Samsung may be the talk of the town throughout January and February thanks to its newly launched slate of Galaxy S24 flagships, but Oppo doesn’t care. It’s February and it hasn’t been dissuaded: it’s time to launch something new. It’ll be the A series getting a refresh, moving up from last year’s A78 to 2024’s A79 5G which hit the shelves this week for R12,000 — up R3,000 or so from the A78.

If Oppo’s naming convention hadn’t already made it extremely obvious, 5G connectivity is the standout feature here. And fair enough. Oppo wants to flaunt what it’s packing — especially considering that some of the other manufacturers padding the mid-range smartphone market are still lagging in that department. But for the average Joe, 5G isn’t enough. It’s the rest that’ll need to do all the convincing.

Standing in Oppo-sition

We’re not sure about you, but a smartphone’s battery is the spec that catches our eye first, and Oppo hasn’t left us wanting. Samsung and Apple’s domineering hands might have pulled enough of the right strings to convince the world that 5,000mAh batteries (or less, in Apple’s case) are worth R30,000+. They’re not, and Oppo’s proved that by including a 5,000mAh battery here. It’s packing a less-capable 33W fast-charging spec, but it’ll still blow your mom’s phone out of the water.

The outer shell dons a choice of two colours; Dazzling Purple and Mystery Black. What makes it mysterious? We couldn’t tell you. But it’s sort of proving Oppo’s point, so we’ll leave it at that. Those colours coat the phone’s 6.72in FHD+ IPS LCD display that Oppo reckons will really shine with the included DCI-P3 colour gamut support. We’ll believe that when we see it — but the FHD+ display should be good enough for most .