Hardware

Published on May 18th, 2020 | by Andrew Bistak

OPPO A91 Review

OPPO A91 Review Andrew Bistak
Score

Summary: OPPO A91 is excellent value for money and supports a great camera system.

4.5

Value 4 monery!


While the OPPO A91 is a mid-range phone, it’s definitely on the upper end when it comes to its overall build quality and impressive features. The A91 measures at 160.2 x 73.3 x 7.9 mm with a weight of just 172 grams and it’s also a slimline smartphone with a 6.4″ FHD AMOLED display that boasts a resolution of 2400 x 1800 and super sturdy Corning Gorilla Glass 5.  Under the glass is a super responsive finger print reader and it even has an always-on setting.

Furthermore, the phone is powered the 12nm MediaTek MT6771V/CT Helio P70 which boasts eight cores(4×2.1 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×2.0 GHz Cortex-A53) with 8GB of RAM and a very generous 128GB of storage that is expandable to up 256GB. OPPO has also been known for photography and the A91 is no exception in terms of quality thanks to its camera system that is made up of quad cameras on the back, 48 MP (Primary), 8 MP + 2MP +2 MP (Primary) plus a 16 MP Secondary camera or selfie-camera with a plethora of photography filters.

Add in a 4025 mAh battery with VOCC Flash Charge 3.0 and this phone will be charged in no time and in 5 minutes, it will give you 11% of battery (2 hour of talk), whereas in 30 minutes, you’ll get 52% and a full charge is just under 60 minutes. It also has all the wireless standards for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the like, so rest assured that this product will access networks without any issues. Add in all sensors that include accelerometer, gyro, gravity, proximity, eCompass plus ambient light and the A91 is more than just your standard smartphone.

Unboxing Photos
 

Out of the box, the first thing that I noticed was its professional build quality that truly screams high-end. It also feels quite sturdy and has a very narrow bezel around the phone. OPPO also give you everything you need to get your phone started such as a charger, earphones and even a protective case. When powered up, the phone had a 60% charge, so that allowed us to complete the setup process.

Setup O/S Photos

As you can see below, the set-up of the OPPO A91 is a very straight forward process thanks to the wizard that not only links your phone to Google but allows you to transfer existing information from another phone that includes both Android and iPhone. While the phone uses Android, it has an additional layer over this operating system called Color OS 6.1 that gives the user some additional features to make using this smartphone a smoother experience.

Highlights

  • 0.32s In-Display Fingerprint, Unlock at the speed of light.
    Speedier and safer. Unlock in a whopping one-third of a second with In-Display Fingerprint 3.0. What’s more, A91’s new sensor uses a special filter that maximizes sensitivity to detail, protecting against fake fingerprints.
  • FHD+ AMOLED Screen, 2400×1080 pixels of brilliance
    Immersive yourself in the AMOLED FHD+ Screen sharp 2400 × 1080 resolution. Watch Youtube, Netflix and Amazon Prime videos in full HD with the Widevine L1 Certificate. Gorilla Glass 5 -Corning Gorilla Glass 5 provides sturdy protection against falls with 80% of tested screens surviving 1.6 meter drops
  • 48MP Wide Angle – Macro Quadcam, Play up your close up or afar.
    OPPO A91’s Quad Camera features a 48MP sensor that uses 4-in-1 pixel combination technology to deliver sharp images with more detail, especially in low light conditions.
  • 119° Ultra Wide Angle
    Wide Angle not only lets you easily capture more people in big group settings, but also lets you take a step back, bringing tall buildings and architecture into your view.
  • EIS Anti-Shake – Steady videos on the move.
    Steady short videos just got a whole lot easier on-the-go. Capture sharper and clearer videos even when running with EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) combined with an internal gyroscope.
  • All New AI Beautification Algorithm – We believe natural is more beautiful.
    A whole new beautification algorithm takes beautiful skin to the next level, giving you more natural and refined skin than ever without over brightening the complexion. Plus, AI beautification, gender detection, and multi-person selfies bring more features to beautification than ever before.
  • Portrait Bokeh Effects
    Background blurs so you’re in the spotlight. And now blurring is adjustable to your viewing pleasure.
  • 8GB + 128GB, The world in your hands.
    A91’s best-in-series high-speed memory ensures faster performance, while 128GB big storage gives you enough memory to play up your world.

The audio quality produced by the phone was good and it does support 3.5mm audio input that you can use the included earbuds with or use something a little superior thanks to Bluetooth like true wireless. As mentioned earlier, this phone is quite responsive and we had no slowdown issues at all while using it.

Benchmarking & Games

Like our other reviews, we checked the A91 with some benchmarking apps and as guessed, it scored around the midrange level. Gaming was good as well that played titles such as Call of Duty Mobile, Grid Autosport and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius to name a few of the titles we checked. Oh… if you want a slight power-up for games, the phone boasts a game boost mode that helps reduce latency and increases refresh rates that in theory give you a slightly faster game.

Camera(s)

The camera system behind the A91 is very impressive for the price range of this smartphone and while we are in COVID-19 lockdowns (we had limit photo exploring scope), the images that we did take were sharp, vibrant with bright colours. Whether indoors, low-lighting or outdoors, the camera didn’t skip a beat and successfully took a wide gamut of photos, even very clear macro shots. With low-light and night shots, you may need some tweaking to get the best show but the default settings work surprisingly well.

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Final Thoughts?

The OPPO A91 is an impressive smartphone from this company that is jam packed with value from high quality lenses to make your photos look amazing. While it does struggle in low-light, this is generally expected of smartphones but thankfully OPPO have included some clever night options, including great filters to make your photos pop. It also feels like a highend smartphone and the screen quality is fantastic that is sharp with very vibrant colours. I also like OPPO’s fast charging system that powers this beast quite quickly and while the CPU isn’t the fastest around, we had no issues with speed or even gaming for that matter.

For more information or to purchase, please visit https://www.oppo.com/au/smartphone-a91/


About the Author

When he's not trying to save the world, Andrew enjoys travel (although loathes turbulence), going to the movies, reading and being a dad to his two dogs (and now twins) with his wife.



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