We weren’t all that thrilled when Oppo first unveiled the A6 in South Africa — mainly owing to its too-high, R9,000 price — but now the company has corrected course somewhat with the new Oppo A6k. It shares much with its R9,000 sibling, but trades in a few key aspects to help it stick the landing with a R7,000 price.
Weird flex, but Oppo A6k
You’ll be happy to hear (perhaps you won’t) that Oppo’s kept the same 6.75in HD+, 120Hz display, despite the price cut. It certainly felt out of place on the R9,000 A6. Its placement here, however, makes a little more sense, but it’s still a bit of a letdown to be dealing with 900 nits of brightness in the big ’26, no matter the budget.
The Snapdragon 685 chipset is also back, though with one pretty major concession. Only 4GB of RAM lives inside the Oppo A6k, half of what the rest of the A family has. Hey, we’re just thanking our lucky stars that Oppo kept the same 256GB of storage, and hasn’t left its customers with a measly 128GB.
Read More: Oppo A6 lands in South Africa with a massive battery and eye-raising R9,000 price
So far, though, that R2,000 price cut feels justified. Memory is expensive, especially now. But we can’t pretend we aren’t a little disappointed to see the 7,000mAh battery cut from the line-up, leaving a smaller 6,500mAh cell in its place. We’re guessing it’ll still get the job done, not having tested it. Still, it’s a blow we’d have rather avoided.
Finally, Oppo has yanked out the 2MP monochrome shooter present in the A6, leaving only the main 50MP camera behind. If you’d hoped for the lacking camera department to earn that trust back with a decent selfie camera, think again. Oppo’s shoved a 5MP sensor into the display and called it a day. If that sounds at all inviting, you can expect to see the Oppo A6k turn up on shelves tomorrow, 7 May. It carries a RRP of R7,000.
