The Oppo A16s is a finances cellphone with no thrills and treasured little appeal. For higher and for worse, it’s a really low cost and customarily inoffensive handset, attaining a base stage of competence. However paying a smidgen extra in your subsequent cellphone appears advisable if in any respect potential.

Introduction

The Oppo A16s is an especially reasonably priced cellphone that undercuts even the Poco and Redmi brigade at the moment besieging the £200 sector.

It gives low-end specs and a no-nonsense design for an RRP of simply £159. On the time of writing, a number of months on from its UK rollout, Oppo has dropped that value additional to simply £139.

Consequently, the Oppo A16s is at the moment a direct rival to the likes of the Moto G22 and the Nokia G21. It’s potential to search out cheaper telephones than these, however the severity of the cuts wanted to hit that value level imply that you just in all probability wouldn’t wish to.

So, has Oppo managed to get the stability proper between affordability and usefulness?

Design and Display

• Plastic, greasy construct
• Dependable fingerprint sensor
• 60Hz and 720p

The Oppo A16s is nearly as generic a smartphone design as you’re more likely to discover. At 163.8 x 75.6 x 8.4mm, its dimensions are removed from compact, however it sits simply within the hand.

It’s considerably heavy at 190g, particularly on condition that the physique is made from low cost plastic. However that’s par for the course with finances telephones that come packing massive 5000mAh batteries, and it’s solely 5g heavier than the Moto G22.

The shiny plastic rear of the cellphone is a fingerprint magnet within the excessive, particularly within the Crystal Black of my mannequin. Maybe the lighter Pearl Blue tone supplies extra respite from the greasiness. 

Not surprisingly, there’s no IP ranking included with the A16s, so that you’ll wish to hold it effectively away from water and dusty environments. 

You do get a speedy and dependable fingerprint sensor stashed behind the flat energy button on the right-hand edge. It’s simple to search out, too, courtesy of a tactile recess, in addition to the truth that the quantity buttons are on the other edge.

On the underside fringe of the cellphone you’ll discover a 3.5mm headphone jack, in addition to the cellphone’s single speaker. The latter will get good and loud, though it isn’t of ample high quality for something aside from temporary video snippets and common cellphone features.

The entrance of the cellphone equally confirms that you just’re coping with a finances machine. The bezels are chunky, particularly the cellphone’s elongated chin. In the meantime, the show notch is of the old-school teardrop design, that means it encroaches from the highest bezel.

As for that show, it’s a 6.52-inch IPS LCD, which signifies that it lacks the vibrancy of the OLED panel expertise that begins showing across the £200 mark. It isn’t an particularly good LCD both, with a typically washed-out palette that makes video content material look a bit of flat.

With a decision of 720 x 1600 (HD+), the Oppo A16s show falls quick on sharpness, too. This manifests in every little thing from homescreen icons to Netflix streams, and particularly with internet content material. There’s a common fuzziness to every little thing that you just do on the Oppo A16s.

We mentioned a lot the identical factor in regards to the Moto G22 not too long ago, in fact, however that cellphone a minimum of has a 90Hz refresh charge in comparison with the A16s’s normal 60Hz. Throughout the context of such restricted parts and efficiency, nevertheless, Oppo’s alternative was in all probability the precise one.

A peak brightness of 480 nits is completely acceptable, however straying outdoors in sunny situations will go away you squinting.

Digital camera

• 13-megapixel major shooter
• 2-megapixel depth sensor
• 2-megapixel macro sensor

The Oppo A16s incorporates a so-called triple digicam system, which really equates to a single 13-megapixel vast digicam and two 2-megapixel assistants. The latter two deal with depth and macro duties, which implies there’s no ultra-wide or telephoto provision.

The primary sensor can seize fairly affordable photographs in optimum lighting, though such photographs lack the depth and stability of even the higher £200 handsets. Element is appropriate, and colors are fairly pure, however the cellphone struggles to stability out the extremes in excessive dynamic vary (HDR) eventualities.

The place the digicam system actually struggles, nevertheless, is as quickly as the sunshine drops. At this level, the noise actually begins to creep in. This isn’t a singular weak point amongst low cost telephones, in fact. Actually, each sub-£300 cellphone in the marketplace has the very same flaw, to at least one diploma or one other.

One current instance that springs to thoughts is the Moto G22, though that in fact comes with a (pretty mediocre) ultra-wide sensor to assist mitigate the restricted taking pictures potential. There’s no such flexibility right here. 

In the meantime, since Oppo hasn’t thrown a surfeit of pixels at its one helpful sensor, even 2x digital zoom crops don’t look excellent right here.

You get an 8-megapixel entrance digicam, which seems fairly balanced photographs with acceptable pores and skin tones. Once more, although, you don’t wish to put it in excessive – and even not notably excessive – HDR eventualities.

Efficiency

• Humble MediaTek Helio G35 chip
• 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM
• ColorOS on prime of Android 11

The Oppo A16s runs on MediaTek’s Helio G35 chip, backed by 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. You might need seen this set-up earlier than on the Nokia G20.

It was an underwhelming chip in that cellphone – and, positive sufficient, the Oppo A16s doesn’t really feel like a quick cellphone within the slightest. Scrolling between homescreens, pulling up menus, and hopping between a number of apps feels considerably ponderous.

Crucially, it’s by no means so unhealthy that there are pronounced stutters. I’m glad that Oppo didn’t attempt to cram in a better refresh charge show right here, as a result of it could possible have made every little thing really feel worse. As it’s, there’s a minimum of a sure consistency to the best way the Oppo A16s performs, even when that’s “persistently sluggish”

Positive sufficient, a mean Geekbench 5 rating of 166 single-core and 971 multi-core isn’t setting the world alight. Equally unsurprisingly, it’s about the identical because the Moto G22 managed.

Identical to that cellphone, the Oppo A16s wouldn’t even run 3DMark’s Wild Life take a look at, whereas within the Slingshot Excessive take a look at it scored to the Moto G22’s 460.

In case you’re questioning whether or not 5G comes as a part of any form of package deal this low down the smartphone market, it doesn’t. You’ll must bump up that battle chest nearer to the £200 mark if that’s your precedence.

ColorOS 11 runs on prime of Android 11 right here, which isn’t the most recent software program accessible. It’s about center of the street in relation to Android skins, with a comparatively light-weight really feel and never too many annoying in-your-face intrusions. 

You don’t get an app tray (by default) or Google Feed to the left of the homescreen, however that a minimum of serves to drive residence the simplicity of the providing. That is clearly a cellphone aimed toward smartphone learners, they usually’re unlikely to get too misplaced right here.

Whereas it actually isn’t bloatware-free, ColorOS 11 is much from probably the most egregious offender in relation to included third-party apps, though I believe we might have completed with out Reserving.com and LinkedIn being preinstalled. Oppo’s personal apps are largely secreted away in a Instruments folder too.

Battery Life

• 5000mAh battery
• Good for 2 days in some situations
• 10W charging very gradual

With a 5000mAh battery allied to that low-pixel 60Hz show, you’d higher imagine that the Oppo A16s lasts a great whereas in between costs. It could have been an absolute shock if it didn’t.

Credit score the place it’s due, although: it is a real two-dayer, even in case you’re a little bit of a media hound. That is pushed residence by the truth that an hour of Netflix streaming sapped simply 4% of a full cost, whereas an hour of music streaming didn’t even handle to drop the determine a single share level.

Sadly, I used to be unable to run the same old TR benchmark take a look at, which entails working the 3DMark Wild Life stress take a look at thrice in a row (for an hour in whole), for the reason that MediaTek Helio G35 merely wasn’t as much as the duty.

Oppo has bundled in a reasonably meagre 10W charger, which takes an absolute age to get you again up and working. I recorded a 0 to 100% recharge time of just below 3 hours, whereas it took round 1hr 15mins to hit 50%.

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