Amidst the maddening pace of recent launches, Oppo’s followed up its Reno5 Pro 5G with the F19 series of smartphones, of which we have the Pro+ 5G for review. Powered by the same MediaTek Dimensity 800U chipset seen previously on the Realme X7, the F19 Pro+ 5G goes up against the heavy hitters in the segment, the OnePlus Nord, the Mi 10i and the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. Read on to find out how it fared.
It may look like scores of phones out there, but the F19 Pro+ still manages to look good in its satiny matte-finish rear panel with a prominent rectangular camera module. It feels well-built in the hand, with a metal frame holding the front and back together and doesn’t feel all that bulky at 173 grams and 7.8mm thick. While the inclusion of a headphone jack is a convenience, the Pro+ skips on a dual speaker setup.
Around the front, you get a 6.4-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a maximum claimed brightness of 800 nits and a bog-standard 60Hz refresh rate. Comparisons to competitors and their high refresh rate displays aside, the AMOLED panel has punchy, oversaturated colors that’ll need a quick trip to the settings if you’re a stickler for color accuracy. The F19 Pro+ comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner, which is reliable but not the quickest to unlock the phone.
Powering the OPPO F19 Pro+ is the MediaTek Dimensity 800U chipset paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. Like the X7 I’ve tested earlier, performance is well and truly in the mid-range ballpark dominated by Qualcomm’s 750G and 765G chipsets. No issues in everyday usage, but there were the occasional stutters while multitasking and gaming graphics ran at medium or high at best (for instance, Call of Duty Mobile ran at medium) without heating up. The phone ships with ColorOS 11.1 based on Android 11, which is fluid in use and packed to the gills with customization options (…and some bloatware, sigh). Battery life on the 4310mAh battery gets you a day of normal use, which isn’t bad for a phone this slim, and the included 50W fast charger gets you from empty to topped up in a shade under an hour.
It's the cameras that I left most impressed with. The specs on paper may not seem like much – a 48MP primary shooter, an 8MP ultrawide, 2MP macro and monochrome sensors and a 16MP selfie shooter.
Daytime photos were bright and crisp, with good details and exposure and good dynamic range, not to mention fast autofocus and reined-in color consistency between the primary and ultrawide angle camera. You can skip the macros from the dedicated lens as the main sensor takes good close-ups.
Low-light images are about average, with the primary camera bumping up the image exposure but compensating with over-aggressive smoothening and slightly washed-out colors. Ultrawide results in low-light are underwhelming. The 16MP front camera does a good job at taking bright, color-accurate selfies, but there is a tendency to soften facial features even with beauty mode turned off completely. Video goes up to 4K/30fps but if you want stabilized video, you’re going to have to dial down to 1080p/30fps. There’s a useful AI Night Portait and a dual video mode which might appeal to selfie and vlogging enthusiasts.
Launching at Rs. 25,990, the F19 Pro+ 5G scores high on design, good daylight photography, good performance and shipping with 5G, and would earn a recommendation had it not been for the insanely competitive segment in which it lands. At its price point, this is a pricey proposition, since much of the same hardware can be had in the X7 and the Narzo 30 Pro for much less, albeit in a less slick design. And then there is the matter of the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max which destroys the competition in the 20,000 price bracket.
Highlights: Oppo F19 Pro+
Pros: Good looks, fast 50W charging, decent everyday performance, good daylight results from the primary camera, decent battery life
Cons: No high refresh rate screen, mono speakers, expensive, average low-light results
Rating: 7/10
Price: Rs. 25,990 for 8GB/128GB
Tushar Kanwar is a tech columnist and commentator, and tweets @2shar