Oppo R5 review: One to remember

Google Chrome web browser

The Oppo R5 comes with Google Chrome as its preinstalled browser. The interface is the same as on any other Android smartphone - clean and minimalist.

Opening the tabs area reveals a list of tabs which can be closed again with a left or right swipe. Incognito tabs are supported, too.

Google Chrome

Of course, one of Chrome's strengths is its ability to seamlessly sync with its desktop version, using nothing but your Google account. This allows you to open an article on your PC and finish reading it on your mobile phone. It also syncs your bookmarks and favorite sites.

Google Chrome is generous on customizable settings as well. You can control almost every aspect of your web browsing by choosing what content you want to allow to load like JavaScript, images, cookies and pop-ups.

Other pre-installed apps

Perhaps the highlight of Oppo's homebrewed apps is the Security Center app. It lets you control all sorts of features from call/message privacy and Quiet Time settings, to phone optimization and app permissions, app encryption, to network and battery usage. The phone's Guest Mode is also activated from within this app.

Security Center

The Oppo R5 comes with Kingsoft Office preinstalled. It's a pretty powerful office editor that can handle Word docs, PDFs, Spreadsheets and Presentations. It can link to cloud storage, email files, and create a shared view with other users and more. There's editing enabled, too, so you can get some work done on the go.

Kingsoft has since dropped support for its Office application, and has instead published an updated version under the name of WPS Office.

Kingsoft Office

The calendar app has three views that you can swipe between. First is the Year view, which aggregates all 12 months with all of their days, a month view, which has little red dots for events and the agenda view, which is a vertically scrollable grid of events.

Sadly, year view doesn't show little dots for when there's an event, despite the screen being large and high-res enough to allow it.

Calendar

The clock app supports multiple alarms, each with its own repeat time, ring tone, volume, snooze interval and note. The app also offers a world clock, a stop watch and a timer. Calculator is available, too.

Clock

The Keep app lets you create complex notes with text, images and hand drawn notes. You can even set a password for your notes.

The Tools folder is preloaded with a few apps that you usually get from the market. There's a Flashlight app, a sound recorder and a 3D compass.

Keep • Flashlight • Compass • Voice recorder

The phone comes with a capable file manager out of box. Its interface is laid out over two tabs, the first one organizes files by category, while the second is a traditional folder browser.

Files and folders can be copied, moved, deleted, renamed and compressed to ZIP (and ZIP files can be extracted). Batch operations are supported. The folder browser has list and grid views and you can change the sorting method. The system can be encrypted and password protected too.

Files app

The file browser also has built in DLNA and FTP server support, which makes it easy to access multimedia and general files on another device.

Google Now, accessed by swiping up from any of the navigation buttons, integrates with your Google account and can access your daily routine, internet searches, email, etc. and give you information relevant to your interests and daily needs.

It provides traffic information to your work or home, knows the scores of sports teams you follow and gives you the weather forecast for your location. It's great for at-a-glance info, but can handle voice Google searches as well. It also has a dedicated homescreen/lockscreen widget.

Google Now

The Oppo R5 comes with a GPS/GLONASS receiver. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access. If rough positioning will do, Cell-ID and Wi-Fi positioning are on it. Wi-Fi positioning can work even if Wi-Fi is disabled or you can turn this off to save battery.

The Oppo R5 comes with Google Maps and Navigation. Voice-guided navigation has become an important everyday utility. The public transport option can be very useful too.

Maps show alternative routes and you can see alerts if there are any potential holdbacks along your route like construction zones, traffic jams and so on. Google's involvement with the live traffic info crowd-sourcing app - Waze - seems to be paying off.

Google Maps

The app also supports the Street View mode, allowing you to see the landmarks you're looking for before you set off. That makes them much easier to find when you arrive.

The Google Play Store features several scrollable tabs - categories, featured, top paid, top free, top grossing, top new paid, top new free and trending. Apps usually have several screenshots (some even offer a demo video) so you can get an idea of what the app looks like before installing it.