Verdict
The Oppo A16s is a budget phone with no thrills and treasured little charm . For better and for regretful , it ’s a very cheesy and generally inoffensive handset , achieving a foundation stage of competency . But paying a smidgen more for your next phone seems advisable if at all possible .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Oppo A16s is an extremely low-priced phone that undercut even the Poco and Redmi brigade presently surround the £ 200 sphere .
It offers scurvy - end spec and a no - gimcrack conception for an RRP of just £ 159 . At the meter of penning , several month on from its UK rollout , Oppo has dropped that price further to just £ 139 .
As a result , the Oppo A16s is currently a direct rival to the likes of the Moto G22 and theNokia G21 . It ’s potential to feel cheaper phone than these , but the severity of the cuts demand to arrive at that terms point mean that you probably would n’t want to .
So , has Oppo managed to get the balance right between affordability and usableness ?
Design and Screen
The Oppo A16s is just about as generic a smartphone conception as you ’re probable to find . At 163.8 x 75.6 x 8.4 mm , its dimensions are far from thickset , but it sits easy in the hired man .
It ’s jolly heavy at 190 g , particularly sacrifice that the trunk is made of cheap credit card . But that ’s par for the row with budget earphone that come packing large 5000mAh batteries , and it ’s only 5 g heavier than the Moto G22 .
The shiny plastic behind of the earpiece is a fingermark magnet in the extreme point , peculiarly in the Crystal Black of my framework . Perhaps the idle Pearl Blue tone provides more respite from the greasiness .
Not amazingly , there ’s noIPrating included with the A16s , so you ’ll want to keep it well away from water and dusty environments .
You do get a speedy and reliable fingermark detector cache behind the flavorless tycoon button on the right - hand boundary . It ’s well-off to find , too , courtesy of a tactile recess , as well as the fact that the mass push are on the opposite edge .
On the bottom edge of the phone you ’ll find a 3.5 mm headphone diddlysquat , as well as the phone ’s single loudspeaker . The latter gets nice and tawdry , although it is n’t of sufficient quality for anything other than brief television snipping and general telephone functions .
The front of the phone similarly confirms that you ’re dealing with a budget machine . The bezels are chunky , especially the earpiece ’s stretch chin . Meanwhile , the display notch is of the sometime - school teardrop design , intend it encroaches from the top bezel .
As for that display , it ’s a 6.52 - inchIPSLCD , which means that it lacks the vibrancy of theOLEDpanel technology that starts seem around the £ 200 mark . It is n’t an especially good LCD either , with a generally wash - out pallet that makes video content look a little categoric .
With a resolution of 720 x 1600 ( HD+ ) , the Oppo A16s display fall myopic on keenness , too . This manifest in everything from homescreen icon to Netflix streams , and specially with entanglement content . There ’s a ecumenical fuzziness to everything that you do on the Oppo A16s .
We said much the same thing about theMoto G22recently , of course , but that phone at least has a 90Hz refresh rate compared to the A16s ’s standard 60Hz . Within the context of use of such limited part and performance , however , Oppo ’s choice was probably the right one .
A meridian smartness of 480 nit is perfectly satisfactory , but straying outside in gay status will leave you squint .
Camera
The Oppo A16s features a so - called triple camera system , which in reality equates to a single 13 - megapixel broad tv camera and two 2 - megapixel assistants . The latter two handle astuteness andmacroduties , which means there ’s no extremist - wide ortelephotoprovision .
The chief sensing element can capture pretty reasonable dead reckoning in optimal kindling , although such shots lack the depth and residue of even the good £ 200 handsets . Detail is satisfactory , and color are reasonably natural , but the phone struggle to equilibrate out the extreme in high dynamic range ( HDR ) scenario .
Where the photographic camera system really struggle , however , is as soon as the light drops . At this period , the noise really begin to grovel in . This is n’t a unparalleled weakness among chintzy phone , of course . Literally , every sub-£300 phone on the securities industry has the exact same flaw , to one degree or another .
One late exemplar that outpouring to nous is the Moto G22 , although that of course total with a ( clean mediocre ) ultra - wide sensor to assist mitigate the bound shooting potential difference . There ’s no such flexibility here .
Meanwhile , since Oppo has n’t contrive a surfeit of pixels at its one useful sensor , even 2x digital zoom crops do n’t look very good here .
You get an 8 - megapixel front tv camera , which turns out reasonably balanced shots with satisfactory skin shade . Again , though , you do n’t want to put it in extreme – or even not in particular uttermost – HDR scenarios .
Performance
The Oppo A16s run on MediaTek ’s Helio G35 flake , backed by 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM . You might have seen this lot - up before on the Nokia G20 .
It was an underwhelming check in that phone – and , trusted enough , the Oppo A16s does n’t feel like a immobile telephone set in the slim . Scrolling between homescreens , pulling up menus , and hop between multiple apps feel somewhat heavy .
Crucially , it ’s never so bad that there are pronounced stutters . I ’m beaming that Oppo did n’t judge to cram in a higher refresh rate exhibit here , because it would in all likelihood have made everything finger worse . As it is , there ’s at least a certain consistency to the way the Oppo A16s performs , even if that ’s “ systematically sluggish ”
sure as shooting enough , an average Geekbench 5 score of 166 single - core and 971 multi - kernel is n’t setting the world alight . as unsurprisingly , it ’s about the same as the Moto G22 deal .
Just like that speech sound , the Oppo A16s would n’t even run 3DMark ’s Wild Life psychometric test , while in the Slingshot Extreme trial run it scored to the Moto G22 ’s 460 .
If you ’re wondering whether 5 guanine come as part of any sort of software package this gloomy down the smartphone market , it does n’t . You ’ll need to kick downstairs up that warfare chest closer to the £ 200 mark if that ’s your antecedency .
ColorOS 11 runs on top of Android 11 here , which is n’t the latest software usable . It ’s about center of the route when it come to Android hide , with a relatively lightweight feel and not too many annoying in - your - face intrusion .
You do n’t get an app tray ( by default ) or Google Feed to the left of the homescreen , but that at least serves to force home the simplicity of the offering . This is clearly a phone aimed at smartphone beginners , and they ’re improbable to get too lost here .
While it sure as shooting is n’t bloatware - free , ColorOS 11 is far from the most gross offender when it comes to include third - party apps , although I remember we could have done without Booking.com and LinkedIn being preinstalled . Oppo ’s own apps are largely release away in a Tools folder too .
Battery Life
With a 5000mAh shelling allied to that low - pixel 60Hz presentation , you ’d better believe that the Oppo A16s live a good while in between charge . It would have been an absolute shock if it did n’t .
recognition where it ’s due , though : this is a genuine two - dayer , even if you ’re a bit of a medium hound . This is driven home by the fact that an time of day of Netflix streaming sapped just 4 % of a full charge , while an hour of music streaming did n’t even wangle to drop the name a single part point in time .
unluckily , I was unable to execute the usual TR benchmark trial , which entails running the 3DMark Wild Life stress test three clip in a row ( for an 60 minutes in sum ) , since the MediaTek Helio G35 just was n’t up to the task .
Oppo has bundled in a reasonably scrimpy 10W charger , which takes an absolute years to get you back up and guide . I recorded a 0 to 100 % recharge time of just under 3 minute , while it took around 1hr 15mins to off 50 % .
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
With a tumid 5000mAh bombardment and a totally undemanding 720p show , the Oppo A16s really sips the juice .
With an LCD venire and a bare 720p resolve , the Oppo A16s is n’t the earpiece you need if you ’re intending on hitting a lot of Netflix substance on the move .
Final Thoughts
It seems churlish to criticise the Oppo A16s for being completely uninspiring , grant that it ’s so very cheap . Especially at a clip when household budgets are more stretched than ever .
Even as a value proposition , however , the Oppo A16s is somewhat lacking . Delivering poor performance , a show that ’s whole miss in redeeming features , a plasticky figure , and a bog stock television camera , it ’s a phone that does n’t really offer a tidy sum of cheer .
On the plus side , its battery life is excellent , and the side - put on fingerprint sensor is nice and reliable . Did we mention it ’s incredibly cheap ?
If you really only have £ 150 or less to drop on a telephone , then the Oppo A16s will do a self-colored business for you . But if you’re able to somehow find a means to spend just a little more , you ’ll get a lot more for your money .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every peregrine speech sound we review thoroughly . We use industry standard test to compare feature properly and we practice the earpiece as our main gimmick over the review period . We ’ll always tell you what we find and we never , ever , go for money to brush up a product .
FAQs
This phone does not have an IP evaluation , which is n’t surprising given its price .
This is not a 5 gee sound and will not work on 5 G networks . It is solely a 4 grand ( and below , where uncommitted ) equipment .
