OPPO A92 Review Philippines

The OPPO A92 have made its way in the Philippines as the company’s latest midrange offering in the country.

A follow-up to the A9 2020 from last year, the OPPO A92 is big on numbers. It has a large screen and battery, stereo speakers, and other features that make for a great daily driver phone.

But is it worth your time and money? We find out in our OPPO A92 full review.

OPPO A92 Specs

Android 10, ColorOS 7.1
Dual SIM, Dual standby
6.5-inch FHD+ IPS display, 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution, ~404ppi
TUV Rheinland Eye protection certification
2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 octa-core processor
8GB RAM
Adreno 610 GPU
128GB UFS 2.1 internal storage, expandable via microSD
16-megapixel punch-hole front camera
48-megapixel (f/1.7) + 8-megapixel (ultra-wide) + 2-megapixel (monochrome) + 2-megapixel (depth sensor) rear cameras, PDAF, LED flash
Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Stereo speakers
Hi-Res audio, DIRAC
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, BDS, Galileo, GLONASS
USB Type-C
Colors: Shining White, Twilight Black
5,000mAh non-removable battery, 18W fast charging

Design and Build Quality

The OPPO A92 is built on a glass-like plastic material. It has the premium but fingerprint-magnet appearance of glass, without the weight of an actual one.

It’s available in two contrasting color options. There’s the Twilight Black for the edgy types, and if you want something livelier, you can get the Shining White color option, which is the one we’re reviewing here. It has hints of white but dominated by this aquamarine color, like how the blue sea meets the white sand.

The OPPO A92 looks chic but definitely doesn’t feel like it. It’s 8.9mm thick and weighs 192g when most phones averages at only 7.5mm and 170g, respectively. Although, the thickness and curved corners make it really ergonomic in the hands.

We also forgive its size thanks to the large battery and screen we’re getting out of it.

Speaking of which, we have a 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS screen on the front. The punch-hole on the top left makes the front design cleaner and modern, and also help the display utilize more space.

There’s a small slit on the top of the screen for the earpiece, which also doubles as the second loudspeaker for the stereo setup.

On the back, we have the quad-cameras on a rectangular glass on the top left. The four cameras and the LED flash are placed symmetrically, perfect for those who have OCD.

On the bottom we have the OPPO logo. But other than that, the back is really clean.

To help streamline the design, OPPO placed the fingerprint scanner on the right side, which doubles as the lock/power switch. Since it’s also a biometric sensor, the button is thin and sits flat on the side. Thankfully, the button provides a really tactile but silent feel when pressed.

On the left, we have the SIM tray that can house two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card. Below are the volume controls, which are easy to reach and don’t feel cheap when pressed.

At the bottom, you can spot the USB Type-C port, microphone, primary loudspeaker, and thankfully, a headphone jack.

Bottomline is, we like the OPPO A92’s industrial but sleek and attractive design. No complaints here.

Display and Sound Quality

One of the main highlights of the OPPO A92 is its multimedia features. This thing boasts a large 6.5-inch FHD+ IPS screen, with a 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution, and a TUV Rheinland certification for blue-light eye protection for those who look on their phones a lot.

The screen is tall with a 20:9 aspect ratio. It’s great for watching most movies on the full screen. The punch-hole is small enough and placed far in the corner to be distracting.

Color quality and contrast are fine for an IPS screen, but obviously not as vibrant when compared to OLED panels. Sharpness and details are fine as an FHD+ resolution is the right sweet spot for a screen this size and price tag.

Other than the visuals, OPPO also nailed the audio on the OPPO A92. It has a loudspeaker on the bottom and an earpiece that doubles as a secondary speaker to complete the stereo speaker setup.

It outputs loud volume with audible bass. The stereo separation makes movies feel more immersive. It’s also useful for shooter games as you can immedietely distinguish where footsteps are coming from, even if you don’t plug in a pair of earphones.

Hardware and Performance

The OPPO A92 is powered by a 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 octa-core processor. That’s an underwhelming chipset for a device at this price. On the upside, it does have a generous 8GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.1 expandable storage.

Thanks to the generous memory, the device felt relatively fast and smooth, especially in multitasking. However, when compared to other devices in this price range, the difference in speed is noticeable.

OPPO A92 Benchmark scores (Performance Mode)

Gaming was also decent on the OPPO A92, but we’ve definitely had better experience in other devices in this category.

Demanding titles like Call of Duty ran at High graphics settings, but not maxed all the way up. Mobile Legends also ran well with High Frame Rate (HFR) enabled.

Software and User Interface

The latest ColorOS 7 is the company’s latest Android 10-based user interface, and it’s present on the OPPO A92. It’s a decent upgrade from the previous version, with a more streamlined look and tons of features.

The lock screen, home screen, and the control center and notifications tab look really clean. It uses OPPO’s unique font. Plus, the home screen layout are customizable.

You can enable the app drawer on the settings, or stick on the iOS-like format where all your apps are laid out on the home screen.

There’s the Smart Assistant on the far left of the home screen that shows you Google searches, steps counter, and more. Additional sections will be introduced as you use the phone. There are a couple of bloatwares installed, but you can uninstall them easily.

You can also enable the system-wide dark mode in the control center, which looks really sleek when partnered with the OPPO-signature Green accents on the interface.

As usual, the OPPO A92 uses Google Keyboard that’s easy to get used to and full of customization.

The camera app is also intuitive. While a tab on the right side of the screen can be summoned anytime to let you quickly take screenshots, screen recording, and quick access to the apps of your choice.

You can launch games using the Game Space app to optimize them before you play. It lets you choose between different performance optimization options: Competition, Balanced, and Low Power. You can also opt to block notifications to avoid distractions while playing.

Overall, the Android 10-based ColorOS 7 on the OPPO A92 really compliments its hardware. Probably not the best interface in the market, but it gets the job done.

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Cameras

The camera modules on the OPPO A92 consists of the usual suspects. The pack is lead by a 48-megapixel main shooter, with a surprisingly bright f/1.7 aperture. It’s partnered by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 2-megapixel mono, and 2-megapixel depth sensor. Sitting on the punch-hole on the screen is a 16-megapixel main camera.

The main camera takes really sharp images with noticeably vibrant colors and deep contrast. But if it’s still not enough for you, there’s the Dazzle Color feature that you can enable before you take a photo. It slightly enhances the images to make it look more vibrant — but can sometimes exaggerate the colors, making it look overdone.

Of course, the 48-megapixel camera only takes 12-megapixel images in standard Photo mode to help improve the colors. If you want to take advantage of the full resolution, you can enable the 48MP mode in the camera settings.

The overall color quality is not the best, but it does output extra detailed images. That’s a full 8,000 x ,6000-pixel image, versus the 4,000 x 3,000 pixels of the normal mode. This is useful for printing images in larger canvass, or even a billboard if you’re really hardcore.

It’s no surprise that the 8-megapixel ultra-wide takes less-detailed images. But thanks to OPPO’s good software, the color rendering is really great. It outputs contrasty images with nice colors.

And since it has a wide field-of-view, it’s great for taking architectural photos, group shots, and other larger subjects that you can’t normally fit on a single frame.

The 2-megapixel depth-sensor was able to effectively separate the foreground to the background with nice edge detection. Partnered with its already impressive main camera, it results in DSLR-like professional-looking photos.

The last 2-megapixel sensor is quite bizarre. OPPO says its a monochrome sensor, but we’re not seeing any black and white option in the settings. We suspect this is actually a color sensor that’s behind the vibrant images that we’re getting out of its primary and ultra-wide shooters.

Lastly, we have a 16-megapixel selfie camera. It takes sharp self-portraits, with enough details for the AI face beauty to work with. The portrait mode also worked really well on this camera, despite the lack of a dedicated depth sensor.

Other than smoothing the skin, the AI face beauty on the OPPO A92 can now make your face thinner, have bigger eyes, smaller nose, adjust the chin, make face smaller, and add touch up.

Another highlight of the OPPO A92 is its video stabilization feature. No, it doesn’t have OIS, but the software video stabilization works so well that you might not need a physical one. However, it only works in 1080p and 720p and not in 4K. It can also record slow-mo videos.

Overall, we’re really pleased with the cameras on the OPPO A92. It lets you take Instagram-ready images straight from the camera without having to edit anything.

Security

The side-mounted fingerprint scanner on the OPPO A92 works really fast. It’s also in a more natural location. Since it’s also the lock/power button, you can just place your finger lightly and the device is already unlocked. You can have it respond to a firmer press in the settings.

We also have the Face Unlock feature, which also worked seamless on the A92. You can enable the Raise to Wake option to have the OPPO A92 instantly unlocked the moment you pick it up. The face unlock can instantly detect your face and be ready for you the moment you pull it out of your pocket — even before you can reach the fingerprint scanner.

Software-level privacy settings are also present. There’s the Find My Device, File Protection, Emergency SOS, block/filter numbers, app lock, kid space, and private safe.

Connectivity

The OPPO A92 comes with dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0. They may not be their respective latest versions, but they are good enough for a device at this price.

Both the WiFi and Bluetooth, as well as the 4G LTE connectivity, worked well during out tests. Also, there were no issues in using the built-in microphone and earphones when taking voice and video calls.

Battery

The OPPO A92 takes pride of its large 5,000mAh battery. We got about 13 to 15 hours of screen-on time out of this thing. That translates to about two days of light to moderate use. However, heavy gamers and Netflix binge-watchers might have to reach for the charger before the day ends.

Speaking of which, the A92 comes with an 18W fast charger. Definitely not the fastest we’ve seen in this category, but should be enough to provide a full charge in about two hours.

The OPPO A92 also has a reverse charging feature. All you need is an OTG cable and you can now use it as a power bank and share power with friends.

Verdict

The OPPO A92 is one of the most complete midrange phones in the market today. It boasts a sleek and comfortable design, a large screen for work and play, a stereo speaker setup for binge watching and jamming, a very dependable battery, and an intelligent camera software that takes Instagram-ready images.

However, A92’s biggest weakness is its processor — which is the main consideration of most people when getting a smartphone. It may have been capable, but it struggles to compete on other devices in this category.

OPPO A92 pricing and availability in the Philippines

You can get the OPPO A92 for a price of Php15,990 starting June 27, 2020. You can pre-order it from June 20 to 26 and get a free Rockspace P62 Pro power bank that’s valued for Php1,299. It’s available in tons of OPPO Concept stores and retailers nationwide, as well as their official stores in Lazada and Shopee.

The device is also offered in Home Credit at a 9-month, 12-month, 15-month, and 18-month 0% installment plans.

Pros

Clean, refreshing design
Large display
Stereo speakers
Robust battery
Good cameras

Cons

Competition offers newer and more powerful processor
Expensive for its specs