PROS: Sleek design with glass finish, water drop notch display with sleek bezels, excellent battery life, fast face unlock, good selfie camera, rear camera takes good images in daylight
CONS: Steep price, entry-level processor is a bottleneck, only 720p resolution display, plastic body, fingerprint magnet, weak low light camera performance
Oppo’s A7 is successor to the A5, launched very recently (in August this year). Like us, you must be wondering why Oppo is launching a successor so soon. It includes some of the key features from the A5 (like the big battery and large display) and a few noticeable upgrades.
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The first thing you notice is the updated water drop notch display (the A5 had a wide notch). This type of notch looks premium and gives you more screen space. However, the screen resolution is still just 720p HD which feels out of place given the price of the phone. We liked the thin side bezels and sleek chin. It also has good sunlight legibility and shows vibrant colour. The rear panel stays mostly the same — a glossy finish back with vertical line pattern underneath. Oppo calls it a 3D artistic texture back and it makes the phone look great in our opinion. However, it is still plastic and it picks up smudges and fingerprints quickly — a clear case is provided in the box and we recommend using it from day one.
Hardware is another major letdown considering the asking price of the A7. Oppo has stuck with the entry-level Snapdragon 450 processor, choosing to only upgrade RAM to 4GB and internal storage to 64GB. This configuration is good enough for day-to-day usage, multi-tasking and basic games. PUBG works with low graphics and you’ll see it stutter every now and then. Battery life is the star of the show — the 4,230mAh battery regularly lasted for a day and half on a full charge.
Rear camera stays the same as the A5: 13MP + 2MP dual camera. Image quality is great and the camera captures high detail as long as there is ample light. Indoors and in low light, the details are lost and we could see visible noise. Video recording is capped at 1080p which is another feature that feels out of place for a phone that costs Rs 17k. Front camera gets an upgrade — it is a 16MP shooter with f2.0 aperture and wide-angle lens. The front camera delivers better results in terms of clarity and colour than the rear camera in our opinion. Both the rear and front camera have a portrait mode that is above average — you get good amount of bokeh, but the edge detection is not up to the competition.
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The A7 comes with ColorOS 5.2 based on Android 8.1 and has various handy features built-in. We especially liked the face unlock which is easy to setup and works seamlessly. Another feature we found handy was the Smart Sidebar — it can be accessed with a simple swipe and allows you to launch pre-set apps in a floating window. This is very useful when you are watching a fullscreen video or reading a document and want to see/reply to an incoming notification or take a screenshot quickly. With the next update (5.2.1), the A7 is also expected to get HyperBoost. HyperBoost is Oppo’s answer to Honor’s GPU Turbo technology that will improve gaming performance on mid-range smartphones.
A few other good things about the Oppo A7 include the fast fingerprint scanner, loud speakers and a dedicated microSD slot for storage expansion. However, despite all of this, the A7 is priced way too high in our opinion. A phone with an entry-level processor and HD resolution display for Rs 17,000 is laughable considering you can get the Realme 2 Pro with a Snapdragon 660 processor, dewdrop notch full HD display and much better camera performance for just Rs 13,990.
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Give Your Android Smartphone A Facelift With These 6 Browsers
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By Karan Bajaj
Still stuck with the browser that came with your Android smartphone?
You’re missing out because you can add speed, tabs, automatic ad-blocking, automatic blocking of trackers, background loading, better reading modes and a whole lot more by installing these free apps, says
By Karan BajajStill stuck with the browser that came with your Android smartphone? You’re missing out because you can add speed, tabs, automatic ad-blocking, automatic blocking of trackers, backgroun..
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Modern smartphones are built for multitasking but the varied content we access sometimes makes that harder to do. Flynx helps you focus on content by using background tabs.
Here’s how it works: let’s say you’re reading a news article and click on a link. Flynx will start loading that up and you’ll see a floating bubble.
Tap the bubble to see the webpage at any time. You can do this from within any other running app (you need to set Flynx as the default browser for this function).
It has a fast read feature which gets rid of any ads and unnecessary images to help you focus on reading the text. You also get the option to save articles for later reading as well as the option to sync web content via your Google account on multiple devices.
Modern smartphones are built for multitasking but the varied content we access sometimes makes that harder to do. Flynx helps you focus on content by using background tabs. Here’s how it works: let’s..
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This one is for those who like customising every aspect of their phone. You can configure each and every element of this browser, starting with the appearance.
You can choose placement, size as well as the font size of individual items including the menu, scrollbar, tab list, progress bar and so on.
Another feature you might appreciate is URL patterns — for instance, you can set Habit to open links of certain apps (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps) within those apps themselves (instead of a separate browser window).
The interface is clean and comes with a customisable speed dial option for faster access to your favourites. Another useful customisation is the the ability to set actions (save tabs, kill processes, clear passwords, clear history) that take place each time you quit the browser.
This one is for those who like customising every aspect of their phone. You can configure each and every element of this browser, starting with the appearance. You can choose placement, size as well ..
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If you click a link within an app, it will open in your default browser. You have to switch back to the app your were using once you finish reading.
Lynket aims to make things easier by providing a full-screen browser window within any running app. This means you can browse without leaving the original app — when you want to go back, just tap the close button and you will be back to the original app you were using.
Lynket works with your existing browser so you need to choose if it uses Chrome, Firefox, Brave or Samsung’s browser to render pages. You can choose to merge tabs and apps in the recent app screen for ease of access.
What we liked most was the option to configure how Lynket behaves with individual apps — you can choose to have an incognito mode or secondary browser mode for apps of your choice.
If you click a link within an app, it will open in your default browser. You have to switch back to the app your were using once you finish reading. Lynket aims to make things easier by providing a f..
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With a download size of 812kb, Via is one of the lightest browsers you can get from the Play Store.
This makes it great for entry-level smartphones with low storage space. However, don’t assume that it skips any features just because it is a small download.
You get a night mode, privacy protection, resource sniffer, ad blocker, built-in translator, desktop mode as well as a data saver. In addition to all this, the browser is blazing fast in opening webpages and that too without the pesky ads.
It has a clean interface allowing for more viewing space (navigation buttons are at the bottom of the screen). Unlike other browsers, this one won’t send you any irritating push notifications.
With a download size of 812kb, Via is one of the lightest browsers you can get from the Play Store. This makes it great for entry-level smartphones with low storage space. However, don’t assume that ..
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Many browser-based games use Adobe Flash – a plugin that most mobile browsers do not have. Except Puffin, that is.
Puffin is for the casual, online gamer. When you open up a webpage with a game, you can enable theatre mode — this hides everything else and brings the gaming window to front. You can then use the onscreen gamepad which many gamers will appreciate.
It also has a mouse pointer that you can control via touch. Finally, Puffin auto encrypts all connections for safety and comes with a builtin data saver.
Many browser-based games use Adobe Flash – a plugin that most mobile browsers do not have. Except Puffin, that is. Puffin is for the casual, online gamer. When you open up a webpage with a game, you ..
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This is the one you need to get if privacy and data protection are top of mind. With Brave, you get the basic features such as automatic ad blocker and a data saver.
As for advanced features, you get encrypted data with use of https everywhere, script blocking, cookie blocking, a pop-up blocker and even tracking protection.
Brave claims that it can offer between 2x to 4x speed boosts when compared to other browsers. There is also the option of private tabs which is the same as incognito mode (no history is saved).
A battery optimisation feature makes it great for phones with basic hardware. If you want even more advanced privacy and security features on your smartphone browser, check out Ghostery Privacy browser.
This is the one you need to get if privacy and data protection are top of mind. With Brave, you get the basic features such as automatic ad blocker and a data saver. As for advanced features, you get..
