Just in: Oppo F5 hands-on

Oppo F5 was announced on October 26 and has been leading our Top 10 most popular phones chart since. And now that we got the phone for a review we'll be able to find out what all the fuss is about.

The chipset is decidedly mid-range and the design is hardly very exciting - although the taller screen helps improve the traditional Oppo look.

Oppo targets this at selfie enthusiasts so we are willing to live with those compromises. And at €320 the MediaTek P23 isn't that bad a deal.

Keen to share some of the iPhone X spotlight, Oppo repeatedly points out that the F5 comes with facial recognition. Its recognition needs a picture of your face instead of complicated 3D mapping, but our early experience shows it's quite fast even in dim lighting like a bedroom in the morning or late at night. You need to turn the display on and the UI recognizes you in less than a second. It needs 300 ms in good light and around 800 ms in a dark environment.

Oppo dubbed its F-series Selfie Expert and to back it up the F5 comes with “AI beauty recognition technology”. It promises to capture human beauty in all its forms - no matter your age, gender, skin tone or skin type. In practice it applies a soft filter to your skin, widens your eyes and blurs the background. There are additional Edit options that make your jawline skinnier and strengthens the glow. We aren't huge fans of such overprocessed photos, but beauty is subjective, so we’ll let you compare and tell us what is the best way.

Edited Beauty Selfie • Beauty Selfie • Auto Selfie

The Oppo F5 also comes with FullHD+ resolution on its 18:9 LCD. It is good for videos taken with the phone, but watching something on YouTube gives you black bars on the sides. One feature that many will enjoy is the card tray. It fits two SIM cards and a microSD which is still a rarity.

The F5 is one of the first devices with the new Helio P23 chipset. We are eager to share how it performs, so stay around for the complete review.