OPPO R7

The time has come for us to part ways with the Oppo R7 and it's not the least bit easy. Beautifully designed and executed, the handset grew on us. Whether it took 48 or 84 polishing processes and whether the glass is 2.5D or else is irrelevant. The overall result is what matters and this is a truly exquisite handset. The 5-inch screen is a hit, definitely. The FullHD panel is nice and sharp and has great color reproduction as well as consistency at extreme angles, but you shouldn't have expected anything else from a modern-day AMOLED display. It is not the brightest around, but that largely an irrelevant metric, particularly when you consider that it's still better outdoors than most LCDs. Now, battery life is either very good or just plain OK, depending on how you look at it. If you're coming from the R5, you'll see massive improvements across the board. Viewed on its own, the R7 is a decent middle distance runner, and it excels at voice calls but is less impressive at on-screen activities. Given the battery capacity and slim profile however, we're inclined to mark battery life down in the pros too. ColorOS may not be everyone's cup of tea, and its strong resemblance to iOS will likely not be appreciated by Android purists. It does offer plenty of customization options and the home-brewed apps are stylish and coherent, adding features and functionality missing in stock Android. It would have been nice, if it wasn't still based on KitKat, and we're hoping Oppo will deliver the promised Lollipop upgrade sooner rather than later. The R7 is no benchmark beast, often beaten by similarly equipped devices. Still, the Snapdragon 615 provides adequate day-to-day performance, and you should be more than happy with it as long as you don't focus on elaborate mobile gaming. We're less than ecstatic with the R7's camera output. The 13MP shooter looks great on paper, but in reality has very narrow dynamic range and images come out with only average detail. Pretty much the same can be said about its video recording, which is nowhere near the best in the 1080p league.