The competition in the sub Rs.10,000 has been fierce as companies try to max out the feature package while trying hard to keep the cost low and offer the perfect bang for the buck. Oppo wants to penetrate this segment by the introduction of its A1k smartphone which competes with the segment leaders like Redmi 7, Galaxy A10 and Realme C2.
We had some time playing around the office with the A1k and here`s what we like and don’t like about the device.
Design & Display
The Oppo A1k follows the generic lineage of mid-range smartphones with its subtle gradient finish flanked by a body that is made entirely of plastic as opposed to glass. The phone seems to be well built with its rounded edges and balanced form factor. Back houses the single rear camera placed beside a LED flash, and looks flat due to the missing fingerprint sensor which does suggest a whole lot of cost-cutting.
The screen is a 6.1-inch HD+ panel that comes with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and has a dewdrop shaped housing to facilitate a front facing camera. The glass panel is protected by a Gorilla Glass 3 as opposed to Gorilla Glass 5 that companies provide these days. The display, however, seems quite vibrant and provides rich viewing angles. Direct sunlight does tend to overpower the screen as it gets difficult to see anything.
Performance, Software, Battery
The Oppo A1k is powered by the same chipset as the Realme C2 with its octa-core MediaTek Helio P22 that is based on the 12nm architecture. It comes with just 2GB of RAM which is quite a letdown as Oppo could at least include 3GB as an optional variant.
Nonetheless, the smartphone performed decently during our average daily usage, with multitasking through some social media tasks and running heavy games on low settings. This clearly isn’t a gaming phone and one shouldn’t run any graphics intensive titles on this device.
On the other side, the ColorOS 6 running on top of the Android 9 pie works smoothly and renders seamless transitions. The downside of this OS is a whole lot of useless bloatware eating up the memory with apps such as Opera browser, DailyHunt, ShareChat, UC Browser, Web novel, NewsPoint, etc.
The Oppo A1k comes with a 4,000mAh battery that effortlessly handles the usage of an average user for a day or two. It managed to last a whole day with a little bit of juice to spare on a single charge.
Oppo A1k camera performance
The camera unit is an 8MP sensor on the back and a 5MP front-facing camera above the screen. It is equipped with features like Panorama, Time-lapse, Portrait, Expert, HDR and more. Under good lighting conditions, the camera can lay out perfect shots with just the level of clarity and colour reproduction. The HDR mode works well to slightly tone up the images and capture the needed details. As the night fell the camera grew worthless and worthless with its grainy and dull shots. Speaking about the front facing camera, it provided decent selfies under adequate light and some great results with the AI beautification mode. Both the back and front camera can record videos at 1080p with a decent frame rate.
Gizmo Verdict
The Oppo A1k is a decent competitor who does its job quite well. It isn’t the perfect device you would like but is sure to try out everything that you throw at it. With a price tag of Rs.8,490, the device will handle your daily tasks with a breeze, however, if you want something more under this stipulated budget, we suggest you look out the competitors first.
