We go hands-on with Oppo’s Find 7a!

Yesterday Oppo officially launched in their flagship smartphone, the Find 7 in the Philippines. We reported about the Find 7 before because it’s one of the few phones that can take a 50-megapixel photos, while only having a 13-megapixel camera itself. The Find 7 is able to accomplish this through clever software manipulation that we’ll go into detail later on. Oppo has stated they will sell two versions of the Find 7 – the high end version, which is officially the Find 7 will have a plethora of hi-end specs and a 2K display and a low-end version, the Find 7a, which has a lower display resolution, processor, less memory and storage space. The Find 7a is the subject of this hands-on.

Oppo Find 7a Specs

• 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 2GB of RAM
• 5.5-inch IPS display, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 16GB of storage, expandable via microSD to 128GB
• 13-megapixel camera, autofocus, dual LED flash
• 5-megapixel secondary camera
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, NFC
• 3G, HSDPA, LTE
• 2800mAh battery
• Android 4.3, Color OS

Oppo Find 7 Specs

• 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 3GB of RAM
• 5.5-inch IPS display, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 2560 x 1440 resolution
• 32GB of storage, expandable via microSD to 128GB
• 13-megapixel camera, autofocus, dual LED flash
• 5-megapixel secondary camera
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, NFC
• 3G, HSDPA, LTE
• 3000mAh battery
• Android 4.3, Color OS

Initial Impressions: solid smartphone with impressive specs

While Oppo is still an unknown brand here in the Philippines, it has made its mark in other countries by offering beautiful, solidly designed smartphones bearing the latest hardware with extremely competitive pricing. The Find 7a is no exception – bearing a 5.5-inch HD display, the Find 7a’s design is on par (if not better) than most of the other flagships that other brands are offering. The construction of the Find 7a is impressive to say the least, and combines elements of steel, plastic and glass in a very handsome package.

The overall size of the Find 7a is pretty substantial, and if we had to compare it size-wise to another smartphone, we’d probably put it in the same range as the Galaxy Note 3. It’s also pretty challenging to use the Find 7a one handed because of its sheer size. The back of the device depends entirely on the version of the Find 7 that you get – the Find 7a gets a traditional metal back, while the Find 7 gets a carbon fiber one. Aside from the usual button accoutrements (volume rocker on the right side, power button on the left), the Find 7 and 7a has a LED light on the chin, which the company calls the Skyline light.

 

One of the things that sets the Find 7 apart from other smartphones is its ability to capture 50-megapixel photos. When we first heard about the feature, we were skeptical, especially when you consider that the Find 7 only has a 13-megapixel camera. Granted, it’s a 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor, but 13-megapixels does not equal 50. So how does the Find 7 does it? It’s pretty clever actually – the smartphone uses Oppo’s Pure Image 2.0 image processor, and takes 10 images in quick succession whenever you have the 50-megapixel feature on. It then selects 4 best photos of those 10 and combines them to make a 50-megapixel shot. We’ve included a resized image taken with the 50-megapixel mode below, and you can examine the original 50-megapixel image here.

The Find 7a sports some pretty decent hardware – 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 5.5-inch IPS display with full HD resolution, LTE and a 2800mAh battery. The hardware, combined with the Find 7a’s customized Android layer, dubbed Color OS, made the entire experience extremely fast and fluid. While we weren’t able to handle the higher specc’d Find 7, we’re assuming the faster, better hardware would guarantee an experience on par with what we saw. The Find 7’s 2560 x 1440 display resolution is also pretty noteworthy, as Oppo is only the second manufacturer to offer it, second to their sister company Vivo, and their Xplay 3S.

As far as pricing goes, both the Find 7 and the Find 7a is priced extremely competitively considering what’s inside them. The Find 7a will have a sticker price of Php 22,990, while the Find 7 will be priced at Php 25,990. It’s important to note that the Find 7 is possibly the cheapest Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 equipped smartphone in the Philippines – the Samsung Galaxy S5 has a sticker price of Php 34,990, while the Sony Xperia Z2goes for 33,490. The difference of the pricing is pretty evident, and shows just how serious Oppo is when it comes to pricing their new smartphone.