Oppo Mirror 5 Review: The Smartphone with Prettiest Design

By Vivek
|

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo has been interestingly making India as their primary market as it is evident by the way they are launching devices in India. The company has made a strong foothold in the market ever since it came up with the innovative swivel camera featuring smartphone the N1.

 

Rating:
3.0/5

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

The company continues to add versatile devices to its portfolio that covers all levels of the price points. Now, the company has launched its latest device - the Mirror 5 which falls in the low to mid-range price bracket. The phone is available in white and blue color options at Rs 15,990 and does feature reasonable specification.

 

As GizBot had the device for a couple of weeks, we used it thoroughly and have come up with some feedback in a form of review. So let's head on to it.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Design

Design-wise, Oppo has been extra effortful towards its smartphones. However, some of the design language that Oppo has used in its devices were not user-friendly despite being very attractive in appearance. Likewise, Mirror 5 is not something that will hurt your eyes. The stylish design of the Mirror 5 is outstanding and suits the modern fashion trends.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Featuring individual cut-glass sections on the back cover, the Mirror 5 also bears a reflective facet back panel which makes the device shine like a diamond. Although the rest of the body is made with plastic, the frames of the handset is pretty solid build as it uses a bi-metallic but it does not encase the display and back panel which is oddly a significant part of the design. Since it is a glossy finish, the front and back panel are both fingerprint magnet, and it is difficult to keep the device clean from smudges.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Talking about the device's button placements, the power button and volume rocker can be found to the right and left respectively. The microUSB port is seated at the bottom, and at the top you will see the headphone jack and an IR blaster. There is a camera module at the top left corner of the rear panel and at the bottom, is the single speaker grille. The back panel is replaceable but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has a removable battery. You can however use the removable back panel to install two SIM card and the microSD card. Turn the device and you will see the notification LED right above the display to the right, and below the display are the three capacitive back, home, and recent apps keys.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Oppo Mirror 5 is not much of a top notch device in any way and with the thickness of 7.7 mm and weighing in at 160 grams, it does feel comfortable to the hands.

Design-wise, Oppo has done a great job with the Mirror 5, considering the price at which the company is selling it.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Display

As said earlier, since it falls in the low-to-mid-range price category, display department is highly compromised. This is probably going to effect the device's performance in the market. Although it features a standard 5-inch IPS LCD display, it fails to offer a reasonable resolution and only gives and output resolution of 960 x 540 pixels that translates to the pixel density of 220 ppi. Due to this, the display is not at all impressive and tends to blur most of the images including the app icons. Further, there is also no display protection like Gorilla Glass protection in the device but to compensate that the company has included a screen protector in the box itself. Anyhow, touch-wise, the display is very responsive.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Power and Performance

Most of the Chinese smartphone makers ordinarily use MediaTek chipset but Oppo has used Qualcomm's low-performance (compared to the current market) chipset to power this device. It employs a quad-core 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz. It does come along with an Adreno 306 GPU and 2 GB of RAM. Since it is not the best chipset it does fail to handle certain things like heavy games.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

However, the company has been generous in giving 2GB of RAM at least. Despite the lags that we faced while playing graphic intense games, a regular multitasking was average. However, when you run 3 to 4 apps, the device will function without a glitch but once you do that for more than 20 minutes, the Mirror 5 starts to stutter.

As far as the benchmark is concerned, the device has managed to score 23338 points on AnTuTu benchmark tool.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Software

As is the trend, most of the smartphone manufacturers layer their custom UI over the top of the Android OS to give its personal touch. Similarly, the Oppo Mirror 5 runs Color OS 2.1, based on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. This means that along with the company's native apps integrated with the UI, you will also get the richness of Android OS.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Talking about the UI, the company has added a lot of gestures in the phone. I liked the inclusion of the double tap to wake, drawing preset letters to directly open certain applications, and screen-on gestures like pinch to open the camera app, a swipe with two fingers to adjust the volume, and a swipe with three fingers to take a screenshot. The UI also brings in the one-hand mode.

Since the Oppo Mirror 5 comes with an IR blaster, you can also use the device as a smart remote control that is compatible with common household appliances such as TV, air conditioner, DVD player, etc.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Camera

The device features a low-end camera module compared to the current smartphone market. Featuring an 8 MP rear camera with an LED flash, and a 5 MP front-facing unit, it will hardly interest smartphone users who are fond of taking pictures. The camera struggles to shoot images under any-condition except well-lit one.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Moreover, you will need a stable hand to shoot sharp and clear image even in the well-lit outdoor situation. The camera UI is not the best that we have seen but is highly inspired by the Apple's iOS.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

There are not many modes to play with in the device except HDR and Panorama and few others. But you will get the option of shooting GIFs. As far as the video recording is concerned, the device is limited to shooting 1080p videos.

Overall, the camera experience is not as we expected in the device.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Connectivity and Storage

The Mirror 5 comes with 16 GB of on-board storage, which is further expandable via microSD card by up to 128 GB. The connectivity options include 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. The absence of the 4G LTE connectivity is one of the major drawback again in this device.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Battery

Since the device comes with a 5-inch LCD display, the 2,420 mAh non-removable cell is not quite sufficient. However, the Mirror 5 does manage to have a decent longevity. As we used it, the device lasted about12 hours with moderate usage. But if you are constantly using messaging apps like WhatsApp and others which will leave the display on as long as you use it, than you might get less than 9 hours of battery life.

Oppo Mirror 5 Review

Verdict

The Oppo Mirror 5 has a great design and the way it looks will definitely mesmarise you to the core. However, the hardware of the device doesn't match the contemporary market's expectations. The llack of 4G LTEsupport, the incompetent camera and low-resolution display are some of the grounds where it can meet real challenges. However on the positive side, the company has offered an IR blaster which is an awesome addition. Although 2GB RAM is not a big deal but at least that you can find in this device.

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