Here’s a Quick Look at the OPPO F7 Youth!

We praised OPPO for the many improvements they made to the new iteration of their F series devices, the OPPO F7. It has a great SoC in the Helio P60, they greatly improved on the performance of their rear camera, and the phone looked absolutely stunning. The trouble is, we’re a pretty price sensitive market and some are unwilling to pony up close to Php 18,000 for a new device.

Enter the OPPO F7 Youth. The smallest member of the F7 family that packs the same punch as its bigger siblings and looks just as good but has had some of its other features toned down or removed altogether. Let’s have a quick look at the device

OPPO F7 Youth Specs

• MediaTek octa-core Helio P60 processor
• ARM Mali-G72 MP3 GPU
• 4GB RAM
• 6-inch Full HD+ LTPS IPS display,  2160 x 1080 resolution, 18:9 aspect ratio
• 64GB of expandable storage
• 13-megapixel rear camera f/1.8 aperture PDAF with LED flash
• 8-megapixel front camera with AI beautification
• Dual SIM
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
• 3400mAh battery
• Android Oreo with ColorOS 5.0 UI

Initial Impressions: Great Performance, Cameras Take a Hit

As mentioned earlier, the OPPO F7 Youth inherits the looks of its bigger siblings. You have the same glossy back that looks to be made of a coated acrylic; making the device seem like it’s sandwiched by glass panels. You’re even getting two out of the three color options available to the base model of the F7, which includes: Solar Red and the faceted Diamond Black.

The display on the Youth is smaller so its dimensions make it more pocketable and the ergonomics have changed slightly as well; getting more curves on its edges but it manages to retain the same thickness at 7.8mm.

In terms of button placement, you’ve got the power button on the right side of the device with access to the SIM tray on top of it.

The volume rocker can be found on the left side of the F7 Youth.

You’ll find the speaker grille, micro USB port, and the headphone jack on the bottom of the device.

Up front is the 6-inch Full HD+ LTPS IPS LCD display at an aspect ratio of 18:9; giving it a pixel density of 402 pixels per inch and a screen-to-body ratio of 79-percent. If you’re not a fan of the notch, you’ll be glad to know that OPPO has done away with it for the newest member of the F series. It’s the same panel as the base F7, which means you’re getting pretty good image quality with very generous viewing angles and, while we haven’t used during the day, we reckon that it’s bright enough to be used outdoors.

Above the display is the F7 Youth’s 8-megapixel front camera, which is a huge step down from the 25-megapixel shooter of the F7. It’s not all about the megapixel count though, so we’ll reserve our judgment for our full review.

The rear shooter takes less of a bump down from 16MP to 13MP on the Youth with a slightly narrow aperture as well at f/2.2 instead of the f-stop of f/1.8 on the base model. Another thing you might have noticed is the lack of a fingerprint scanner on this device, which we really wish they had kept. You do have the facial unlock feature though, so we’re guessing that’ll have to do.

The F7 Youth is sporting the same processing package as the F7 with a MediaTek Helio P60 processor that’s paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. While they did remove or tone down some of the features on this phone, we’re glad that they kept to the same SoC. The performance of the P60 really impressed us on the F7, so we’re expecting the same results for the Youth.

The phone runs on Android Oreo 8.1 out of the box with Color OS 5.0 on top of it and juicing up the device is a 3410mAh battery.

The OPPO F7 Youth is priced at Php 13,990; making it a pretty solid option if you don’t want to shell out the money for its bigger siblings. Pre-orders for the device start on May 28 and will last until June 1 with an Olike Magic Music Lamp if you decide to pick it up within this period.