Color OS is the gestures and motions options that it offers. The gestures provided include double tap to wake, pinch to open camera, draw ‘O’ to start camera, gesture screenshot, volume adjustment using gestures and many more.
Some of the additional integrated features worth mentioning are the eye protection display that filters out the blue light, which is somewhat harmful for the eye. Another interesting feature of the OPPO Mirror 5 is its smart remote control functionality (IR port), which allows you to control multiple home appliances.
Verdict:
The OPPO Mirror 5 has a number of strengths: a unique design, good device audio quality and a fun user interface. However, the number of cons weigh much more as the Mirror 5 fails to deliver important features such as a good display resolution, powerful chipset. Moreover, the Mirror 5 priced unusually higher than other smartphones with similar configurations. For example, the Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime is priced at less than half the price of the Mirror 5 with slightly better specifications. OPPO seems to have priced the Mirror 5 in the upper segment due to its premium looks.
Compared to some of the devices in the same price category such as the Lenovo K3 Note, Asus Zenfone and the Xiaomi Mi 4i, the OPPO Mirror 5 is up for a very tough compitetion in the market.
