The OPPO A78 has landed on Indian shores to give buyers a truly incredible option to consider in the sub-20K price bracket. At first glance, the phone impresses with its gorgeous exteriors but one look at its specs sheet and it’s clear that there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. OPPO A series has developed a reputation over the years for offering great features at accessible price points and this Qualcomm CPU-powered beast is no different. The OPPO A78 will surely take the market by storm and you can buy the device starting August 1st, 2023 for INR 17499.
As we have spent some time with the phone already, let us give you our first impressions of this device.
Immersive audio-visual experience that is perfect for binge-watching
I am the sort of person who likes to watch movies and YouTube videos on the go and my phone is usually my go-to device for this job. With the OPPO A78, this turned out to be a breeze as the brand has designed this phone to be an entertainment powerhouse. It holds a 90Hz 6.4-inch FHD+ AMOLED display that showcases its visuals in vivid detail. The Netflix and Amazon Prime content that I viewed on this device, the colors were impeccably accurate, and the contrast levels were superb as well. Moreover, the L1 Widevine certification of this panel ensured that the streaming content was displayed in the highest quality. It’s a great device that delivers a great viewing experience while watching movies and TV shows.
On top of this, no headphones were needed to get the best sound output since the phone ships with dual stereo speakers that are tuned with OPPO’s Real HD Sound 3.0. This gives its audio full fidelity and creates a spatial 3D sound arena to further immerse you into the content you’re watching. Gamers will be mighty pleased with these speakers as it creates a more immersive sound experience by enhancing system-level sound effects during gaming and even movie playing. Tested by Dirac, the Ultra Volume Mode, which boosts audio volume to 200%, provides a good listening experience, unlike other smartphones in the price range.
Long-lasting battery that will keep you unplugged through the day
All-day entertainment is guaranteed on the OPPO A78 thanks to its adoption of a 5,000mAh battery. During my time with the phone, I never noticed big drops in the battery percentage, even after intense gaming sessions. According to OPPO, this battery allows the phone to offer 30.75 hours of talk time and a whopping 658.71 hours of standby time. And like all OPPO phones these days, this one too offers the Battery Health Engine, which is meant to extend the overall battery life to as many as 1,600 charge and discharge cycles i.e. almost 4 years.
What’s even more exciting is that the phone supports 67W SUPERVOOCTM Flash Charge. This is ideal for those who never have enough time to keep their device plugged in for long durations. With just 5 minutes of charge, we got almost 4.61 hours of phone calls and 2.47 hours of YouTube streaming. Furthermore, the 67W SUPERVOOCTM Flash Charge feature takes the phone from 0 to 100 percent in just 45 minutes.
And you need not worry about heating issues during charging, since the OPPO A78 has been blessed with 5-Layer Charging Protection for all-round safe charging. Moreover, there’s additional protection for the battery that’s offered by the Optimized All-Day Charging feature, which learns your charging habits to stop charging when the battery level reaches 80 percent and tops up the final 20 percent just before it’s time to leave.
Trendy Design that is bound to turn heads
The OPPO A78 grabs your attention from the word go and that’s all thanks to its Ultra-Slim Retro Design that includes a 2.5D right-angled middle frame and smoothed edges that give it a sleek appearance. Contributing to its ergonomics is the device’s 180-gram weight and 7.93mm thinness.
The OPPOA78 comes in two color options, with both having their unique character. Inspired by water, the Aqua Green model has been crafted using a double-layer process to superimpose a Diamond Matrix Design on a water-green base layer. We had this variant with us, and it looked quite trendy and unique. The Mist Black variant, on the other hand, uses the OPPO Glow process to add a CD texture to the coating layer and give the phone a unique metallic gloss.
Cameras that won’t let you miss special moments again!
The photography experience onboard the OPPO A78 is powered by its 50MP dual camera setup. In my experience with the phone, I noticed that the images this camera clicked feature spectacular HDR. Details in both shadows and highlights were retained irrespective of whether the photos were clicked in daylight or during the night. The accompanying 2MP depth camera is a great addition as it facilitates truly breathtaking portrait shots. And then there’s the 8MP front camera, which apart from clicking stunning selfies. Check out the camera samples here:
It also features Dual-View Video that lets you shoot simultaneously with the front and rear cameras to combine them into a single frame for fun and stylish vlogs.
Robust performance that will even impress power users
I expected nothing short of splendid performance from the Snapdragon 680 SoC and I wasn’t disappointed. The 6nm processor uses Qualcomm’s Kryo 265 cores that offered superior speeds that greatly enriched my experience. It’s supported by the Adreno 610 GPU, which is ideal for rendering fluid graphics in most high-end games. Multitasking was a breeze, thanks to the presence of 8GB worth of RAM onboard the OPPO A78. Additionally, there’s the phone’s RAM Expansion technology that can convert 8GB of vacant storage into accessible memory to gain the advantage of a whopping 16GB of RAM.And despite this, you’ll never be short on storage since the OPPO A78 has been blessed with a 128GB ROM. There’s even a microSD card slot onboard, which supports 1TB of additional storage. So, if you’re a big hoarder of photos and videos, or if you like to have multiple high-end games installed all the time, this phone has you covered. On the software front, you get the benefits of OPPO’s ColorOS 13.1 version that’s based on Android 13. Apart from offering a rich and highly customizable user interface, this software has several security features onboard like Private Safe, App Lock, Hidden Apps, Privacy Protection Passcode, and App Encryption. ColorOS 13.1 is also home to Auto Pixelate, which smartly blurs any contact details before you share screenshots further.
Lastly, this software has been blessed with OPPO’s Dynamic Computing Engine, which was hitherto reserved only for flagship OPPO devices. It delivers an all-around smoother and more stable user experience over the long term. It keeps up to 19 apps alive in the background and so we could easily switch between them smoothly.
Get hold of OPPO A78 now!
The OPPO A78 is breathtaking by all measures and it’s the perfect pocket-friendly phone to buy right now, given how it provides a neat blend of stylish looks, strong everyday performance, superb visuals, great photography, and long-lasting battery life. Packaged brilliantly this smartphone delivers on being a complete entertainment package in its price segment. We were completely blown by its powers and would recommend it if you’re looking for a phone in the sub-20k segment. The phone is on sale from today, i.e. August 01st, 2023, onwards for Rs 17,499 and can be purchased from mainline retail outlets, OPPO E-Store and Flipkart. Do check out the device today if you are on the lookout for an affordable smartphone that packs a punch.
