OPPO Find 7a Zwart

Package
First things first, so I have to start this review with a short opinion about the package the Find 7a is shipped in. It looks stunning! The box is made from great material and the chrome Oppo logo, which accompanies the silver lining dividing the box in two, gives it a very premium look. It’s nothing like other phone boxes and more like the packages of eg. luxury watches.

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Inside the box I found my Find7a. I pre-ordered without having seen any proper pictures of the midnight back cover. In previews it looked black sometimes, which I don’t like, and other times it looked grey, which is even worse. When I turned the phone I was over the moon (hence Midnight ), the color was a more blueish grey which is a very premium color in my opinion.

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I never saw a phone with such a nice design, it seems everything has been thought out and considered very carefully. The black front which goes over in the midnight backcover via 2 chrome strips make this the most luxurious looking phone I have ever seen. The skyline notification bar is the icing on the cake. It defines the phone.

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Some may say it’s a shame there is only one color and thus no signal for different messages, but I can see why Oppo did this. Other colors wouldn’t fit the phone like bleu does.

Camera
For me, the camera is the most important part of a phone. I like taking pictures but I don’t like having to carry a camera with me. The 13 megapixel camera with a Sony lens would surely do the trick (big fan of the Carl Zeiss lenses Sony & Nokia phones used to have), but I was most interested by the 50 megapixel feature. I was sceptic about this as it’s just a software trick. But I’m rather satisfied with it.

It takes like 5 seconds to process but you don’t have to freeze that time. The result is a huge picture which gives you the opportunity to zoom in and select the part you like afterwards.

The result is much better than if you would zoom in using regular mode. Can’t put an example here due to the size of the pictures, but I took a very nice pictures of two cats under a tree from a distance of 10 metres, cropping it to only select the cats. My grandparents were very pleased with their new screensaver.

To make it up you will find a picture of a Stevia-leaf (4-5cm across) you can see the detail in the nerves (Click the picture to get amazed!). It’s was taken in normal mode with average/good light conditions.

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Also in lowlight conditions the phone performs rather well. I bought a tripod to test out the slow-shuttermode as I saw some very nice pictures made with this mode, but it didn't arrive yet so you'll have to trust my words.
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Only drawback from the camera is that it can oversaturate some colors like green & red…

ColorOS
As I am new to Oppo I never saw ColorOS and just hoped it would perform well. I became a believers since…
I like the theme manager. It allows you to easily access lots of themes without having to browse for them in the playstore and not being sure whether they will work on the phone or not. Best of all it gives the option between some lockscreens. And I actually like some very much (Like the Europe flight one)

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Another very nice feature are the gestures. You can assign anything you want to any draft you please. This makes it very cool to have personal drawings for eg. Text your girlfriend when drawing a heart :#niceguy: or starting Shazam with a musicnote. This menu can be accessed from almost anywhere by pulling down the notification bar from the top right.

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The notification bar, is another very nice feature in ColorOS, it gives quickswitches for anything you like and if you pull it down further there are even more specific settings. Love it!

Also doubletap to wake is very nice. I find myself not using the powerbutton anymore. it's much easier to just doubletap the screen to wake up the phone. Never had a problem with autounlocking in my pocket.

I do notice ghost touches and I think this is a ColorOS problem, sometimes when scrolling down it selects instead of scrolling. This can be an annoyance, but because the phone is incredibly fast (next up) it doesn’t bother me at all. In other words ColorOS is not perfect and there will be people who like it and people who don’t. If you don’t like it, root your phone and flash another rom (you are allowed by Oppo, how nice is that?)

Processor
I’m very impulsive. When I saw the phone for the first time it was a week before the pre-orders started… I couldn’t wait for the 2K model so I told myself the only difference would be the better display (and this would not be noticeable as it’s only 5.5”) and the 1gb more Ram (needed for the display & 2GB is more than enough).
I’m very happy I didn’t wait... The Find 7a is incredibly fast…

I come from Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy S3 and other flagship phones but I’ve never seen anything like this. Look at my Antutu benchmark… a 400$ phone beats the HTC one M8 & Samsung Galaxy S5 which are almost double the price!

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I don’t need to tell you that it plays 3D games like Real Racing or GT racing as if it’s the most normal thing on earth to play heavy games like that on a phone… (10 years ago Snake was all we had! 2 Years ago there where no such games for even PC/playstation!)

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Display
It’s only a full HD display… Wrong! It’s the nicest display I’ve ever seen. I was afraid of the size with 5.5 inch display but as the phone is rather sleek you don’t even notice it in your pocket. The Phablet-size is very welcome when browsing, playing games or checking documents. Very happy with this too.

There is a minor downfall here too: It performs very poor in bright daylight. I don’t know if it is because the autobightness doesn’t adjust or because of the reflective glass. But under the sun your screen is black… as in: it’s seems like it’s off, but it isn’t. Some say removing the factory screenprotector might help, I’m not bothered too much so I’ll keep it for now.

Sound
I’m not big of a music guy (I like it but I don’t need it all the time), but I’m sure this phone will please everybody who does like listening to music. The Maxxaudiosettings complement the speakers very well. They go loud, maybe even to loud. (I had to lower them because my ringtone was too loud even on the lowest setting).

Furthermore you can notice some bass which is rather nice for a phonespeaker. Next time Oppo should try to put the speakers front-facing though, when gaming or watching movies you lose some sound because they are on the back (kudos to the Htc One here).

Connectivity
I have mixed feelings about this. In most places connectivity is great, full bars, superfast internet via both 3 & 4G, no connection lost… but in some places, where other phones will have poor connectivity like: “1 bar only, receiving and sending texts & bad call quality”, the Oppo just loses it. This can be very frustrating. As this means you’re cut off from the world. In modern days this is a big problem as everybody expects you to be within reach.

Fastcharging
For everybody who is still hesitating between this and another phone to be the next in line, VOOC fastcharging is the reason why you should go for the Oppo Find 7(a). I would say every phone should have this, but I know there are patents pending.

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Fastcharging changes the way you use your phone. Within 30 minutes you’ll reach 75% which means you are up for another 15 hours with wifi, 4g, bleutooth, nfc (short everything) switched on.

I always forgot to charge my phone and was left with empty batteries more than once. Wireless charging was a good alternative and things got better. Since I’ve been using the Oppo, I never ran out of juice!

My scenario
When I come out of bed in the morning I plug in my Oppo (it drains rather much overnight so in the morning it’s empty most of the time) while I take a shower etc. I never have breakfast so between the time I wake up and the time I leave to school/work there is max 1,5 hour. In that time I’m from 0 to 100%, I always leave home with a full battery.

(other phones are plugged in in the evening and charge overnight, uses more current and is bad for the battery)

As I say I have all my settings on because I want to stay connected everywhere and want to tap into Wifi networks as much as I can, to save on my data-limit. I do about 3-4 hours of screentime a day checking mails, browsing the internet and occasionally playing a game. When I get home at 8pm I have two choices: Will I go out? – Yes or no.

If not, I just let my phone where it is and will it will make it till bedtime.
If yes, I just plug it in 30 minutes before I want to leave and I’m good for the night.

With VOOC fastcharging, you won’t be bothered with having to charge up you phone. Within a short time you reach a reasonable level and you’re good to go.

Conclusion
I’m sorry guys for this ridiculous long review but I could go on for much longer.

I love my Oppo even though it has some minor setbacks. I can’t imagine a better phone (No not even the cheaper One+) and I’m certain people will love how excellent this phone is. I’m not even adding: “for the price”. Because if it would be some 100 bucks more it would still be good value. I really appreciate Oppo for offering us a Topspec phone for a reasonable price.

If anybody has further questions, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help you out.
Thanks for reading my review!