Oppo F17 Review – This phone feels superb in hands!

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After a brief hiatus due to the pandemic, brands are on a roll lately. We have been seeing a new smartphone launch every 10 days now. The new entrant in this race is Oppo, bringing their F17 series to India.

The new Oppo F17 series brings refreshed design language and a bunch of other nifty additions that are slowly being a norm in the industry. We have been using the Oppo F17 for a while now and to be honest, it’s an intriguing phone. Now the question arises, should you pick one for your selves? Let’s find out in our full review.

Oppo F17 Specifications

Before starting with the Oppo F17 review, let’s have a look at the phone’s specifications.

  • Display: 6.44-inch Super AMOLED, FHD+ resolution
  • CPU: Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 Processor
  • GPU: Adreno 610
  • RAM: 6/8GB
  • Storage: 128GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB
  • Software: Android 10 (ColorOS 7.2)
  • Main Camera: 16MP (PDAF) (f/2.2) + 8MP ultra-wide-angle (f/2.2) + 2MP mono lens (f/2.4) + 2MP mono lens (f/2.4)
  • Selfie Camera: 16MP (f/2.0)
  • Connectivity: USB Type C, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.1, GPS/ A-GPS, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio
  • Cellular: Dual SIM
  • Fingerprint Scanner: Yes, in-display
  • Battery: 4,015 mAh, Li-ion Polymer, non-removable

Box Contents

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Here’s a complete list of items you get inside the box:

    • Oppo F17 smartphone
    • 30W Charger
    • USB Type C Cable
    • Earphones
    • Protective Case
    • Sim Ejector Tool
    • Documentation

Design & Display

So, the Oppo F17 is a breath of fresh air. The phone has a boxy design from the flat rim to the display. But what catches the attention is the back. While we have been seeing more and more phones featuring glass or polycarbonate back, the F17 has a faux leather finish. The back has a leather feel and provides a good grip.

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The phone is being offered in three colors and covers a diverse section of the market. You get a square quad-camera module on the back, with the flash module adjacent to it and the subtle Oppo branding on the bottom. Moving to the button placement, the power button is on the right while the volume rockers are on the left side. The bottom houses the USB Type-C charging port, speaker grill, microphone, and the 3.5mm audio jack.

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Turning our attention to the display, we get a 6.44-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED panel. The phone has a dew-drop which honestly was a rage a few months back but already feels dated. As with the standard AMOLED panels, you get deep blacks and punchy colors. Right out of the box, the display had a cooler tone which can be adjusted via the display settings. There is support for Widewine L1 and you could play YouTube in HDR. This makes the display ideal for content consumption.

Overall, we found the display to be adequately bright enough for outdoors and the is one of the best displays in a phone at this price point.

Software & Performance

Moving to the Software, the phone runs on Android 10 with the latest build of ColorOS 7.2 on top. You get a flair of customization options, from changing the themes to wallpapers, icons, and more. With the latest ColorOS build, Oppo has balanced out the blacks, so the dark mode on the AMOLED panel looks extremely well.

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There are some nifty features like the Game Mode, Dark Mode, and the Oppo Relax that as the name suggests helps you to relax and focus by engaging the user in meditation and other peace-inducing exercises. There is a bit of bloatware this time as well, apps like DailyHunt which will spam you with random notifications, but on the flip side, you don’t get to see ads in UI which is very common on the rival products.

Coming to the performance, the Oppo F17 comes powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 SoC. The phone is being offered in two RAM configurations a 6GB and 8GB variant while the storage remains the same on both models. Our unit came with 8GB RAM and 128GB which can be increased via a MicroSD card. This is one of the areas where we found the phone to be lacking.

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The Snapdragon 662 is perhaps not the best choice to pack in an INR 18k phone. Something like the Snapdragon 665 or 720G would’ve been a better choice. But with all the other goodies you are getting, it is understandable that Oppo had to cut cost here. That being said, we found the phone to be perfectly fine for day to day use. We could do light browsing, social media, and casual gameplays without any issues.

It is with a bit more demanding usage, you run into some issues. The RAM was more than sufficient for smooth operation and Oppo’s memory management here seems to be on point. Since the chipset is not the best one for playing games, we did do some light gaming. Games like Alto’s Odyssey, Beach Buggy racing worked well with medium graphics. Other not so graphic intensive titles like Subway surfers and trivia games run perfectly without any hiccups.

Cameras & Battery

In terms of optics, the Oppo F17 offers a quad-camera setup on the back. This includes a 16-megapixel primary camera with f/2.2 aperture and phase detection autofocus (PDAF), an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, followed by two 2-megapixel mono lenses for collecting depth and color info.

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Talking about the camera app, it’s fairly standard with all the modes laid out neatly. You get the standard AI-assisted modes here as well like with other Oppo phones. Jumping to camera performance, the images shot in daylight conditions are quite decent with a good amount of detail and sharpens in them. Dynamic range with the HDR mode is on point, thanks to the PDAF, the focus is fast and accurate for the most part. In low-light, the camera doesn’t perform as good as expected- it exhibits a lack of detail and shows inaccurate colors. The inbuilt Night mode does help to bring out some details while keeping the noise to a minimum.

Moving to the front camera, the 16-megapixel selfie shooter. Oppo has used the Sony IMX471 sensor here which produces some decent results when compared to the competition. One issue we encountered here is the beautification mode that was still kicking in the background despite being disabled in the settings.

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As for the video performance, you can take both 1080p and 720p videos at 30fps from the rear main sensor and something similar can also be achieved from the front camera. The only difference is the availability of EIS on the rear sensor which is missing on the selfie cam.

Coming to the battery, the phone comes packed with a 4,015mAh cell with the highlighting feature being the VOOC 4.0 fast charging support. In our tests, the phone lasted a full working day with moderate usage which comprised web-surfing, social media, texting, and occasional gaming. With the bundled VOOC 4.0 30W fast charger, the battery took a little over an hour for a full top-up.

Pros

  • Looks Premium
  • Great display
  • Fast Charging

Cons

  • Camera performance could be better
  • Chipset is not for heavy usage

Verdict- Should you buy it?

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At a starting price of INR 17,999, when looking purely at specs, the Oppo F17 is somewhat a let-down. The phone does provide an excellent build, quality display, good camera, and the 30W fast charging but cuts down on the processor.

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