Oppo A76 Review: The Bottom Of The Barrel

Oppo's A-series is home to the company's affordable and mid-range phones. One of the most recent additions to this series in Nepal is the Oppo A76, which I've been using for about 3 weeks now. And, I'll be letting you know about my experience with this phone and if it is worth purchasing or not in this review of the Oppo A76. Spoiler alert, it's not. Well, to me at least, so fair with your own judgment after reading this review. Before we begin, let's clear the air on cost. Oppo A76 is available in a single 6/128GB variant which will set you back NPR 29,990 here in Nepal and INR 17,499 in India.

Oppo A76 Specifications:

• Dimension: 164.4 x 75.7 x 8.4 mm, 189 grams
• Display: 6.5-inch IPS LCD, 2-level refresh rate (60Hz, 90Hz), 180Hz touch sampling rate, 480 nits brightness (typical), 600 nits (max)
• Resolution: HD+ (1612 x 720 pixels), 269 PPI
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G (6nm Mobile Platform)
• Memory: 6GB LPDDR4X RAM
• Storage: 128GB UFS 2.2 storage (expandable up to 1TB)
• Software & UI: ColorOS 11.1 on top of Android 11
• Rear Camera: Dual (13MP primary, 2MP portrait)
• Front Camera: 8MP (punch-hole)
• Security: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Battery: 5000mAh with 33W charging

Oppo A76 Review:

Design and Build

• 164.4 x 75.7 x 8.4 mm, 189 grams
• Plastic back/frame, Glass front

First off, I really liked the design of this phone. Initially, I found the Glowing Blue colorway that I have with me to be a bit bright for my taste. But it grew on me after a few days of usage. But if you're someone who prefers a subtle look, you should check out the black shade instead. Likewise, the matte finish on the back and sides meant less-to-no fingerprint and smudges, which is always welcome.

Moreover, despite the back being plastic made, the phone has a superb in-hand feel. During my time with the phone, I had absolutely zero issues with one-hand usage from the get-go. It felt comfortable to hold and use, thanks to the ergonomic design. Plus, the phone is not hefty either, as it weighs just 189 grams. Oppo A76 received several design accolades from my colleagues. A handful of people asked me if it was a OnePlus Nord series phone, but they were quite startled to find out it was a smartphone from Oppo. Moreover, this might be a small and ignorable detail, but I appreciate how the bundled case had a frosted finish on the sides.

Display

• 6.5-inch IPS LCD
• HD+ resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio
• 90Hz refresh rate

Getting on the display, it features a 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the screen here has an HD+ resolution, whilst most companies in this price category ship a Full HD+ panel. Xiaomi, on the other hand, offers an FHD+ 90Hz AMOLED screen on the cheaper Redmi Note 11. So, Oppo has missed the mark by a continent with this one.

Even the Realme 9i, a similarly priced phone from Oppo's sister company, offers you an FHD display with 400ppi pixel density compared to the A76's 269ppi. With such a low PPI, small texts look almost pixelated to my eyes. Not only this, the Realme 9i outshines the Oppo A76 in another department too. More on that later.

 What about the Audio?

• Bottom-firing speaker

Oppo takes another major L in the audio department. While the competition has made stereo speakers widely available in this price range, the Oppo A76 still rocks a single speaker.

Maybe Oppo used a super capable speaker to make up for not having a stereo setup? Well, kind of? The speaker on the A76 sounds better than the ones on budget phones, but it cannot keep up with the stereo speakers on phones in this price bracket. On rare occasions, there were static noises while using my KZ ZEX via the 3.5mm headphones port on the Oppo A76. At first, I thought something was wrong with my earphones, but I didn't face this issue with the Realme 9i that I was testing alongside it. Sadly, I've had a not-so-good multimedia experience with the Oppo A76. I love watching YouTube videos, movies, and shows on my phone, and the ease of just laying on my bed with a phone in hand, feasting away on content, is something I'm a sucker for. But, with the sub-par display and mono speaker on the Oppo A76, I barely enjoyed anything.

Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G (6nm)
• 4/6GB RAM, 128GB storage

In terms of performance, like many sub-30k phones this year, Oppo has gone with the Snapdragon 680 chipset. So how does it fare in day-to-day performance? Frankly speaking, I did not face any sort of micro-stutter or lags in casual usage scenarios as the UI seems to be well optimized for the 90Hz refresh rate. Plus, the ColorOS 11.1 experience on the Oppo A76 is a breeze.

Moreover, the personalization section in the settings allows for exciting visual overhauls. You can change the wallpaper and theme and play around with icon styles, app layout, colors, fonts, and the notification drawer style. Additionally, the dark mode has three style options gentle, medium, and enhanced. I prefer to use the Enhanced option as it gives an all-black finish to the UI. All of this makes the UI look polished and cohesive. Unfortunately, the phone still runs on Android 11. Moreover, the phone comes with many pre-installed bloatware apps, including TikTok and the utterly useless PUBG Mobile Gift Box. No worries tho, as most of them can be uninstalled.

Gaming

  While the processor provides enough power for your day-to-day usage, it is not suitable for intensive workloads like heavy gaming. Having said that, the Snapdragon 680 on the Oppo A76 is adequate for casual gamers. Here, Call of Duty: Mobile maxes out at Very High graphics quality and Medium frame rate. However, the frame rate is quite choppy on these settings, so I suggest you game at Low graphics and High frame rates. PUBG: Mobile can go up to Balanced graphics and Medium frame rate. But for the best possible experience, you have to dial down it to Smooth graphics and a High frame rate. Moreover, Mobile Legends ran on High graphics and Ultra frame rates with minimal stutters. I couldn't get Mech Arena to run on the 90fps setting despite there being an option to do so. Oh, and Oppo provides 5GB virtual RAM, but it does next to nothing to improve the performance.

Battery

• 5000mAh, 33W fast charging

In my not-so-scientific battery test, the phone charged from 0% to 100% in approximately 1 hour and 13 minutes. It might not be much, but the 33W fast charging is a chef's kiss at this price point. With the screen on time of 11 hours and 44 minutes, the phone was at 6% at the end of 48 hours. Most of my time was spent playing Call of Duty: Mobile and watching penguinz0 on YouTube. I have zero complaints about the battery life, which is to be expected from a fairly big 5000mAh battery and a power-efficient 6nm Snapdragon 680 chipset.

Camera

• Dual camera setup at the back
• (13MP main, 2MP depth)
• 8MP selfie camera (hole-punch cutout)

The Oppo A76 has a dual-camera setup led by a 13MP primary sensor. Accompanying this is a 2MP portrait lens. Unfortunately, there's no ultrawide sensor here. For context, the Samsung Galaxy A22 features an 8MP ultrawide camera for around Rs. 4k less. Upfront, there is an 8MP selfie shooter housed in a punch-hole cutout. For this review, I compared the cameras on the Oppo A76 against the Realme 9i.

Normal Images

The Oppo A76's images have a reddish hue, whereas the Realme 9i's photos are punchier, making them more pleasing to the eye. Furthermore, the A76's photos are softer and hazier while the Realme 9i's images have more detail.

Portrait Images

Moving on, Realme's portrait photos are better looking as Oppo's image has a pale skin tone. However, the edge detection is rather comparable on both phones.

Selfie Images

In terms of selfies, the Realme 9i capture image with better colour and contrast.

Lowlight Images

For regular nighttime photographs, Oppo's images are a little muddier than Realme's. 9i's images grew brighter and more detailed when switched to night mode.

Videos

Both phones' rear and front cameras can capture 1080p video at 30 frames per second. The videos from the rear camera are very shaky and useless. The narrative remains the same for selfie videos too.

Oppo A76 Review: Conclusion

That's about it for the review. Honestly, I just loved the battery life and how easy it is to use the phone singlehandedly. But besides that, there isn't much that impressed me. Thus, I find it extremely difficult to recommend the phone to anyone at its current price.

I primarily play CODM on my phone, but the Oppo A76 struggled to keep up with it. Besides, the multimedia experience was a little meh, courtesy of the average display and single speaker. I expected an Oppo phone to do well in the camera department, but the phone failed to perform once again. Oppo's choices leave me bamboozled as I do not know who this phone is for. By no means is the phone terrible, but for the price Oppo is asking for the phone, you will be better off with other devices.

Oppo A76 Review: Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Good design and in-hand feel
• Exceptional battery life
• 33W fast charging

Cons:

• 720p display with a low pixel density
• Mono-speaker
• No Android 12 update yet
• Below average camera performance