There’s a new Oppo tablet, smartwatch, and set of earbuds in town. Unveiled in Johannesburg today at a compact event near Waterfall City, the new trio was accompanied by hints as to what the Chinese brand has in store, for the country and the world, in the coming months.
The main tease? It is, of course, artificial intelligence. All Stuff got was a look at the logo, a stylised “AI”, and a reminder that Oppo AI is coming. Of course, since its own AI centre was announced in February this year, it sort of has to be.
Oppo’s newest
And now, a closer look at the new wearable, in-ears, and smartwatch. The latter is the first real smartwatch to arrive from the company and it’s packing a dual operating system. There’s Google’s WearOS, similar to what you’d find in new Samsung wristwear, but also a bespoke system designed to maximise battery life.
Crystal sapphire glass, the ability to take calls and send voice notes on your wrist, and a full ATM5 waterproof rating are all key features but, at a quick glance, there’s nothing really exceptional about the Watch X. It’s Oppo’s first, of course, but it does little to stand out from competitor products. That said, it also ticks all the necessary boxes to be a contender. Some time with the wearable will be the decider here and Stuff’s getting to that very soon.
Also due at the Stuff offices is the Oppo Pad Zero, an 11.6in tablet packing a Helio processor from MediaTek, 6GB of RAM (there’s also an 8GB version out there), and 128GB of storage. The display has been optimised for reading, a welcome feature for… well, readers, while an internal microSD slot will give you loads of space for your books, comics, and other literature. You can sort that bit out.
Oppo is touting a large 8,000mAh battery, which should give users over twelve hours of video, and 33W charging. It’s the company’s patented SuperVOOC tech but it’s still just 33W. It’ll top up quickly enough, we reckon. Expect a review of that one, including any interoperability between it and the Watch X, as soon as we can manage it.
Finally, there’s the new Oppo EncoBuds, the announcement of which was light on deeper information. An IP54 rating, active noise cancelling, and a total of 28 hours of usage from the buds and case mean these affordable in-ears might prove an attractive proposition. We’ll be testing these as soon as they arrive at the Stuff offices as well. Let’s see how good the noise cancellation and AI-powered voice boosting really is.
You’ll need to fork over R7,000 to get the Pad Neo, with contract options also available at various mobile service providers. The same deal applies to the R6,000 Oppo Watch X and even the R1,000 EncoBuds.
