OPPO F19 Review – Who Said Fashionable Cannot Be Functional

OPPO refreshes most of its smartphones pretty fast. The F17 series arrived in September last year and now, we have the F19 series. Spearheading it is the standard OPPO F19 which is a popular Sub-20k INR smartphone with a blend of mixed specifications and experience alike. The smartphone has a Pro and a Pro Plus variant too although F19 is currently the cheapest in the F19 series.

Check Out: Recycle Your Old Phone, Get Rewarded!

It brings on-board a large battery, faster charging, an AMOLED display, and a few other quirks while cutting back on most of the departments. That’s why a hands-on review is a must that reveals a smartphone’s practical standing against its specs sheet that can be impressive yet fail to impress in reality.

Here’s a detailed review that you must read along with to know more.

OPPO F19 is available in India on Flipkart at Rs.18,990/- for its sole 6GB + 128GB storage. Two-colour variants i.e. Prism Black and Midnight Blue are available here and both look quite fancy. Flipkart is also running an exchange offer with up to Rs 18,000/- off on eligible smartphones. Then, there are plenty of other deals such as 10 per cent off on using HDFC Bank CC or CC/DC EMI, 10 per cent instant discount on using HDFC CC, Credit EMI, and DC Non-EMI transactions among others.

The first look at the box of the OPPO F19 is quite appealing. It comes with a Purple box packing with F19 imprinted on it. The box contents also get interesting with:

• OPPO F19 Midnight Blue
• USB Type C Cable
• 3.5 mm earphones
• SIM Ejector tool
• Clear protective case
• User Guide and Warranty information

Before we talk in detail about the OPPO F19, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 6.43-inch (16.3cm) FHD+ AMOLED Punch-hole Display
• Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 662
• Storage: 6GB/128GB
• Software: Color OS 11.1 based on Android v11.0
• Rear cameras: 48MP Quad Camera ( 48MP Main + 2MP Wide Angle Macro + 2MP Macro Mono Lens) 
• Selfie camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh, 33W Flash Charge
• Weight: 175g
• Dimensions: 160.3 x 73.8 x 8 mm

OPPO F19 shares the same design DND as its siblings F19 Pro and F19 Pro Plus. OPPO F19 is at a sweet spot of weight at 175 grams which is something many of its recent smartphones have arrived at. It makes the device both lightweight and slim to hold so that you don’t have to stretch your palm to accommodate the mammoth of a device at 6.43-inch AMOLED display. The front stretches from top to bottom with tiny bezels although there’s a bit of trade-off with the thicker chin.

You can check out the Prism Black and Midnight Blue colour variants and both look fantastic especially when light reflects them. But hey, it’s glossy, and thus, getting smudgy and prone to fingerprint marks is not a big deal for it. Try a phone case (a transparent one if you want to flaunt it) that will save you from constantly wiping the back panel.

OPPO F19 ditches the ultrawide snapper which is one of the attractions on many of its rivals. Instead, it uses a clear and clutter-free triple camera setup with sensors arranged in a vertical stack while the entire is in a sweet rectangular camera bump. You get a power button on the right, a volume rocker, and a triple SIM card slot on the left. Next up, you get a Type-C port, a headphone jack, a bottom-firing loudspeaker, and a set of microphones for voice reception.

Also Check: Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

You will fall in love with OPPO F19 once you see it, although some trade-offs may not be something you would like and for that, you will have to reach further.

OPPO F19 uses an AMOLED 6.43-inch Infinity-O panel with 1080×2400 pixels resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio. The display churns out 430 nits of typical and 800 nits of peak brightness. These were some figures, now let’s talk about its practical usage.

OPPO F19 uses a 60Hz standard refresh rate panel. Although there’s no issue having a 60Hz panel, there are a few options you can try with a higher refresh rate below Rs.20,000 price tag such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max that has a 120Hz AMOLED panel. With the lack of a higher refresh rate, you are stuck with a standard display that refreshes at a standard pace and good for those who are hailing from devices that had it. If you are moving into F19 from a device with a 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate, you will feel that the display doesn’t have that smoothness in transitions and animations.

Check Out: Affordable Doorstep Mobile Screen Repair

In any case, the F19 does have a display with vibrant colours and it looks good. OPPO got rid of a waterdrop-shaped notch for a punch-hole cut-out and depending upon whom you ask, it is either great or bad. The brightness recorded on the device is a peak of 800 nits which is great for viewing in daylight. For context, it is almost the same brightness that the flagship Vivo X60 Pro Plus was able to achieve.

Users can play content at up to 1080p so anything on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and a bunch of other OTT and video streaming platforms looks great. You will get deeper blacks with F19 which is a case in point of having an AMOLED display so at least OPPO got that right. Display on F19 is certainly one of the selling points of the device although with a few caveats too.

OPPO F19 packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 SoC manufactured on an 11nm node. It is an octa-core setup with four high-performance 2.0GHz cores and four 1.8GHz battery-efficient cores. The device has an Adreno 610 GPU and comes packed with 6GB+128GB storage.

For the uninitiated, this is the same chipset as that of last year’s OPPO F17 which means, you are expecting almost the same performance as earlier. In fact, the chipset underperforms when compared to Snapdragon 732 and MediaTek Dimensity 800 among others.

You can still do all your day-to-day tasks such as calling, messaging, emailing, and so on without any hassle. However, apps take longer to open thanks to the SD662, and switching between multiple apps is not smooth either. I was very disappointed to know that F19 was using an SD662 SoC when in fact, OPPO F17 already had it. A bit of upgrade could have solved F19 performance issues for better.

Also Read: OPPO F19 Pro Plus Quick Review

You can still play high-end games but clocking it to medium settings would give you the best results if not high settings. Turning on low settings does cause the graphics and frame rate to drop, however, it is comparatively smooth. The touch response rate on OPPO F19 rises to 180Hz when the Game Mode is enabled.

OPPO F19 is powered by ColorOS 11.1 backed by Android 11. It is OPPO’s custom skin and offers a few customizations and a bunch of features. It does arrive with some useful (and some unwanted) pre-installed apps. ColorOS is a lot colourful, it has a dark mode, the ability to customize fonts, themes, as well as personalized AOD designs among other features that you would instantly fall in love with.

About the optics, OPPO F19 arrives with a triple camera setup at the back. It houses against 48MP primary sensor with two 2MP sensors for macro and depth while the front houses a 16MP snapper. Unfortunately, the Oppo F19 doesn’t have an ultrawide snapper because, somehow, Oppo thought it would be good. The primary snapper can capture images that are far more vibrant, colourful, and full of details compared to the F17’ 16MP sensor The dynamic range is not so good across the sensor, and the shots in indoor lighting may have a softness to it.

When you activate night mode which is something you would have to do at night, it captures more light and brightens up the scene a bit. Shots at night are filled with noise and it takes ages to process it. Shots captured using a flash look dark as well.

The macro sensor does click more than average shots although colours are washed out in some scenes. The background colour and subject separation are on point which is a good addition.

Talking about the front camera, the device does capture quality shots with excellent colours although the selfies are oversharpened at times. In true essence, capturing images on OPPO F19 in the daytime is bliss while nighttime photography is something it struggles a lot.

Talking about the video recording capabilities, both front and rear cameras are locked at a max of 1080p@30fps. Overall, I would say the camera rig on OPPO F19 is average and it doesn’t do anything better to be highlighted.

OpPPO F19 packs in a ginormous 5,000 mAh battery paired with 33W fast charging tech. The battery lasts for a day on moderate to light usage although you can take it to the next day with light to moderate usage for sure. It takes an hour of gaming, daily activities and a couple of hours of streaming on data, the battery life comes to 20 to 30 per cent after a day.

Read More: Affordable Mobile Battery Replacement at Doorstep

The 33W fast charging tech requires an hour and 10 minutes at max to fully juice it up to its capacity. Note that the processor isn’t that efficient and puts strain on the battery even when on standby. Thus, OPPO could have included a faster charging tech or a better processor to cope up with the shortcomings.

I tested the single bottom-firing loudspeaker on-board OPPO F19 and it is loud, to be honest. It produces a sound that is average in quality and the bass is absent so you will notice a bit of hollowness in the output as well. But given its price tag, I would say I wouldn’t complain about it so far.

Connectivity features on Oppo F19 include a USB Type-C 2.0 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi 802.11 a /b/g/n/ac dual-band and Bluetooth v5.0 with LE, aptX, and A2DP support. The device also supports Galileo, Glonass, BDS, and A-GPS navigation systems as well as an FM radio.

OPPO F19 has the usual Pattern and PIN lock if you want or you can activate the under-display fingerprint scanner which is lightning fast. It is reliable and unlocks your phone before you can blink your eyes. If you are downgrading from a flagship-level smartphone, you are likely to notice it is comparatively slower than a flagship phone but rest everything is fine.

Even the facial recognition system is super fast and lets you unlock the phone in just a second. Simply press the button, point the front camera towards your face, and bingo, the phone is unlocked.

Pros

• Large 6.43-inch AMOLED display
• 6GB RAM + 128GB internal storage
• 33W Flash Charge
• 48Mp triple-rear camera setup
• 16MP selfie camera
• Android 11 with ColorOS 11.1 skin on top

Cons

• No Gorilla Glass protection
• No dust and water resistance
• Standard 60Hz refresh rate
• No 5G connectivity