OPPO A93 succeeds the A92 which was released in August. OPPO smartphones have a lot of good things going for them: the good build quality, elegant design, fast processor and a decent camera; the A93 is no different.
Since coming into the Nigeria market, OPPO has not compromised on the quality its smartphones come with, in order to appeal to the mass market or sell at a reduced price. When you see the OPPO A93, you get the feeling you are spending your cash on a device that is premium out of the box.
OPPO A93 Body and Design
OPPO A93 has a plastic body and it is available in two colours – Magic Blue and Matte Black. The device has an ultra-slim body measuring only 7.48mm in thickness and 164g in weight, it also feels very sturdy when held. Its ultra-slim body means it’s also very light and it can fit in tiny pockets and bags easily.
I have the Matte Black colour which is shiny at the back and looks so appealing.
The smartphone is built around a 6.43” Super AMOLED display with a 2400 x 1080p resolution. The Super AMOLED display, of course, brings out colours very well and makes the screen very sharp for entertainment. It comes with a dual punch-hole cut and 90.7 percent screen-to-body ratio. The display has a 60Hz refresh rate and comes with an in-display fingerprint sensor which is very sharp.
OPPO A93 Camera
OPPO A93 features a dual selfie camera in front. There is a 16MP main camera with F/2.4 aperture and a 1.3” sensor and a 2MP depth shooter with the same aperture but a 1.5” sensor. The selfie camera takes portrait shots of course, otherwise known as bokeh effect which means you get those creamy photos with blurred out backgrounds. The camera records 1080p and 720p videos at 30fps.Depending on the lighting condition of the place you are, Portrait shots with the selfie camera comes out just fine.
At the back, there is a slight square bump for the four rear cameras which is headlined by a 48MP camera f/1.8 ½ sensor, an 8MP wide-angle camera f/2.2 ¼ sensor and a dual 2MP mono camera f/2.5 1/5 sensor. The camera shoots 4k videos at 30fps and 1080p/720p videos at 30fps, it also supports slow-motion videos for 1080p at 120fps and 720p at 240fps. It comes with EIS to stabilize the videos.
For pictures, the back camera does a great job and the pictures came out very well. There is an AI feature that when turned on tries to slightly darken the pictures and gives it some sort of cinematic effect. Take a look at the picture samples above.
There is a dedicated night mode on the camera which does a decent job, don’t expect spectacular results though. There is AI Super Night Portrait for getting that creamy photo at night and there is AI Night Flare Portrait which gives that dreamy background look at night.
OPPO A93 Hardware and Performance
OPPO A93 is powered by MediaTek’s Helio 95 SoC with eight cores clocking at a 2.2GHz speed. It comes with an 8GB of RAM and a 128GB internal memory which is expandable up to 512GB with a microSD card. While using the phone, I didn’t experience any lag or slow speed and everything ran very smooth.
5G is not really a thing yet in this part of the world and it’s no surprise there is no 5G connectivity on the A93, however, the smartphone has 4G LTE support compatible with every service provider in the country. It comes with a 3.5mm audio jack and there is built-in FM radio for those who care about that.
OPPO A93 supports fast charging its Type-C port and its bundled with a charge which comes with 18W Fast Charge. The smartphone comes with a 4,000mAh battery capacity which is strong enough and lasts up to two days at moderate use. The battery comes with AI features which are designed to prolong its lifespan from any wear and tear that comes from repeated charging.
When plugged overnight, the AI Night Charging feature comes into play so the battery only gets charged to 100% in the morning.
The battery has a Super Power Saving Mode which is designed to give the user more up-time when the battery is extremely low. When activated at 5% battery capacity, it guarantees 70mins of call time, 49mins of texting, 35mins of running productivity apps like Uber and 30mins of Google Maps time.
OPPO A93 Software and Performance
The A93 ships Android 10 out of the box based on OPPO’s custom ColorOS UI. The UI prompts you to update to the latest 7.2 version immediately you power on the device and you are connected to the internet. OPPO’s ColorOS is one of the best around and the 7.2 version is very smooth with no bloatware. The icons are smooth and well designed. When you open the theme app on the phone, there is a live wallpaper section where you can download any wallpaper for free from the hundreds of wallpapers provided.
The UI comes with a built-in Dark Mode, an Eye Comfort mode when turned on which helps to reduce strain on the eye, OSIE Ultra Clear Visual Effect which increases saturation and contrast on video apps; and a Multi-User Mode which is particularly useful for those who wants to maintain strict privacy on their mobile devices. The Multi-User mode works just like when a new user account is created on a laptop. When the phone is one, people will only see the files and apps from the activated user account. As you can see below, there is an Owner, Mother and Guest account.
Another useful feature is “Assistive Ball” which can be activated by going to Settings>>Convenience tools. Assistive ball minimizes whatever is running on the screen with a single tap; when you double-tap, you can see all the apps or games that have been minimized and bring them back again.
Air Gestures
Gestures are one of the interesting things built into the software of the Oppo A93. When you go to Settings>>Convenience tools, there are many gesture and motion movements you can activate and play around with. You can turn on “Draw a O to Enable Camera”, “Draw a V to Turn on Flashlight” or activate a motion movement like “Flip to Mute Incoming Calls”.
The one I really found useful for me is the Air Gesture settings to receive calls. This comes in handy if you slightly far away (20-40cm) or you do not really want to touch your phone. Bear in mind, this only makes sense provided you have a Bluetooth earpiece connected to listen to voice calls. You first bend your fingers inside your palm then you raise them up all at once to answer a call.
Verdict and Conclusion
OPPO A93 does what is expected very well. For the value it provides just at N125,000, this is definitely a good buy for anyone who decides to pick one up.
***Rating*** 7/10
