Oppo A52 comes with a punch-hole camera on the front.
Oppo A52 was recently launched in India, as a company's effort to refresh its A-Series of smartphones. With this, Oppo aims to take back some market share at this price range which is presently being dominated by Samsung and Xiaomi.
In order to satisfy the needs of the younger generation, it comes with a massive 5,000mAh battery along, punch hole display and a quad-camera setup. So should you pick one up? Let’s find out in this review.
Oppo A52 Review: Specifications
Oppo A52 sports a 6.5-inch FullHD+ IPS LCD display with an aspect ratio of 20:9. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor paired with upto 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage. The storage is further expandable using a microSD card slot. It runs on Android 10 based ColorOS 7.1 out of the box. All of this is backed by a 5,000mAh battery.
On the optics front, the A52 features a quad rear camera setup including a 12MP primary camera, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens and a 2MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro sensor. Upfront, there is a 16MP selfie snapper.
Oppo A52 Review: Design and Display
Oppo A52 brings a monotonous design to the table. The smartphone looks similar to many other phones in the market. It has a quad-camera setup that sits on a plastic back panel with the shiny back. It also sports a punch hole on the top left corner of the display. The device doesn't stand out in the pool or smartphones out there in the market in terms of design.
On the front, the A52 sports a 6.5-inch panel with a punch-hole display. It has thin bezels offering a great experience apart from a noticeably fat chin, which is a design element far too common in this price range. The punch hole display is a great replacement for the notch, which I am glad that the company decided to go with.
As for the placements, A52 sports a USB Type-C port on the bottom edge surrounded by the 3.5mm headphone jack, speaker grille and the primary microphone. The right edge houses the power button which doubles as a fingerprint sensor. On the left edge, there is a SIM tray that can accept two SIM cards and a microSD card along with individual volume up and down buttons. The top edge of the phone is left clean.
It sports an AMOLED panel.
Coming back to the display, it is a 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels. The IPS LCD panel is cheap and I get why companies offer it, however, it cannot compare to the AMOLED panel. If you don’t watch a lot of movies or other streamable content on your smartphone, you will not notice the difference. You can opt for phones like the Samsung Galaxy M31 if you want an AMOLED display in this price range.
Oppo A52 Review: Performance, Software and UI
Oppo A52 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor paired with up to 8GB of RAM. Our review unit came with 6GB of RAM. With the phone being priced around Rs. 17,000, the Snapdragon 665 is a decent processor. During the review period, I installed multiple social media apps on the phone and did not notice much of the performance issues. During long gaming sessions or heavy gaming even for a short while, you can notice some lag. If you don’t play games regularly, then it shouldn’t be an issue for you.
Oppo A52 sports a plastic back, which looks like glass.
While it performs decently in most of the tasks, if you are hungry for more performance or you like gaming at good graphics, then you might want to look elsewhere. One can consider something like the Relame X2 or the Poco X2, both of which provide way better performance at a relatively same price.
The A52 runs on Android 10 based ColorOS 7.1 out of the box. The user interface feels laggy. But it does bring in some features including a system-wide dark mode, a themes store and much more. Overall, the software experience is okay. However, monitoring performance of the smartphone, I think it was being led down by heavy CPU usage by the ColorOS itself. This could be fixed in a future software update.
Oppo A52 Review: Cameras
Oppo A52 sports a quad-camera setup at the back.
Oppo A52 sports a quad-camera setup at the back. The setup comprises a 12-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a 2-megapixel macro-sensor. The smartphone also gets Portrait Mode, Night Mode, Time-Lapse, Slo-Mo and other features.
The camera app is straightforward and offers a good amount of features. However, the absence of macro mode is seen. I think the company also realizes the 2-megapixel macro sensor is kinda useless.
During our tests, the A52 managed to click some decent shots. Under good lighting conditions, the phone managed to lock focus quickly and pictures were sharp. The detail was great, and the colours were a bit vivid, but it looks good. Under low light, the camera does struggle a bit, but pictures come out without any major distraction which is nice.
The selfies are good, nothing special but nothing bad. There is also a beauty mode to make yourself look less fat and smoothen your skin colour and tone. It cannot be toned down to zero, in reality.
Oppo A52 Review: Battery
The battery segment is where the A52 manages to outshine among its competition. The handset comes with a massive 5,000mAh battery. During my time with the device, light to medium usage got me two full days of usage. Even with heavy usage, the phone lasted more than a day. This makes it a great smartphone for people who travel a lot or watch a lot of movies on their smartphone.
With the battery being so huge, the charging speeds take a hit. The smartphone does support 15W fast charging. But even with that, the device takes around two hours to fully charge the massive battery.
Oppo A52 Review: Verdict
The Oppo A52 starts at Rs. 14,990 for the 4GB RAM variant and costs Rs. 16,990 for the 6GB RAM variant. The device packs a decent camera offers a great battery life has an impressive design for the price. However, it lacks a bit in the performance department.
At that price point, if you are looking for a phone which you can use for your gaming needs, you should be looking at something like the Poco X2. However, if you do not play games a lot and require a reliable smartphone that has a great battery life, you can definitely go ahead with the Oppo A52.
