Oppo Find 7a review: A-lister

Unboxing the Oppo Find 7a

The Oppo Find 7a comes in a flat retail box, quite similar to the Oppo N1's luxury packaging. This level of attention to detail leaves no doubt that you are unboxing a premium smartphone.

What you get in the box is a rather large piece of a charger (it's a high-current, fast charger ), a separate microUSB cable and a single-piece headset.

Oppo Find 7a retail box and its contents

The charger is quite powerful, providing the Oppo Find 7a with 4.5A of electric current. This is way above the 1A or 2A of the popular chargers, so it's best that you don't use it for other microUSB compatible devices.

Oppo Find 7a 360-degree spin

The Oppo Find 7a measures 152.6 x 75 x 9.2 mm, which is more compact than the 5.9" Oppo N1 and very close to the Galaxy Note 3 though the Find 7a is thicker. Oppo's latest flagship weighs about 170g - the same as the Note 3, but 43g less than the Oppo N1.

The Oppo Find 7a is almost as big as the Note 3 phablet and bigger than Samsung's Galaxy S5.

Oppo Find 7a vs. Samsung Galaxy S5

Design, build quality and handling

The Oppo Find 7a is a premium device and definitely looks the part - as the company's high-end smartphones have done so far. It looks a lot like the Find 5, but with slimmer screen bezel.

Oppo continues to insist on the assertive, angular styling the Find 5 introduced to the series, and we don't mind that at all. The most notable difference between the two generations is the absence of a "chin" - on the Find 5 the white finish of the rear extends to the bottom front, which was a very nice accent. The 7a has a more conservative all-black front.

Oppo Find 7a • Oppo Find 5

The entire front is covered with what looks like a proprietary factory installed screen protector though it seems it can be removed. Sony ships their phones whit a similar screen coating, though non-removable, for shatter proofing the screen in its Xperia line. The Oppo Find 7a has the latest Gorilla Glass 3 of course but we don't mind the extra touch of care - especially when it's up to the user to keep or get rid.

Unfortunately, the screen protector is quite prone to smudges and hard to clean so we chose to do away with it.

The back panel of the Find 7a is made of textured white plastic, which is even better than the matte finish we've seen on other Oppo handsets. The Find 7a is really a pleasure to handle, while having an almost rugged feel and great grip.

The rugged plastic back

The Oppo Find 7a has one foot in phablet territory with a big 5.5" screen. Still, we found it reasonably easy to operate, its controls (lock key, volume rocker) nicely placed and accessible with just one hand too.

Handling the Oppo Find 7a

Controls

Speaking of controls, let's take a closer look at the Oppo Find 7a and see what's there.

Above the screen we find the familiar pieces of equipment around the earpiece: a 5MP front cam, along with proximity and ambient light sensors.

A peek above the screen

Below the display is the usual set of three capacitive keys - Menu, Home and Back. Those have a very faint and dim blue backlight and are barely visible even when the backlight is set to always on. You'll eventually get used to their placement, but until then your thumb may wander around the deck, while you are looking for the right key.

The capacitive key • the notification LED

Finally, just below the bottom deck of controls is a notification light strip, which lights up gradually for a nice visual effect.

The right side of the Oppo Find 7a features the volume rocker and a tiny pinhole near the bottom to release the battery cover. You'll need a thin pointed object to open the battery cover - a normal ball pen tip usually does the job.

The Power/Lock key is the only control on the left. We find its location a bit hard to get used to as most smartphones meant for the European and US market have it on the right-hand side but it's not a deal-breaker.

A look at Oppo Find 7a right and left sides

At the bottom of the phone is a microUSB port and the mouthpiece. At the top is the 3.5mm audio jack.

microUSB port and mic pinhole at the bottom • 3.5mm audio jack on top

The 13MP camera lens is at the back, along with a dual-LED flash and a prominent loudspeaker grille. The Oppo Find 7a has the so-called Super Zoom feature to create a 50MP image out of four 13MP shots.

A look at the phone's back and 13MP camera

Removing the battery cover reveals the 2,800mAh user-replaceable Li-Ion battery. The micro-SIM compartment and microSD slot are also around, but you'll have to remove the battery to access them.

The cover release key • a peek underneath the rear cover