Over the years, OPPO has built a strong reputation for it’s high-end Reno and Find X series smartphones that are well-loved by consumers for their dazzling design and state-of-the-art camera system.
More recently, however, the company is also getting increasingly known for it’s middle-range A series lineup that aims to bring consumers a premium smartphone experience without burning a hole in their pocket. That was something we’d already witnessed on last year’s OPPO A74 (Review) and OPPO A94 (Review) smartphones.
To further extend it’s dominance in this highly competitive segment this year, OPPO had launched a new A series model known as the OPPO A95 which was heavily featured during the recent AFF Suzuki Cup.
This is an exciting model which brought over some of the fan favorite features from the Reno series smartphone including it’s signature rainbow-like rear design and reliable camera performance at a much more accessible price point.
However, does OPPO cuts any corner to attain it’s attractive launch price? Let’s find out in our OPPO A95 Review!
Design & Handling
The OPPO A95 is an absolutely beautiful smartphone especially for the model with the Glowing Silver Rainbow colorway. Just like what the name of it’s color suggests, this model indeed comes with a stunning rainbow-like rear finish that shifts color under the influence of light.
In fact, this color appears to be inspired by the ”Reno Glow” effect that we saw among recent models of the Reno series smartphones such as the OPPO Reno6 Pro 5G (Review). It’s a work of exemplary craftmanship which gives the phone an elegant and premium outlook.
Sporting an overall dimension measuring 160 x 73.1 x 7.6mm, the OPPO A95 is an incredibly sleek design that fits comfortably onto your palm. Along with it’s featherlight weight of just 177 grams, you’ll hardly get into any issue using the phone with one hand in a crowded subway.
Akin to last year’s OPPO A94, the A95 also features a rectangular-shaped camera bump to accommodate it’s rear cameras. However, we do see some changes to the arrangement of it’s camera lenses this time round.
Display
Moving on to the frontside of the phone, the OPPO A95 comes with a flat display which has a minuscule punch-hole on the upper-left corner of the screen for it’s 16MP selfie camera.
While most other smartphones within this segment tend to opt for a cheaper LCD panel, but that wasn’t the case for the OPPO A95. Instead, the device opted for a (comparatively) more expensive AMOLED display which with 6.43” diagonal length.
The display itself offers a sharp-looking FHD+ screen resolution with a decent refresh rate that delivers smooth animations and scrolling on the phone. Likewise, it also supports an impressive 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a wide 92% DCI-P3 color gamut coverage for a more immersive and realistic viewing experience.
Coming with a peak brightness of up to 800 nits, the OPPO A95 is also able to crank up sufficient brightness to keep it’s screen visible when using the phone in brighter environment.
Naturally, having an AMOLED display also means that the phone will have an in-display fingerprint for biometric authentication – a feature that’s extremely rare among budget smartphones. And yes, it does works reliably well in most occasion too.
Performance
Under the hood, the OPPO A95 is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 662 chipset which is fitting for a mid-range model with more than enough processing power to handle everyday tasks and entertainment.
Gaming-wise, there’s hardly any lag on all the game titles loaded on the phone including those that are slightly more resource intensive such as PUBG Mobile and Pokemon Unite – as long the game settings are kept at medium/ default. Likewise, there also isn’t any notable heating issue even with several hours of continuous gameplay which makes the phone an awesome gaming companion as well.
Much like any other OPPO smartphones, the OPPO A95 also comes with a dedicated Game Space app that offers various controls and settings which further enhance gaming experience on the phone. These include feature like ”Block Notifications” which toggles off notifications and automatically reject calls whenever you’re gaming.
Coming to it’s memory department, the OPPO A95 features 8GB worth of RAM as well as 128GB built-in storage which can be further expanded by up to 256GB with an external microSD card.
Cameras
For photography, the OPPO A95 has a decent triple-cam setup lead by a 48 megapixels main camera, as well as a pair of 2 megapixels auxiliary cameras for portrait and close-up shots.
Similar to most other OPPO mid-range models, the A95 is capable of clicking some really flattering photos with it’s main camera despite costing a third of what a flagship phone would perhaps cost you.
In good lighting condition, the OPPO A95 is able to click photos with good dynamic range and color reproduction which allow the photos to look more natural and realistic. Likewise, level of details are also promising so you won’t get photos that appears smudgy like an oil painting.
To help with low-light photography, the OPPO A95’s camera system is also assisted by a commendable night mode feature which does a remarkable job in dialing up the brightness of a low-light scene. This makes photos look way more clearer and detailed than it would otherwise be.
For zooming, the OPPO A95 is also able to supports up to 10x zoom via digital cropping through it’s main camera. In general, photos shot between the 2x to 5x zoom factor are usable with relatively low amount of image noise.
Although most of us probably expect photos taken at the maximum zoom level to look like some blurry mess, but that’s certainly not the case on the OPPO A95. Photos clicked with 10x zoom actually looks surprising clear with acceptable amount of image noise which is well-evidenced in the above photo sample.
Battery & Charging
The OPPO A95 features a respectable 5,000mAh battery which can easily last you through the day. To be more specific, you can actually get up to 1.5 days’ worth of battery life under moderate usage. This isn’t much of a surprise considering that the A series smartphones have always been known for their enduring battery life.
To sweeten up the deal, the OPPO A95 also supports a blazing-fast 33W charging speed which is even faster than the 30W charging speed offered by last year’s OPPO A94. Despite that, we didn’t see any downward trend for the OPPO A95’s charging time since the phone features a much larger battery capacity as compared to the 4,310mAh battery on the A94.
During my testing, a full charge from 0 to 100% took slightly more than an hour which is pretty decent for a phone of it’s price. Most importantly, it only takes a mere 30 minutes to charge the phone from 0 to 50%.
Verdict
Like any other OPPO’s A series smartphones, the OPPO A95 isn’t just a gorgeous-looking smartphone, but it’s also a really capable mid-range model that offers a delightful mobile experience for it’s users.
On paper, the phone might not have those mind-blowing specs that we saw among high-end models. However, that doesn’t impedes the phone from delivering a great entertainment and photography experience through it’s software wizardry that makes every aspects felt silkily smooth.
As such, the OPPO A95 is certainly a phone to consider for those who’re intending to kick off the year with a new budget-friendly smartphone. In Singapore, the OPPO A95 is priced at just S$399 for it’s 8GB+128GB trim, and is available for purchase via OPPO Official Store on Shopee.
