OPPO A92 Review | Geek Lifestyle

A week ago, I got my hands on the A92, the latest mid-range smartphone from OPPO. In my first impressions of this new OPPO mid-ranger, I found it to be quite promising thanks to its capable processor, quad camera setup, and massive battery. The phone also has a pretty big, nearly bezel-less screen, which should mean it’s a great match for watching movies and TV shows.

Of course, those are just my first impressions of the phone after a couple of days with it. Now that a full week has passed, I can finally give my full verdict on the OPPO A92. So is the A92 a worthy mid-range contender? Read on to find out!

Geek-sthetic

As I mentioned in my first impressions, I quite like the more understated yet still elegant look of the OPPO A92 in the Twilight Black colorway. Much like the more premium Reno 3 and Reno 3 Pro, the A92 has a more subdued design, making it great for users who want a good-looking phone without being too bright. Of course, for users who prefer a smartphone with a more eye-catching device, the A92 also comes in Stream White and Aurora Purple colorways.

Moving to the front, you can see the OPPO A92’s 6.5-inch display that has a tiny holepunch notch at the left side for the selfie camera. This notch design is actually my preferred style as I find it a bit less distracting than having a larger notch or having a holepunch right at the middle.

Thanks to its small notch and minimal side bezels, the A92 offers a lot of screen real estate, especially for its size. Coupling this with the fact that the phone is quite a looker, it’s easy to say that the OPPO A92 is a well-designed phone.

Binge-watching Factor 

The 6.5-inch Full HD+ display looks great when navigating through the menu, but what about for binge-watching? If you plan on watching movies, TV shows, or anime on this phone, you won’t be disappointed! While it uses an LCD screen instead of an AMOLED panel, the A92’s display still has great color output and sharp details, plus it get plenty bright as well. This makes the A92 a great binge-watch partner.

If you’re gonna use the A92 for a movie/series marathon though, I’d recommend using external speakers or headphones, be it through the phone’s 3.5mm headphone jack or via Bluetooth. This is because the A92’s onboard speaker isn’t the best for binge-watching. That doesn’t mean its bad though; the speaker on the A92 actually has decent audio quality and can get fairly loud, it’s just that it’s better suited for light video watching.

Gaming Prowess

Thanks to the A92’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor, the phone is a pretty good device for mobile gaming. For instance, it was able to run Call of Duty: Mobile on High graphics settings with a stable framerate. While High is the default option for the phone (and is the option that I would recommend), the A92 can run CoD Mobile on Very High, just not as smoothly as in the High setting.

Aside from Call of Duty: Mobile, the A92 also ran lots of other games at medium to high graphics settings with ease, including games such as Mobile Legends, Asphalt 9, and more. If you love playing games on your phone, the OPPO A92 will not disappoint.

Geek Photoshoot Capabilities

In the camera department, the OPPO A92 has a 48MP f/1.7 + 8 MP f/2.2 ultra-wide + 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor+ 2MP f/2.4 B/W quad-rear camera setup. For selfies meanwhile, the phone features a 16MP f/2.0 front camera. While there are a lot of 48MP camera-equipped mid-rangers in the market, I found that the A92’s photos were a bit better than some of the competition.

In outdoor daytime shots, the OPPO A92 took high quality photos with good color and lots of detail. Images taken indoors were also quite impressive, with colors having a nice pop to them.

Nighttime shots take a dip in quality when using Auto Mode, but thanks to the dedicated Night Mode, the A92 is able to take great night shots. Based on the shots I was able to capture, I’d even say that the OPPO A92 has one of the better night modes I’ve seen in a mid-ranger, with the only trade-off being that you’ll have to wait around 8 seconds for each Night Mode shot to finish.

Moving on to the phone’s 8MP ultra-wide camera, the A92 is able to take decent wide-angle shots in daytime. At night though, it struggles when you shoot using auto mode. Surprisingly, Night Mode worked quite well in brightening and sharpening up wide-angle shots. In my experience, other mid-rangers struggled with low-light ultra-wide shots, even with a night mode.

For selfies, the A92’s 16MP front camera takes social media-ready shots, though I did have to turn down the beautification feature (though that might just be personal preference. Finally, the phone’s dedicated 2MP depth sensor helps in taking nice portrait shots with fairly natural background blur effects.

Everyday Reliability

Given that the A92 performs well for gaming, it’s no surprise that the phone is also a strong performer for day-to-day tasks. In my time with the A92, the phone did not slow down one bit, whether I was opening emails or switching between social media apps.

Aside from the phone’s good performance for everyday use, what impressed me about the A92 is its battery life. Thanks to the A92’s large 5000mAh battery, one charge lasted me well over a day, even with medium to heavy use. With lighter use, the A92 can even last for up to two days on just one charge. If you do need to charge, the A92 supports 18W fast charging for quick battery top-ups.

Final Geek Lifestyle Verdict – 8/10

Overall, the OPPO A92 is a good mid-range smartphone thanks to its beautiful design, quality display, and quad camera setup that captures great photo, especially in low light. Adding to these great features is powerful gaming and everyday performance, as well as a long battery life.

On its own, the A92 is a nice option, though with its price tag of PHP 15,990, it faces some stiff competition. At this price range, there are lots of smartphones with more powerful processor or even 64MP cameras. At the end of the day though, you can’t go wrong with the A92 thanks to its great list of features.

OPPO A92 Specs:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor
• Adreno 610
• 8GB RAM
• 6.5-inch FHD+ LCD display (w/ holepunch notch)
• 128GB storage (expandable via microSD)
• 48MP f/1.7 +  8 MP f/2.2 ultra-wide + 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor + 2MP f/2.4 B/W quad-rear camera setup
• 16MP f/2.0 front camera
• 3G, LTE, Dual SIM
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, fingerprint scanner (side-mounted), USB Type-C
• 5000mAh battery
• Android 10 with ColorOS 7.1
• Price: PHP 15,990