[First cut] Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G: Eyeing that Mid Segment Premium Slot

If you are someone for whom a beautiful design and good cameras are a must in a smartphone, then Oppo is one brand that must have surely crossed your mind. Amongst features and functions, cameras and looks sit at the very core of Oppo’s brand ethos. And it is hardly surprising that the same applies to its mid-segment smartphone series, the F series. The F series may be mid-segment, but Oppo has always been heavy on the looks and cameras in this lineup as well. And now here is a new entrant in the family, the Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G (henceforth simply referred to as the Oppo F19 Pro+ for the sake of simplicity).

Subtle Oppo is now a thing

Many might agree that keeping it subtle is not really Oppo’s style when it comes to design. But that actually seems to have changed a bit with the Oppo F19 Pro+. The phone does not come with patterns or textures that jump out at you. And yet it manages to look very striking. The front of the smartphone is bossed by a tall display that carries the front camera in a punch hole on the top left corner. The display has thin bezels for borders on three sides and a relatively thicker chin sitting just below it.

The Oppo F19 Pro+ dons a polycarbonate back but in no way shape or form can one identify it as a plastic back by just looking at it. It looks like a matte glass back and you will not believe otherwise until someone tells you or the phone takes a bad fall and the back does not get cracked (aha!). We received the Space Silver color, and it took us back to the days when phones used to actually come with metal backs. The color may be silver but the matte finish has certainly added some subtlety to it. The top left corner of the back houses an almost rectangular-shaped, slightly raised camera unit. Oppo has put a slightly louder “5G” branding in silver and a very low-key “AI Camera”, “Ultra Night Vision” on the camera unit while the Oppo branding sits vertically near the base on the right.

The phone is not boxy and has curvy edges which make it comfortable to hold and use. The back of the Oppo F19 Pro+ curves out on the sides to meet the slightly rounded, metal-finished frame. The top of the frame is bare while the base carries a 3.5 mm audio jack, a USB Type C port, and a speaker grille. The right side holds a power/lock button while the left side carries the volume buttons and the SIM and MicroSD card tray.

Oppo has been stressing the fact that the phone is quite sleek and light, but the difference does not really jump at you when you hold and use the phone. It is on the light side of the weight scale but feels very mainstream.

Unlike most other Oppo smartphone designs that are usually very polarizing, this one will not turn as many heads. It will neither inspire compliments nor will it be a source of contempt. It is one of the few Oppo smartphones that fit in the general design domain. But that is hardly a bad thing. The phone looks very smart. The design is trendy (many are adopting a similar design language) which may make it slightly mainstream but also means that it is something people are comfortable with – always good in our books.

Betting on the camera, as always (and keeping refresh rates normal)

Oppo may have taken a slightly different route by not going as bold in the looks department as it usually does, but the focus on cameras has been pretty much on point with the Oppo F19 Pro+ as well. The smartphone comes with a quad-camera setup on the back consisting of a 48-megapixel main sensor with f/1.7 aperture, an 8-megapixel wide-angle macro camera with f/2.2 aperture, a 2-megapixel portrait mono camera, and a 2-megapixel macro mono sensor, both with f/2.4 aperture. In the best Oppo tradition, it loads the primary camera setup with features and modes. It comes with Ultra Night Video, HDR Video, Dual-View Video, AI Scene enhancement 2.0 amongst other modes. Oppo is in fact pushing the device as a great tool for those creating video content (a bit of a thing these days). For selfies, there is a16 megapixel sensor with an f/2.4 aperture that sits on the front. How well all of this translates into results will be revealed in our detailed review, of course, but given Oppo’s track record, expectations will be high.

On the front, there is a tall 6.4-inch full HD+ AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels, which seems bright and colorful enough so far. It does not come with a higher than usual refresh rate, sticking to the good old 60 Hz (hey, it is good enough for the iPhone, remember?). The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 which should ideally save it from scratches and cracks to an extent.

The Dimensity 800U adds a 5G dimension

Powering the Oppo F19 Pro+ is a MediaTek 5G Dimensity 800U chipset paired with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage (only one variant, folks). Storage is expandable up to 256 GB via MicroSD card and the phone also has dedicated space for it. We have earlier seen the same processor on the Realme X7 and the Realme Narzo 30 Pro amongst others. It may be mid-range but is known to handle gaming well. The fact that it also brings 5G along and makes the Oppo F19 Pro+ future proof also helps its case.

The Oppo F19 Pro+ runs on a 4,310 mAh battery. It may not be much by today’s standards but the brand has bundled a 50 W charger along with it which means charging the phone from zero power to maximum would generally take less than an hour. We are not too big on in-display fingerprint scanners, but that is what the Oppo F19 Pro+ brings to the table. Yes, it is technically more “advanced” but there is something about a good old-fashioned and highly reliable physical fingerprint scanner, especially on the side. That said, we can see a lot of people liking that in-display scanner too – after all, many Android flagships have them. Running on top of all this is Oppo’s feature-rich ColorOS 11.1, which is based on Android 11 (hooray for that).

A battle on its hands

With a starting price of Rs 25,990, the Oppo F19 Pro+ might come across as a decent proposition for Oppo loyalists. However, it clearly has a battle on its hands when you consider that devices such as the Xiaomi Mi10i, the OnePlus Nord, the Realme X7, and the Samsung Galaxy F62, are hovering in this price brand, and many of them can match its spec sheet. The F19 Pro+ has some decent specs and comes with a stylishly subtle design but with such fierce competition, a lot will depend on how well it puts all this together in terms of performance.

Stay tuned for our detailed review.