OPPO A53s Review – First of all, let me start by saying that for the last few years, I have been using OPPO entry level phones. One of the strongest features of OPPO phones that I really love is the durability of the battery.
With other smartphones, most of the time, I would find myself in the region of 25-40% battery at the end of the day, but with OPPO phones, on average I would be in the region of 45%-70% and this is still the case even after using it for 2+ years.
The OPPO A53s is no different. Even after heavy usage, it would still be in the 30%-50% region and looking at its predecessor, I am certain the battery life would not deteriorate in the next few years. The phone is powered by a huge 5,000mAh battery.
OPPO A53s Review – Packaging & Unboxing
OPPO A53s Review – Design & Features
The next feature that is most certainly welcome on the OPPO A53S is the fingerprint scanner. My previous phone was OPPO AX5s which was good in many ways, but sadly it did not have a fingerprint scanner. It did have an excellent face recognition technology, but with 2020 being the strange COVID-19 year where wearing a mask is the norm, it became very bothersome for me to unlock my phone as I always had to resort to entering the PIN number.
I also like how the fingerprint scanner is at the back of the phone so it does not affect your screen real estate at the front display and how easy and natural it feels to reach the scanner with your point finger. As usual, you can register multiple fingerprints into the phone. Not to mention the significant number of apps that support fingerprint technology nowadays that make this feature even more crucial.
Since the last generation, the camera hardware has been improved again. The software still has the usual suspects like video mode, normal mode, portrait mode, and panorama mode, but on top of that, there are some more nice added features like macro mode, sticker mode, Google Lens, time lapse mode, and expert mode. Now, I am not a professional photographer in any sense, but the manual settings that you can config on the expert mode seems useful if you are into advanced photography.
Here are some photos taken by the OPPO A53s:
I can also feel the upgrade of power and speed thanks to the Octa-core SDM460 processor as now I can no longer feel the slight delay when opening an app or browsing through the apps. The 128 GB storage is also huge and I love the feeling where I do not have to worry about storage space on my mobile.
The 16.5 cm diagonal screen size is decent and it has 1600×720 resolution. The one thing that popped out for me was the 90 Hz refresh rate that is definitely easy on the eyes. But unfortunately, as much as my eyes like the big display, I have small hands, and the phone is too big for their liking ever so slightly.
The other thing that I would like to add is I am not sure about the new contacts and call interface of ColorOS. To me, this feature needs to be consistent generation to generation with maybe small tweaks here and there, but every time I change my OPPO phone from one generation to another, I always find myself where I feel like I have to learn the new contacts and call interface again as they always feel different.
Having said all that, I do appreciate the floating bubble when you are in the middle of a call so if you have to navigate away to other apps you can return to the call screen or do action with it easily by tapping on the call bubble.
OPPO A53s Review Conclusion
All in all, OPPO A53s is a big upgrade from my last AX5s. There are a lot of cool little things like the cool charging animation on the default theme, the perfect placement of the fingerprint sensors, etc.
I appreciate these little things because they show how much thought OPPO put into the design and display. Despite its low price, it does not feel like an entry level phone at all. Grab it now from your trusted retailers from A$349.
Disclosure: OPPO A53s review unit was supplied for reviewing
