Oppo F21 Pro: First Impression
Popular Chinese smartphone-maker Oppo on Tuesday (April 12) launched the new line of the F21 Pro series in India.
The company is offering the handset in two variants-- a regular F21 Pro and a F21 Pro 5G-- for Rs 22,999 and Rs 26,999, respectively.
The key difference between the two are the chipsets and the camera hardware. The 5G model houses snappier Snapdragon 695 silicon, a high-resolution 64MP primary sensor on the back, and a 16MP selfie camera, whereas the 4F model comes with Snapdragon 680 processor, 64MP AI sensor, and a 32MP front snapper. The rest of the aspects such as the design, display, RAM+Storage, and battery capacity remains the same.
DH has received the vibrant sunset orange Oppo F21 Pro (4G) and here are our initial thoughts about the latest mid-range device.
Design and display
The first thing you notice of the Oppo F21 Pro sunset orange model is the faux leather-based shell on the back. It has a matte finish and interestingly, it isn't of inferior quality. It offers a premium hand-touch experience. The rails around the edges are solid and promise to offer good stability to the device's structure and can take accidental falls and protect internal hardware from getting damaged.
Also, the display comes with Corning Glass 5 shield. On top of that, the company has pre-applied another layer of the screen guard. Add to that, the retail box comes with a soft translucent shell cover.
With additional protection, the company has ensured the F21 Pro lasts long with fewer scratches and also prevents physical dents after accidental falls.
On the front, Oppo's new phone features a 6.43-inch full HD+ (2400 × 1080p) AMOLED display and it supports a 90Hz refresh rate, up to 180Hz maximum touch sampling rate. And, it offers a peak brightness of up to 600 nits. This is just enough to read content outdoors under a shade. But, need to see if it can offer a good reading experience under direct sunlight.
Also, the device sports an in-display fingerprint sensor and so far, it has fared well.
It should be noted that the device comes with three dedicated slots two for nano SIMs and another for the microSD card.
Photography hardware
The new phone houses triple-camera module--main 64MP (f/1.7) + 2MP 30x microscope camera (f/3.3) + 2MP (f/2.4) macro camera with LED flash on the back. On the front, it features 32MP (with a 1/2.74-inch Sony IMX709 sensor, f/2.4).
During the brief time I spent with the Oppo F21 Pro early this morning, it has managed to pique my interest, in how well it can perform in varied light environments.
In the first test, in natural sunlight conditions, the camera has done a fabulous job of capturing a good amount of details, and the saturation of the flowers' colours is not overwhelming. So far so good.
Processor configuration
As mentioned earlier, the generic Oppo F21 Pro ships with Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor, Adreno 610 GPU and is backed by Android 12-based ColorOS 12.1, 8GB RAM and 128GB storage (expandable via microSD card). It should be noted that the company is offering just this variant in India.
Also, the device supports RAM expansion feature, which allows owners to bump the physical memory by another 5GB, meaning the device with 8GB RAM, provided has extra storage, can be bumped up to 13GB. This will significantly improve the speed of day-to-day tasks such as opening apps, switching apps, and operating the camera and other stuff.
So far, Oppo F21 Pro has worked smoothly, but I am very keen to check out how it will perform while playing graphics-rich games such as Asphalt 9: Legends.
The device comes with a 4,500mAh battery and it is more than enough to keep the phone running for a whole day under normal usage. Also, the company is offering a 33W SuperVooc charger, which according to the company, can power up the phone from zero to 100 per cent in one hour. Will see, if this really works. Come back to the DH for the full review soon.
For the ininitiaed, the Oppo F21 Pro 5G comes with a 6.43-inch full HD+ (2400 × 1080p) AMOLED display, 60Hz refresh rate, up to 180Hz maximum touch sampling rate, up to 600 nits brightness, in-display fingerprint sensor, three dedicated slots (nano-SIM 1, nano-SIM 2 and microSD card), 6nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 695, Adreno 619 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4x RAM, 128GB UFS 2.2 storage (expandable), Android 12-based ColorOS 12.1, triple-camera module- 64MP(f/1.7) + 2MP (f/2.4) Monochrome + 2MP (f/2.4) macro camera with LED flash on the back, 16MP (f/2.4) front-facing camera and a 4,500mAh battery with 33W SuperVooc charger in-box.
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