OPPO A57 Unboxing and First Impressions

OPPO recently brought the A57 to the Philippines. In this article, we share our first-hand experience with the new budget phone.

Beautiful in Black?

To recap, the OPPO A57 has a 6.56-inch HD+ LCD display. Inside is the 12nm MediaTek Helio G35, 4GB RAM, 64GB of storage and a 5,000mAh battery with 33W SUPERVOOC fast charging.

At the back of the phone are 13MP primary camera and a 2MP mono with LED flash while in front is the 8MP selfie camera.

In the Philippines, it is priced at PHP 8,999.

Let's take a deeper look at the unboxing experience of the new OPPO A57.

Unboxing/Accessories

Box inclusions

The new smartphone comes in a familiar teal-colored OPPO packaging. 

Inside the box are the phone, an 33W power brick, USB-A to USB-C charging cable, SIM ejector tool, bumper case, and documentation.

There is no included pair of earphones in the box even though the phone has a 3.5mm audio jack.

Build Quality/Design

Rear design

The phone is made of a combination of glass and polycarbonate. The polycarbonate frame and the back panel are finished to look convincingly like metal. It was only when we looked at the frame and back panel did we notice it was polycarbonate.

This combination of materials makes the phone solid to hold but is incredibly lightweight.

The front panel is made of glass and has the screen protector pre-installed.

Display with a notch

In front of the phone is a 6.56-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1612 x 720 and Panda MN228 glass protection. It has a notch and an earpiece on top. Around the panel are slim top and side bezels; however, the chin bezel is noticeably thicker.

Out of the box, the images and text are sharp and readable while the color is decently vibrant.

Top and bottom

On top of the phone is a smooth surface while at the bottom are the speaker grills, USB-C port, microphone port and the 3.5mm audio jack.

Left and right

On the left of the phone are the SIM tray and volume buttons while on the right is the power button that doubles as the fingerprint scanner.

SIM tray

The SIM tray can carry up to two nano-SIM cards and one microSD card. There was no visible rubber gasket for water and dust resistance.

The device measures 163.7 x 75 x 8 mm and weighs 187 grams.

Rear cameras

At the back of the phone is the 13MP f/2.2 primary camera and a 2MP f/2.4 monochrome camera with an LED flash. While in front is an 8MP front-facing camera.

We will be testing the phone thru our usual rundown of tests so stay tuned for the camera samples and full review.

OPPO A57 4G Specs

Display: 6.56-inch 2.5D curved Panda MN228 glass protected LCD (A-Si) screen w/ HD+ 1612 x 720 resolution at 269 ppi

CPU: 2.3GHz 12nm MediaTek Helio G35 octa-core processor

GPU: PowerVR GE8320 (680MHz)

RAM: 4GB LPDDR4X

ROM: 64GB eMMC 5.1 expandable via microSD card slot

Back Camera: 13MP f/2.2 w/ AF + 2MP f/2.4 mono + LED flash

Selfie Camera: 8MP f/2.0

Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 33W SUPERVOOC

OS: Android 12 w/ ColorOS 12.1

Connectivity: WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.3 (SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC), OTG, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS, dual SIM

Sensors: Accelerometer, light,  proximity, gravity, magnetic

Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, face unlock, stereo speakers, Dirac 3.0, USB-C, Colors: Glowing Green, Glowing Black

Dimensions: 163.7 x 75 x 8 mm

Weight: 187 g 

Price: PHP 8,999

As of the moment

OPPO A57

Like the rest of OPPO's mid-range offerings, the OPPO A57 has an eye-catching design and solid build materials.

But, it contains specs that may struggle with similarly priced smartphones.

Having a 720p LCD display is decent but more and more phones in this price range are getting higher resolution or higher refresh rate panels. Moreover, Helio G35 is slow and old for a PHP 9K phone.

We will have to do more testing to see how this phone fares in real life.

Stay tuned for the full review coming out soon.

What do you guys think?