OPPO A95 Review - Aesthetic design and some nice features but the price

Previously, we unboxed the OPPO A95 and shared our initial thoughts about it. A month after, we are now ready to share with you our full experience of the handset.

Meet the OPPO A95

To recap, the OPPO A95 boasts a 3D curved back with OPPO Glow gradient matte gradient design and a rectangular camera hump housing the triple camera configuration with LED flash.

Inside, it uses the 2.0GHz 11nm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor with Adreno 662 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM + 5GB RAM Expansion, 128GB expandable storage, and 5,000mAh battery with USB-C Flash Charge. 

We were loaned with the Starry Black colorway. For our review part 1, please read here.

Here's how OPPO A95 fares in real-world usage!

Multimedia Experience

AMOLED display

The OPPO A95 sports a 6.43-inch 60Hz AMOLED screen with 1080p+ resolution with 180Hz touch sampling rate. It can go up to a total of 800 nits of brightness.

The display is bright enough for both indoor and outdoor use. The colors are vibrant and the screen is crisp with good viewing angles. The thin bezels aid in the overall viewing experience.

AMOLED display!

It supports 10-points of multitouch. The display is responsive, accurate, and quick. 

Overall, the display of OPPO A95 is standard and works fine but could be improved for this price point.

Sound is better using wired earphones

For its sound quality, its single bottom-firing speaker has a nice sound with noticeable distortions when turned up to the highest level of volume. The sound is better enjoyed using wired earphones.

Its two microphones gave us clear calls and voice quality. Overall we had an immersive listening experience and nice voice quality.

Cameras

Triple rear camera

OPPO is known for its good cameras and the A95 got a triple-rear setup. It uses a 48MP main shooter paired with a 2MP macro sensor and a 2MP f/2.4 depth camera as well as LED flash.

The camera modes include night, video, photo, portrait, slo-mo, time-lapse, expert (pro), extra HD, pano, text scanner, macro, and sticker. The HDR and AI features are also present as well as filters and beautification.

The expert mode allows for control of ISO (100-6400), shutter speed (1/8000-32 seconds), white balance, focus, and lens.

Rear Camera Samples

Daylight

Daylight 5x zoom

Daylight 10x zoom

Daylight 2

Daylight portrait

Indoor

Indoor 5x zoom

Indoor 10x zoom

Indoor 2

Food

Close up

Macro

Lowlight

Night mode

Night mode 2

Lowlight 5x zoom

Lowlight 10x zoom

In daylight, OPPO A95 produced images with vibrant colors and details. We were expecting better than what we got, though. As for the portrait images, the background blur is decent and has room for improvement. 

The A95 also had struggles while we were taking macro shots. Note that there is no ultrawide mode but up to 10x zoom is present. 

Indoor shots come out decently as well. It lacks some sharpness but the colors and details are fine. 

Decent images

For lowlight photos, on the other hand, were disappointing. The images lack details, sharpness, and colors. They look hazy and kind of blurry even if our hands were steady while shooting. 

Punch hole selfie camera

For the selfie camera, OPPO A95 sports a 16MP front-facing shooter. It is located on the upper left punch hole of the screen.

It has similar stock camera app modes with the rear cameras except for slo-mo, expert (pro), extra HD, text scanner, and macro.

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight selfie

Daylight portrait selfie

Indoor selfie

Indoor portrait selfie

Lowlight selfie

Night mode selfie

The daylight selfies come out great with nice sharpness and even natural-looking images. OPPO A95's portrait selfies were also good! 

The same applies to indoor photos. It's safe to say that the selfie camera compensated for our dissatisfaction with the images from the rear cameras.

Great selfies!

OPPO A95's front night mode is also worth commending. Using this helped us take brighter selfies than the ones we got from the auto shoot.

Overall, the front shooter takes nice selfies most especially the ones taken on portrait mode.

For videos, the OPPO A95 can shoot up to 1080p videos with stabilization.

Performance

OPPO A95 benchmarks

The OPPO A95 is powered by the 2.0GHz 11nm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor with Adreno 662 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM + 5GB RAM Expansion, and 128GB expandable storage. 

OPPO A95 benchmark scores:

AnTuTu - 200,471

Geekbench 5 - 311 (single-core) 1,298 (multi-core)

3DMark - 382 overall at 2.30fps

Not slow, not fast, just right

In real-world usage, OPPO A95 works decently well. It's not slow, it's not fast, the speed is just right. It can handle the basic tasks that we need in a day such as messaging, calling, web browsing, video, and music streaming, among others.

Call of Duty: Mobile settings on OPPO A95

In terms of gaming, OPPO A95 is not speedy. The lag is inevitable and the graphics are not smooth. We were able to run the Genshin Impact with low settings. The Call of Duty: Mobile, on the other hand, is also slow on the OPPO A95. When we put the frame rate to high, the graphic quality moves to low automatically. When we put the graphic quality to high, the frame rate drops to medium. 

It may not be designed for gaming but for an entry-level smartphone, it works OK for casual gaming.

Slow in-display fingerprint scanner

Moving on to its security, the OPPO A95 is equipped with a face unlock and an in-display fingerprint scanner. Both are responsive but the speed of the fingerprint sensor is slow for our liking. Moreover, the fingerprint scanner is placed way too low compared with the other smartphones.

OPPO A95 PCMark battery test result

In terms of battery, OPPO A95 is packed with a 5,000mAh battery with 33W flash charge support. We're confused why it only lasted up to 9 hours and 42 minutes in our usual PCMark Battery Test. 

OPPO A95 battery settings

Opposite to this, we enjoyed a full day with OPPO A95 in real-life use. This is under a moderate usage composed of what we mentioned earlier. The 33W charger juices up the OPPO A95 in an hour from flat to full.

OPPO A95 runs on the ColorOS 11.1 based on Android 11. It has a few bloatware and pre-installed apps which can be removed after the setup. The overall experience is great. We experienced some crashing and hiccups but those are limited to one or two instances.

ColorOS 11.1

Pros - aesthetic, premium-looking design, AMOLED display, good cameras, big battery

Cons - aging chipset, 60Hz refresh rate, slow in-display fingerprint scanner

OPPO A95 Specs

Display: 6.43-inch 2.5D curved AMOLED screen w/ 60Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling rate, FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 409 ppi

CPU: 2.0GHz 11nm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor

GPU: Adreno 610

RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X

ROM: 128GB expandable via microSD card slot up to 256GB (dedicated)

Back Camera: 48MP w/ PDAF + 2MP f/2.4 macro + 2MP f/2.4 depth + LED flash

Selfie Camera: 16MP

Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 33W Flash Charge

OS: Android 11 w/ ColorOS 11.1

Connectivity: WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1, OTG, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, dual SIM

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic

Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, face unlock, USB-C, dual mic, Colors: Rainbow Silver, Starry Black

Dimensions: 160.31 x 73.76 x 7.95 mm

Weight: 175 g

Price: PHP 15,999

Verdict

Aesthetic design!

The OPPO A95 is a block of an aesthetically designed smartphone with a big battery, AMOLED display, and good cameras. 

During our time with it, it gave us decent photos and great selfies. We also enjoyed its AMOLED display and of course, we can't forget about how striking its design is — most especially this particular color. 

However, OPPO A95 is a bit pricey in terms of the chipset it is running on. It's no secret that there are better choices in this price range. Do you agree with us? 

But of course, it's up to you if you're getting this handset. Let us know your thoughts!

Build/Design - 4.75

Multimedia Experience - 4.5

Cameras - 4.25

Performance - 4.25

Average - 4.44/5