Oppo R7 Lite Review: The smartphone with exceptionally good camera

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The Oppo R7-Lite smartphone which is a trimmed version of the premium R7 Plus. The R7-Lite is yet another design oriented and rich on features smartphone from Oppo.

Oppo launched R7 Lite few months back, a mid range offering from Oppo, which is available on Flipkart at 18,690 INR. Well, let’s check out if the phone justify the price tag.

Design & Build

Oppo R7-Lite (2)

The phone is available in Silver and Golden color, and we have reviewed Silver color model. Looking around volume rockers are located on the right side of the phone.

The SIM card and microSD card slot sit on the left side of the phone. While 3.5mm audio jack and Micro-USB port placed on top and bottom respectively.

SIM tray is designed in such a way, either you can put Micro SIM and Nano SIM or Micro Sim and SD card together in the tray. The choice is yours how you want to use it. Both SIM slot supports 4G LTE connectivity.

Talking about the front, you get a notification LED light located on the upper left along with the front shooter. Then there are non-backlit capacitive touch buttons right below the phone display.

Back has got a 13MP shooter, a single LED flash and the speaker at the bottom.

The body is made of magnesium aluminium alloy. Weighs at 147g, the phone felt very much light in the hand and measured at 6.3mm in thickness, its sleek and lightweight build makes it one handed use possible most of the times.

Its premium build, crisp aesthetic and outstanding feel all together make it a gorgeous buy.

Display: 5-inch AMOLED 720p

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At the front it has 5-inch AMOLED display with 720×1280 pixels resolution which is well protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Now this is surely a low-resolution display considering the other offerings in this price bracket.

OnePlus X comes with a Full HD display. Despite the issue, this is vivid and crisp display with excellent color reproduction, saturation and almost legible in sunlight.

The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset, Adreno 405 GPU, 2GB RAM, and 16GB internal storage out of which around 8GB is user available and after installing few games and applications you just cannot ignore the need for microSD card.

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However, the smartphone has an option of microSD card expansion up to 128GB. So, in the longer run, you will be able to use only one SIM with microSD card considering SIM tray’s design. Now, this could be a significant flaw.

R7-Lite is a midrange smartphone so, no surprise specs aren’t that impressive as flagship phones, but 2GB RAM still stays behind in the market. But, in my regular usage, it was capable of offering smooth and lag free performance.

I was able to run GPU intensive games, and multitasking was all right too. Now cool part is about this phone is that it doesn’t dissipate any heat even after having a metal unibody.

Software: Android 5.1 with ColorOS 2.1

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Oppo R7-Lite comes with Android 5.1 with ColorOS 2.1 launcher on top of it. The proprietary ColorOS doesn’t have an app drawer and comes with its own set of apps, such as- Theme Store, Lock Now, O-Cloud, etc.

The setting has been categorized into three separate tabs at the top: General, Sound, and Display like we have seen in Oppo’s previous iterations as well.

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Like many, it does come with gesture and motions to access quickly certain apps. You get a lot of customizations to experiment and improve the user experience. One noteworthy feature is “Eye Protection”, activating the feature helps in reducing strain on eyes especially in the dark.

Oppo also packs in some of its own apps as I said earlier. I wouldn’t call it a complete bloatware as most of the pre-installed apps are actually make sense.

Camera: 13 MP Primary & 8 MP Selfie

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As far as camera performance goes, 13MP primary shooter and 8mp front shooter were able to capture details and colors very well. Even in tricky lighting, it offered decent shots with reduced noise. Focusing is fast but slows down a bit in low light.

Personally, I liked 8MP selfie shooter very much, especially the beauty mode. It also offers a variety of shooting modes and allows you to be experimental. Ultra HD mode gives you high-resolution output of 50mp, that’s tricky thing and the image is processed by the camera app of the phone.  Videos can be recorded at 1080p resolution.

Shots taken in daylight justify the specs, but low light performance might disappoint you. Overall, the camera wasn’t as great as expected but it was fun to use its camera app. I tried various modes and different filters and to my surprise output was impressive.

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Battery: 2320 mAh

The smartphone on-boards 2,320mAh non-removable battery with fast charging supported. Although, it is not the huge battery but enough to survive a full day on mixed usage. You get few power saving options to stay juiced longer in the critical scenario.

It has got regular connectivity features like Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, 4G LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Dual SIM, microSD card, and OTG support.

Pros

  • Premium Design
  • Sleek & Lightweight

Cons

  • Internal storage 16GB only
  • No 1080p display
  • Doesn’t have FM

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The Verdict

Overall, the smartphone makes itself an expensive choice for its mediocre hardware specs. If you are the one who cannot compromise on specs, I would suggest you to explore the market before making purchase as it may not a deal breaker phone for you.

Despite apparent flaws, the phone may turn out to be a great deal to those who have a taste of exquisite build and stylish looks along with the nice camera performance.

Video Review