Oppo A71 (2018) first impression: Will AI Beauty feature make the phone competitive

The main USP of the Oppo A71 (2018) is that it comes equipped with an upgraded AI Beauty Technology.

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Oppo A71 Unboxing

Chinese phone maker Oppo on Monday launched the Oppo A71 (2018) in India at Rs. 9,990. It is the same smartphone that was launched in Pakistan earlier this month, but with a different RAM configuration. The Oppo A71 (2018) in India carries 3GB RAM. Available in Black and Rose Gold color options, the smartphone can be purchased via various online platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

 
Oppo A71 (2018) first impression

Just like most of the other Oppo phones, the A71 (2018) is also a selfie-focused smartphone. As such, the main USP of the device is that it comes equipped with an upgraded AI Beauty Technology. While there are some other phones with similar features, this is not something you see very often in phones under Rs. 10K.

Having said that, while we reserve our final verdict for later on when we review the device, we spent some time with the new Oppo A71 (2018) to give you a first look and hands-on of the same.

Design and Display
 

Design and Display

To start with the design, the new Oppo A71 (2018) has the exact same appearance as the original Oppo A71 that was launched in 2017. The smartphone's rear panel is made of metal with the U-shaped fused antenna band lying at the extreme top and bottom edges. Since the antenna lines are not that visible, the device looks clean. The edges of the smartphone are slightly curved, so it fits perfectly in your hand.

The Oppo A71 (2018) is fitted with a 5.2-inch HD screen. Instead of featuring the trending 18:9 aspect ratio, the display has the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. The bezels are also pretty thick. The smartphone doesn't have any physical button at the front. However, there is a virtual home button, back button and an app switcher button on the lower bezel.

The upper bezel houses the selfie camera, earpiece and the sensor. The left side of the phone has the volume rockers, whereas the right side houses the power button and the SIM tray. At the bottom edge, you get a standard micro-USB port and the speaker grille. At the top, there is a 3.5mm audio jack.

Coming to the rear panel, the Oppo A71 (2018) has a single camera with LED flash towards the top left corner. If you go a little south, you can see the Oppo branding. Weighing at just 137 grams, the device is pretty easy to carry.

As stated, the smartphone comes with a 5.2 HD TFT display. Although the display offers HD resolution, the colors look pretty vibrant. And the texts also look sharp. We are yet to test the legibility of the display in sunlight, but our full review will include that.

The smartphone doesn't feature a fingerprint scanner, so setting passwords or lock patterns are your only options.

Hardware and Performance

Hardware and Performance

Well, the Oppo A71 (2018) is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor that contains eight 64-bit processing cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. The chipset is coupled with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The storage space can be further expanded up to 256GB using a microSD card.

In our brief stint with the phone, we didn't notice any any lags or stutter while browsing through the phone or while opening and closing the apps. That said, we didn't play any games and we were not using several applications at the same time. So how the device performs in the long run remains to be seen. We will publish a detailed review regarding this in the coming days.

One thing that impressed us is the audio quality of the smartphone. The external speaker volume is quite loud, and the sound is clear.

 Software, Battery and Connectivity

Software, Battery and Connectivity

Well, the Oppo A71 (2018) runs on custom ColorOS 3.2, which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat. The UI looks neat as the app icons are not gimmicky. So even you have not used an Oppo phone before, you should have any problem with the phone's UI.

The smartphone packs a 3,000mAh battery inside, which can last a day on moderate usage. For us, it lasted for a more than a day on a single charge, though we didn't watch videos for a long time or played games. Interestingly, the smartphone comes with OTG function so it can be used to charge other devices as well.

The dual-SIM smartphone offers connectivity options like 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.2, and GPS. Sensors on board include Proximity Sensor, Light Sensor, Accelerator Sensor and E-compass.

 

Cameras

Cameras

On the imagery front, the Oppo A71 (2018) sports a 13MP rear camera with f/2.2 aperture and LED flash. The rear camera is said to come with a Multi-Frame Denoising Technology that reduces noise for providing a better night photography experience. Further, the camera app has an Ultra HD feature that combines multiple burst photos into one, so pictures taken on the 13MP rear camera look in effect like 32MP. However, we were not impressed with the main camera performance. Pictures captured in daylight turn out to be decent, but the images taken under low-light conditions are grainy.

Coming to the front, there is a 5MP sensor with an aperture size of f/2.4. The front camera offers Bokeh Effect, which we tried. Well, the Bokeh Effect is alright, but it is not something outstanding.

The front camera is also equipped with Oppo-specific AI Beauty Recognition technology, which is claimed to capture more than 200 facial features, makes face recognition more accurate and beauty retouching more refined.

Again the selfie camera failed to make any positive impact. The much-hyped Beauty AI Technology is just like any other beauty mode. When you take a selfie, it will just whiten your complexion, blur the sharp edges and increase the color contrast. Basically, the selfies don't give you a natural look.

 

Conclusion

Conclusion

Well, the Oppo A71 (2018) is priced a bit higher considering the specifications it offers. First, it comes with a rather small display with thick bezels at the top and bottom. Second, the phone doesn't have a fingerprint scanner, which could hamper the retailing of the product.

Moreover, with plethora of smartphones already available in the market with advanced features like the 18:9 aspect ratio, fingerprint sensor and dual camera system, and the most important one being a pocket friendly price, Oppo A71 (2018) might have a hard time catching up with the competition.

While the Oppo 71 (2018) brings the AI Beauty Technology to the budget segment, it is not enough for the phone to stand out from the crowd.

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