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 .
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As for the internals, the included MediaTek Dimensity 6020 5G processor will muddle along just fine if all you’re throwing at it is the occasional bout of YouTube or some light gaming. Don’t expect it to handle cranking 90s in Fortnite or something similar, without it whining at you first. The included 8GB of RAM and 128/256GB of storage sizes will do its best to deliver, though.
Oppo’s left the camera tech virtually untouched, with the A79 rocking the same 50MP main ‘AI’ sensor and 2MP self-portrait lens. Flip it over and you’ll find the same 8MP front-facer staring at you. That’s fine by us — a 50MP main sensor is about as much as you could ask for, though we wish Oppo had considered all that when it threw on an extra R3,000 to the starting price.