Oppo N3 and R5 hands-on: First look

Oppo R5 hands-on

The Oppo R5 was the somewhat unexpected guest to the N3 launch party. The company focused its whole teaser campaign on the N3 and it appeared as if it forgot all about this other smartphone it was going to launch.

Yet, the Oppo R5 is by no mean a second rate device - it offers more than enough to deserve our attention. Oppo pitched it as the world's slimmest smartphone, but it is a lot more than just super thin. Oppo R5 is made out of hand-polished aluminum alloy and it packs special liquid-metal phase-shifting cooling elements inside taking the heat off the chips.

Oppo R5

Aside from the superb design and materials, both inside and outside, the Oppo R5 impresses with a beautiful 5.2" AMOLED display claimed to be the brightest, with best color reproduction and lowest reflectivity on the market. Those are some pretty bold claims, and we'd gladly check out their correctness when we get the phone in our office.

The 64-bit Snapdragon 615 chipset is surely a nice touch promising great performance with an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor (4 cores running at 1.5GHz and the other 4 at 1GHz) and a new generation Adreno 405 graphics accelerator.

Finally, Oppo seems to have put a lot of effort into the firmware behind the 13MP Sony camera, so it delivers fast focus, Ultra HD 50 MP option, refocus mode, improved low-light scenes with slow-shutter snaps, among other. 4K videos and 1080p@60fps ones are available. Plus you get a 5MP front camera for some great selfies.

After the Oppo event ended we got to spend some quality time with the slimmest smartphone in existence - the Oppo R5. It is even slimmer than the Samsung's Galaxy Alpha. Check it out!

Oppo R5 compared to Samsung Galaxy Alpha

Indeed the Oppo R5 looks impressive. Even though the handset weighs 155 g it doesn't feel too heavy when handled, striking a good balance between solid feel and portability. The cool aluminum alloy unibody contributes to the great feel significantly. The screen bezels aren't the slimmest we've seen, though, and the R5 is over a centimeter longer than the LG G2, which has the same screen. We guess one world record is enough for a mid-range device.

Oppo R5

The rear side of the unibody with those plastic strips covering the antennas at the top and bottom reminds us somewhat of the iPhone 5/5s design sans the rounded corners. The 13MP Sony camera does bulge over the rest of the body, but that was to be expected with such a slim profile.

Oppo R5

There is another sacrifice that the sub-5mm waistline dictated - there is no 3.5mm audio jack on the Oppo R5. Oppo provides a standard 3.5mm headphones within the retail box plus a special USB-to-3.5mm adapter in order to use those (or any other headset for that matter).

With smartphone getting slimmer by the day we guess the 3.5mm audio port might no longer be available on each and every handset and the R5 is the first example of that. Whether or not going so slim is actually benefiting the user experience significantly is a whole other question, of course. We'd easily take a great battery life on a slim phone over passable battery life on a super slim one.

Oppo R5

Oppo has packed a 2,000 mAh battery inside the thin body, but there is no official battery ratings just yet. Luckily, the battery supports rapid charging and will charge up to 75% for just 30 minutes once hooked up on the new smaller Oppo rapid charger (bundled in the package).

Unlike many other manufacturers Oppo is keeping the capacitive keys below the 5.2" AMOLED display, so you'll have the full 1080p resolution at your disposal anytime. And the AMOLED screen turned out exactly what Oppo promised it to be - bright, really bright, and the viewing angles are amazing - the image quality stays intact whatever angle we chose to look at it.

Oppo R5's front

Oppo will be offering a cool accessory to go with the Oppo R5, but it will be sold separately - the Oppo O-Music Bluetooth controller for music and pictures. The O-Music controller comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, where you can plug in your propriety headset. It's a really nice and useful gadget and every eventual Oppo R5 owner that's doing a lot of music listening on the go should definitely check it out.

Oppo R5 seems like a great smartphone. It's really beautiful with an amazing build. Its ColorOS 2.0 running on top of an Android KitKat is fast and really functional with some great customization options. The R5 is definitely a skilled handset and we are looking forward to get it for a proper in-depth review.

By the way Oppo will be offering the so-called Oppo R5 Gilded Edition, where the Oppo R5 will be gold-plated, with real gold.