A couple of weeks ago, OPPO announced its sub-₹20,000 smartphone challenger in the Indian market, namely the OPPO F19. The brand’s strategy is pretty straightforward this time, with the F19 delivering excellent experience in a couple of departments, while other areas being pretty average.

So let’s take a quick look at how the OPPO F19 performs in this highly competitive Indian mid-range smartphone market.

OPPO F19 Review: Design

Inside the box, the OPPO F19 brings the standard set of accessories in addition to the phone like the charger, data cable, SIM ejector tool, and even a protective silicone case. You’ll also find wired earphones inside the box.

The OPPO F19 borrows its design from the F19 Pro and Pro+ models. This is a good thing as the design on this mid-ranger looks relatively premium. There are only two colors being offered by the brand in India – Prism Black and Fluid Blue. The review unit I’ve got is the Fluid Blue color but the shade is pretty unique. The color looks closer to Stone Blue which isn’t common among smartphones. So the phone looks different.

The OPPO F19 has a high gloss finish at the back and it looks pretty premium — provided it remains clean. However, there’s no denying that the back is a fingerprint magnet, and ensuring that it stays clean and smudge-free would be a task. The camera module also protrudes quite a bit from the back but the 8mm thin body doesn’t really warrant any complaints. Plus, you get a free case inside the box, which I definitely recommend putting on the phone.

One of the biggest highlights of the F19 is its weight. The phone weighs just 175 grams which is an excellent figure considering it features a large 5000mAh battery inside. The weight distribution is well balanced and the curved back edges ensure that the hands-on feel of the phone is very comfortable. However, like most phones these days, one-hand operation is still not easy.

The phone also features an in-display fingerprint sensor and it does the job well. It isn’t the fastest sensor I’ve used, but for a sub-₹20,000 smartphone, I think the fingerprint sensor works well.

Following the tradition of most phones in 2020-21, the OPPO F19 features a punch-hole camera (16MP) on the top left corner of the display. The position and size of this camera cut out ensures that it doesn’t come in between your display experience.

On the left, you get the volume buttons while there’s a power button on the right. The F19 comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port, and a single speaker setup at the bottom.

The single speaker is pretty loud and clear. There’s a bit of hollowness of the sound output, however, for this price segment, you won’t be disappointed.

OPPO F19 Review: Display

The display is another highlight of the OPPO F19. Like I said in my introduction, the F19  performed well in some areas and that includes the display department.

The phone features a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with 1080p FHD+ resolution. The 800 nits peak bright is sufficient under bright sunlight and if you are indoors, then the saturation and the clarify of the display are pretty good.

AMOLED display also ensures that you get premium features like AOD right out of the box.

The side bezels are pretty thin but the chin is a bit thicker than what I would have preferred. Still, the overall display experience is pretty good for its price segment.

One major drawback of this screen is that the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz.

OPPO F19 Review: Performance & Gaming

Snapdragon 662 is a pretty average chip from Qualcomm and in my daily usage, the chip did well enough to handle the entire UI rendering the animations and other UI elements with minimal lag. So your everyday experience with the OPPO F19 like browsing articles, watching videos should all be good.

The phone comes in a single 6GB and 128GB variant with LPDDR4X RAM standard and an expandable memory card slot. This along with the headphone jack could cater to a niche set of customers who can’t live without them.

When it comes to gaming, the chip has enough power to run games like COD: Mobile with a few hiccups. If you are in the high graphics setting, expect some basic glitches during gameplay. But for less intensive games like say the Temple Run 2, the experience will be smooth.

OPPO F19 Review: Camera

In recent times, OPPO’s cameras have been all about its software processing prowess. The same trend continues with the OPPO F19 as well.

The phone comes with a triple camera setup with a 48MP f/1.7 primary shooter, 2MP portrait camera, and 2MP Macro shooter. In actual use, the primary camera performance is excellent, with the portrait and macro shooters being average.

Main Camera

The 48MP primary camera is the only highlight of the OPPO F91’s triple camera setup. The samples from this sensor have good saturation and dynamic range ensuring the images look good without any editing. You also have the AI mode, which produces saturated samples. In fact, the AI mode boosts the saturation to a point where you may dislike it. But it can come in handy when things are too dull and you want something that’s social media ready out of the box. That said, on most occasions, the primary camera without AI mode did a good job in capturing vibrant colors with a good amount of details. So daytime photography is excellent on the OPPO F19.

Night Performance

When the lighting goes down, this 48MP sensor starts to struggle. The phone had issues focusing in dim lit conditions and the colors are pretty dull too. However, the night mode was a surprise as it enhanced the colors and brightness of the nighttime images to a considerable extent. So, even though the standard mode struggles at night time photography, OPPO’s night camera algorithms ensure that you can get usable to good samples even in low light situations.

Portrait Camera

I wasn’t expecting much from the 2MP portrait shooter on the F19. But once again, OPPO’s algorithms ensured that you get a deep background blur with good colors even with a 2MP resolution sensor.

Macro Camera

Again, it’s an average macro shooter. If you put in the efforts, you’ll be able to take pretty decent samples. But again, the 2MP resolution really limits the quality of photos that you can take with this sensor.

To conclude, I definitely miss a wide-angle sensor on the OPPO F19, especially when rivals offer it in its price segment. OPPO’s camera algorithms ensure that you get pretty good samples from its main camera and for most people, the 48MP shooter should be enough for everyday photography. As for macro and portrait sensors, they are average and don’t expect anything out of the ordinary.

OPPO F19 Review: Battery

It takes around 1 hour 10 minutes for the large 5000mAh battery to charge using the 33W provided charger. While this isn’t blazing fast, this figure is pretty good for such a large battery.

After an hour of gaming, a couple of hours of streaming on data, and other daily activities like replying to messages and emails, you are still likely to have 20-30% of charge left at the end of the day. So, even with heavy usage, you can go on for an entire day or even stretch it to the next day with this large 5000mAh battery.

The fact that the phone is just 175 grams heavy is definitely its biggest selling point.

So the OPPO F19 excels in the battery life department.

To conclude, the OPPO F19 doesn’t really stand out among its rivals. It doesn’t have any flashy camera setup or a powerful chipset. What it does have is a long-lasting battery inside a lightweight body. The AMOLED display is good enough for most people and the 48MP primary camera does well enough to not disappoint you in the camera department.

So if you want a no-nonsense lightweight phone running ColorOS 11.1 with dual SIM card slots, dedicated SD card slot, and headphone jack for everyday use, then you can check out the OPPO F19. If not for these requirements, there are plenty of other better alternatives in the Indian market.

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