OPPO F5 Youth Review - F5 for the Youth?

After the release of the F5, OPPO announced the F5 Youth which is almost the same except for the cameras and the smaller RAM. But, does it have the same value for money that the regular F5 has?

OPPO F5 Youth Review

In our initial impressions with the OPPO F5 Youth, it performed fairly well even though the RAM was less. Our concern with it was the cameras.

This is our full review.

For our review part 1: OPPO F5 Youth Unboxing and Initial Impressions

Display Quality

OPPO F5 Youth has a good FHD+ screen

The display is a Gorilla Glass 5 protected 6-inch FHD+ IPS 2160 x 1080 resolution w/ 2.5D curved glass with 403 ppi It's maximum brightness and 1080p resolution is on par if not slightly better than the phones in this price range.

FHD+ IPS goodness!

It is an IPS display so it won't have the jaw dropping eye popping saturated colors and deep blacks of AMOLED but it comes close. It is impressive given at its price.

It is an 18:9 / 2:1 aspect ratio and the bezels are sleek. The on-screen buttons do take up some real estate but that can be hidden. Watching videos on the large immersive screen with 1080p is as good as it can get at this price!

It has a 10 point multi touch display so games that need multiple touch controls are playable with this phone.

Audio Quality

The F5 Youth's single bottom firing speakers gets loud enough to fill a quiet room but may struggle in a noisy one.

The details are defined but not as much as some of the competition. There is some distortion at the high volumes but it is minimal. The mids and trebles are there while there is an emphasis on the bass. It's good enough but we would like to have a more powerful sound but with balance between the mids, bass and treble.

Audio quality is good!

For headphones and earphones, we used the stock earphones and our RHA S500i. The stock earphones is good. The sound is more defined and the small sound stage gives a somewhat immersive experience.

It does however have similar treatment to the mids and trebles as with the speaker. The bass is also prominent here.

The microphones are clear and clean enough for calls and recordings. We never had an issue or a caller comment that our voice had concerns during calls.

Battery Life

Almost 10 hours

In our usual PC Mark battery benchmark though it was rated for under 10 hours. It is good but we've seen phones like the V7+ with similar battery capacities but are able to reach 14 to 17 hours results in the benchmark.

In our daily use of email, texting, calling, social media interactions, YouTube streaming, we were getting 8 to 9 hours of on screen time with LTE and LTE hotspot. We would unplug the phone at 8AM and end our day at 6PM at 20 to 25% battery left.

Without LTE, we were getting around 10 to 11 hours of on-screen time. It is able to get you through the day even with LTE.

It has the standard battery saving modes where it lowers performance and background tasks to improve longevity. It includes a regular power saving mode that will darken the screen and disconnect you to WiFi, data or Bluetooth and smart-saving that consumes less power.

Charging time is under 120 minutes from 0 to 100! The charging plug is a 2A charger.

Camera

The rear camera is a single 13MP f/2.2 w/ AF and LED flash. It is similarly spec'ed with the OPPO F3. 

Camera UI

There is a pro mode (expert mode) where you can customize metering, white balance ISO, shutter speed, focus and exposure compensation. The ISO starts at 100 up to 3200 while the shutter speed starts at 1/8000th of a second up to 16 seconds. This makes this camera good for fast moving subjects and with limited long exposure capabilities.

There are 6 levels of beautification from the beauty mode. We found that at level 6 the beautification became to artificial. We recommend levels 1 to 3.

There is no depth of field or bokeh mode for the main camera.

You can seamlessly transition from one camera to the next and to video mode quickly.

The HDR mode is there and takes a fraction of a second to take. It is one of the fastest HDR implementations we've seen in this price point.

The autofocus of the main camera is one of the best for the price and is on par with the V7. We found that even though we would use tap the subject to focus, it would nail focus right away 8 to 9 out of 10 times. There were times where it would hesitate in low light.

In daylight, the images have good resolution, good color, decent dynamic range and decent contrast.

In low light, there is a noticeable amount of noise or grain. The noise reduction is there but there isn't a considerable amount of detail lost. It is good but is second to the Vivo V7 in terms of low light capabilities.

The LED flash is there for the main camera and a screen flash for the selfie if you need it.  The selfie display flash isn't that powerful though and it almost has no effect in brightly lit conditions.

Rear Camera Samples

Daylight

Close-up

Indoor

Indoor close-up

Lowlight 1

Lowlight 2

On the other hand, it carries the 16MP f/2.0 w/ A.I. Beauty Recognition Technology and screen flash as the selfie camera. There are 6 levels of beautification mode which is the same as the main camera.

Selfie camera UI

It has a depth of field or bokeh mode that looks okay. It softens the background but it fails to perfectly blur the hair  The customizable settings are the same with the rear camera. 

It also has the selfie panorama feature that we didn't find in the OPPO F5. It is a great feature to have for those group shots. We still like it here like we did the OPPO F3 Plus.

It uses an auto-face recognition autofocus. It works 9 out of 10 times which is an amazing experience whenever we don't have to struggle with using both hands or one hand while trying to balance the phone and tap the shutter button.

The selfie camera is noticeably sharper with better color accuracy, contrast and dynamic range as the main camera. This is the true main camera of this phone. 

Lowlight selfie performance is also quite nice. The screen flash is obviously not as good as real softlight flash, but it is still decent.

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight

Selfie indoor

Portrait mode with Patrick Alcantara of Modern Thumb

Selfie lowlight 1

Selfie lowlight 2

For videos the rear (standard and wide) and front selfie cameras shoot up to 1080p at 30 FPS. For the selfie video there is no flash but there is the 6 levels of beautification. For the rear camera video, you can add the special filters, the 6 levels of beautification, and the flash for continuous lighting.

There is no OIS or EIS so there is noticeably wobbling or jitters when taking a video while walking. The video for both are similar characteristics. Both have high detail and saturated color for all resolution but the noise is noticeable especially in low light.

The 1080p footage from both cameras are sharp with good contrast and good color accuracy. We found that the selfie camera videos a bit sharper and with slightly better face detect autofocus.

Video Samples

Performance

AnTuTu score!

The phone packs the 2.5GHz 64-bit Helio P23 octa-core processor with the Mali-G71MP2 plus 3GB of RAM! It makes this phone perform well and it shows. Just look at that benchmark. 

OPPO F5 performance!

The result is smooth minor tasks, good multitasking and good gaming performance with almost no hiccups. Which we think is acceptable as this phone is meant to be the phone that lasts you through a couple of days.

We were able to play NBA 2K18 at high settings. Graphics is pretty, but it has noticeable frame drops at high settings.

Familiar UI

The OS takes up a lot of space. The phone is spec'd with 32GB but you only have 22GB after the OS and other software. We advise to get microSD cards if you plan to have a lot of media on your phone.

Other features and modes

OPPO added quite a lot of features found in most phones right now like app cloning, gaming mode and gesture controls. These are nice additions and we are happy to use and have them.

This is a personal preference but OPPO added a lot of security features which is a welcome addition but some are to us annoying. One of these is that we couldn't use third party apps for text messages and galleries.

The OS would always give a prompt whenever we received or sent a text message to use the first party software to be more secure.

We like that this may offer true security but it impedes our workflow because some of the first party apps from OPPO lack the functionality of text messaging apps like Textra, and of gallery apps like QuickPic.

Most people wouldn't mind this because most aren't picky with apps as long as they work. The frustration for the minority who care about this would be stirred away from this like how the original OPPO F5 didn't allow for third-party launchers.

The fingerprint scanner is fast! Not as fast as the One Plus 5T but as fast as the quick and easy as the V7 series. We only had one instance where it misread my registered fingerprint.

The face unlock feature is on par with the V7 series. These phones along with the F5 and F5 Youth are one of the fastest and reliable face unlock featured phones in this price range. They aren't as fast as the OnePlus 5T though.

Telephone connectivity is good with strong signal and steady 4G data connectivity. There's the usual WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS as well that never failed us. OTG is hidden in the settings.

Pros - Solid build and design, near OPPO F5 performance, solid 10 hours of battery life, stills images are good, fast biometric unlocking

Cons - Some may feel restricted by security features, you only have 22GB of usable storage, limited video capabilities

Verdict

Honestly, the cons on our cons lists are nit picking. The OPPO F5 Youth is a great phone with minor gripes. Sure both the V7 series have better selfie cameras but the gap isn't too far and with the now discounted price, the F5 Youth is a steal. 

We highly recommend it to people who wants to save some case, don't need the large RAM of the F5 and can live even without the high-performing 20MP A.I. selfie shooter of the F5.

Build / Design - 4

Display - 4.25

Audio - 4

Battery - 4.25

Camera - 4

Performance - 4.5

Average - 4.16 / 5