With all eyes now on China’s emerging smartphone companies, one company, that started off as an audio and video manufacturer, is making headways into the global mobile devices scene. It’s interesting to note that OPPO released its first smartphone, the Finder, in the middle of 2012. In less than 2 years, OPPO phones have been recognised globally and it has become a popular brand even in the very competitive US market.
The OPPO R1 (R829T) was announced in December last year but was only introduced to the Malaysian market last month.
Design and hardware
The device came in a white box, as with all of OPPO’s current devices, and the packaging really matched the white R1 inside. There’s only one colour for R1 at the moment, which is white, but there is no confirmation about the black version seen on official OPPO sites. The box also contained the data/charging cable, charger, earphone, manual and info booklets, the SIM ejector tool and oddly, a frosted hard-plastic case. The packaging was tastefully done and it felt like I was unboxing a premium device instead of the mid-level device that R1 is.
Though the device was overshadowed by the flagship N1, OPPO R1 held its own. The squarish magnesium alloy frame with rounded edges is sandwiched between two plastic panels and those in turn are sandwiched between two 0.55 mm Gorilla Glass III panels. The magnesium alloy frame, the kind that’s used to make DSLR camera bodies, lends a light but sturdy feel to the R1. I have to say, the phone does look a lot like a Sony Xperia Z1 but that’s a good thing.
The camera is also covered by the glass panel and is properly protected from outside elements. The flash though is not covered and has a metal ring around. This could be more of a design call since a flash going inside a glass panel would light up the entire pane. It was either the camera or the flash but I’m glad the more sensitive camera module is under the protective sheet.
Taking a look at the sides, we have the headphone jack and the left channel microphone (for video recording) at the top, and volume rocker on the right. At the bottom of the phone, you’ll find the default microphone (also works as the right channel microphone in video mode), the speaker and the micro USB port. The power button is located on the left side, for which I’m thankful, and you have the dual SIM tray. The volume rocker and the power buttons can be accessed easily when the front of the phone is facing me. I have truly come to hate the power button placement at the top as it becomes a pain when the device is anything bigger than 5 inches.
At the front, you’ll find the front camera, the grille where the earpiece is located and the proximity sensor at the top. There’s also a small LED that’s used for notification but this is under the white plastic layer and so, only the light is visible when there’s a notification. At the bottom, you have the 3 capacitive buttons; Menu on the left, Home at the centre and the Back key on the right. Flip the phone around and you will see the rear camera, the single LED flash as well as the same type of notification LED under the white plastic back. This too comes on when there’s a notification but more on that later.
A quick list of the specifications:
- 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 CPU and Mali 400 GPU.
- Runs ColorOS which is based on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2
- 5”, 720 x 1280 IPS HD screen with a pixel density of about 294 ppi.
- 1 GB RAM, 16 GB internal memory but no memory card slot.
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, and DLNA.
- Has GPRS, EDGE, and HSPA+.
- 8 MP BSI CMOS, auto-focusing rear camera with LED flash and 5 MP front camera. Aperture is rated at f/2.0.
- 2410 mAh, non-removable, Li-Ion battery.
- Dimensions 142.7 x 70.4 x 7.1 mm and weighs about 140 g.
- Comes in only white for now, though the official site does feature promo images of a black version.
Display and sound
The IPS display is actually good for a phone at this price level. Colour reproduction was ok but not accurate. I’m happy though as it was not over-saturated as with an AMOLED display. I’m not satisfied with the brightness however and the display struggled under bright sunlight. Another thing that’s been bugging me is the auto brightness control; it’s always too low and I was not able to adjust it manually.
The speaker on the R1 was loud but only when playing the built in tones (which have been properly tuned to work well on the device). This is good though since you’ll still be able to hear calls and notification tones while the phone is in your pocket. Otherwise, when playing music, the speaker sounded horrible and just plain noisy. Do not attempt to play music out loud with your friends. They WILL disassociate themselves from you.
The generic earphones that came with the phone are not worth going into so we’ll move along. The phone does have this feature when you plug in an earphone into the jack, The Music space (more info on this in the Operating System section) comes up that will allow you to play songs. It might work for some but the problem is, for those who don’t think this is working for them, you’re left with no other options. The Music space will always come up and there’s no way to turn it off. Even after setting a default music app, that darn thing still comes up. I was relieved though when I found out that the Music space does not come up when you’re in another app. Normally I wouldn’t bother with the option but the Music space feature only played .aac files. Audio files with .m4a, .ogg, and .mp3 was not recognised. OPPO needs to fix this or if there’s actually a way to turn it off, please let us know how.
Camera
OPPO has been harping on the low light capabilities of the R1. Apparently there’s a technology called PUREIMAGE (PI) Engine at work here. It was supposed to reproduce colours better in low light but they’ve failed to specify how low the light can get. I would say it does take pictures at night but only if there’s a fair amount of light. The low aperture rating does help but don’t think that you’re going to get details or even colour when taking night shots. It’s just adequate even with the Night option turned on within the Scene mode.
If you do turn on the Night option, please remember to switch it off before taking pictures under fluorescent light. This will introduce dark bandings on both the display as well as the resulting image.
Taking pictures in daylight was a different story. The camera performed well and is a competent compact camera replacement. The 8 MP is no help though as you’ll lose out on details when zooming in. The usual HDR and Panorama options are there, as well as an interesting one called Beautify. The option smoothes out skin tones around the face on the picture and actually does a neat job of that. For the front camera, only the Beautify and Normal shooting options are available.
The camera app can also be accessed via a gesture when the screen is turned off. Drawing a circle on the screen will launch the camera and this works even when the phone is locked. The access to the gallery is also available but only for the pictures that were taken while the phone was locked. For all other images, you’ll still need to unlock your phone.
Samples of images taken with the camera:
Click to view slideshow.Keyboard
I was happy to see that OPPO had gone the extra mile here and has provided the Swype keyboard by default and for free. All functions of the Swype keyboard remain and I was even able to login with my ID and sync with my backed up personal words dictionary. You can of course allow Swype to learn your typed words and names used by signing in to Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. I’ve always loved Swype and have nothing to complain here. It also helps to know that the built-in update function within Swype means that I won’t have to wait for OPPO to push an update to their phone to get one for the keyboard.
Operating System
Let me start of by saying that I hate ColorOS. It’s nothing personal but when you start meddling with the default Android functions, you’re only going to anger long time Android users.
The ColorOS running on R1 is at version 1.0 and it is based on Android 4.2.2. The OS is optimised for gesture based interactions and is quite capable but it still needs a lot of work. OPPO has also tweaked some of the standard Android features and this is what irks me. A long press on the Home button brings up Google Now but to switch between recent apps, you now have to double-tap on the Home button.
The homescreen itself comes with two pages that you could personalise with your own apps but downloaded apps do not get automatically added to your pages. There’s also another page called Exclusive space that, when turned on, is always present at the extreme right. It does not matter how many pages are present after you remove or add pages. There are two options for the Exclusive space, Photo space and Music space, but Photo space is set as the default. You can add the Music space if you want but I turned off Exclusive space altogether as it added no value to my user experience.
To get to the Exclusive space and all other homescreen related options, just tap on the Menu button. You will find options to add widgets, change wallpaper, add Exclusive space or Live weather, change the transition effect for the pages as well as change the themes. You can also add or remove pages from here.
ColorOS also comes with an app drawer in which you can move apps around or sort them alphabetically. Press and hold on an app and you can move it around to where you would want it and you can even place it on top of another app to automatically create a folder. While on this mode, you will also notice a small ‘x’ on the top left corner of the app icons. Pressing on that will give you an option to uninstall them.
OPPO has also messed around with the password feature for your lock screen. Instead of a maximum of 17 digits, you now only have 4. Doesn’t exactly scream security does it? Messing with other functions is still ok but not security. Not cool OPPO, not cool at all.
Gesture
Let’s get into the gesture portion, which ColorOS was born for. The Gesture panel is accessed as a pull down menu from the top left of the screen. This can be changed to top right as well but modifying this will also affect the Android quick settings panel. I’d say play around with it and see which side suits you better. If you’re planning to have the Gesture panel around, you’ll have to decide based on which hand you normally operate the phone from and which option you most frequently access. You can even turn it off if you don’t fancy gestures.
Image showing the full Gesture & motion menu.
The ColorOS comes with two pre-set gestures which you can delete or modify. The first one is the earlier mentioned circle for camera and another one is to draw a ‘V’ on the blank screen to activate the flashlight. You can even add your own gesture or modify existing ones.
There are other gestures too which can only be turned on or off but cannot be modified. These are: Taking a screenshot with 3 finger sliding up/down, pinch close to activate camera, adjust volume with 2 fingers by sliding up/down, double-tap the screen to wake the phone up and launch the music player with two finger slide up/down. When the music is playing, you can also choose to turn on the option to move to the next or previous song by drawing a ‘>’ or ‘<’ respectively.
There are many other options too but having too many gestures will only confuse the user. I know that I’ll stick to good old tapping-on-icons, thank you.
Other features
- Their OPPO After Service menu option is a touch of genius. Instead of looking up for the contact number and location of their local after sales office, OPPO has included all the necessary information in this menu. They’ve included the local service hotline phone number, email address, website as well as their address. All other manufacturers should emulate this.
- You can set a time for the device to power off and on. This does two things: saves battery and data usage, as well as disabling all communications when you sleep. When the set time comes up, the phone will ask for your permission to turn off. The menu will stay on for 1 minute and if there’s no interaction within this period, the phone will be automatically shut down.
- Another nice touch is the notification light at the back. It only starts working if the phone is placed upside down and the proximity sensor on the front panel is in contact with something. Otherwise, only the front notification LED works.
Performance, connectivity and battery life
The MediaTek processor handled day to day tasks well. Apps, browsers and casual games moved along without a problem. I was sceptical about the processor but I’ve been proven wrong. I definitely wouldn’t mind purchasing a MediaTek powered device in the future. Switching between apps is still a hassle though but that’s because of Android. I’m hoping Android will be able to inject QNX into their OS but that will be asking too much. The GPU also had no problem handling Bladeslinger.
Moving on to connection, this is another area where the R1 faltered. My network connection kept changing from full strength of 4 bars to no bar and all this even while I was stationary. I’m beginning to suspect that the chassis has something to do with this and thus the extra plastic case. I did ask OPPO representatives about the presence of the case but I was just informed that it was just a gift. Hope they won’t tell me I was holding it wrong.
The Battery manager was the usual and Power saving mode did things that you could normally do on your own like turning off touch vibration or haptic feedback, turning off GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Data connection and turning down the screen brightness. The odd thing is, when I turned the Power saving mode off, it switched back on the haptic feedback. I thought I had made a mistake and tried to replicate the problem. Turned off haptic feedback, turned on Power saving mode, turned OFF Power saving mode and sure enough, the haptic feedback came back again. This is a bug and OPPO will be notified of this.
The built-in battery was good but not good enough for my needs. I read a lot and so, the display takes the bulk of the power. The battery lasted me only till late afternoon before needing a charge. There’s also a useful feature where the phone will warn you at night that your existing charge will not hold till morning, prompting you to connect it to a charger. Thoughtful indeed.
While all the others parts worked, I do believe the unit I received had a faulty GPS chip. I was not able to pin-point my exact location on a map and navigation was a hassle as the device constantly showed me driving off the road and in places where there were buildings. I had similar results with Waze and Google Maps.
Wrap-up
The OPPO R1 is an aesthetically pleasing device and a capable one at that price point but I personally would think twice about getting one. Especially with ColorOS on board which I’m not in favour of. If only the option to switch to CyanogenMod, as with OPPO N1, was available on this too; now that would make the R1 a truly attractive device.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Well built and beautifully designed. Much attention was paid to details.
- Presence of gesture based controls give much more options.
- The two notification lights are useful.
Cons
- ColorOS.
- Radio signal strength keeps fluctuating.
- No LTE. There are already a few other devices that have been announced which come with LTE and are priced similarly.
Pricing and availability
The OPPO R1 is available now at authorised retailers as well as their flagship store in Low Yat Plaza. The R1 has a retail price of RM1,298.
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