OPPO is expanding its smartphone portfolio with the introduction of the OPPO A71 2018 to the Kenyan market. This is the successor to the A71 that we saw back in 2017 and as with any other OPPO smartphone, the camera is at the centre of it all but is not the only thing it brings to the market. With the OPPO A71 2018, the company has decided to use a Snapdragon processor, the Snapdragon 450 to be exact. This is different from the A71 from 2017 that came with a MediaTek processor.
The OPPO A71 2018 in Kenya is available for Ksh 17,990 and you can get it exclusively on Jumia. This is quite reasonable if you ask me and is clearly challenging the Tecno Camon CM, Infinix S2 Pro, Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A Prime and the Huawei Y7 Prime 2018. It will be interesting to see which one emerges the winner.
OPPO has been very active of late with new devices that are meant to target the youth. We saw the OPPO F5 series last year and even this year and the A71 is supposed to be cheaper than this series and target those who may want an OPPO smartphone but cannot afford the F5.
The OPPO A71 2018 is not just another smartphone under Ksh 20,000 that has good specifications on paper, it promises a much better user experience and a sleek design. If you have used any OPPO smartphone released within the last two years, then you may have come across this design. This is what has sets OPPO apart from competition and the company has been very vocal about this to make sure this is clear. Will this work in the company’s favour? Only time will tell.
The design aside, the OPPO A71 2018 promises a smooth performance thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor paired with 3GB of RAM and the Adreno 506. The Snapdragon 450 is not the top of the range processor from Qualcomm but is good enough for a mid-range smartphone.
As for the OS, the OPPO A71 2018 comes with ColorOS 3.2 that is based on Android 7.0 Nougat. There is no news as to when the phone will be getting Android Oreo and this is disappointing. OPPO already has its latest smartphone, the F7, in other markets and it comes with Android Oreo out of the box. I just hope the company has plans to update the A71 2018 with Android Oreo very soon as no one want to buy a new smartphone with an old OS.
OPPO is known for its cameras and the A71 2018 tries to fit in those shoes too. It has a 13MP main camera at the back and a 5MP front facing camera. According to the company, with the 13MP camera at the back, noise is reduced with the multi-frame denoising technology. With this, you should expect clearer images even in low light environments. All this will have to be tested in the real world.
The 5MP selfie camera also promises better picture quality and detailed performance thanks to its extra-large 1.4 µm pixels and what the company is calling ‘smart arithmetic optimization’. With the OPPO A71 2018, we also get A.I beauty recognition technology, something we have been seeing on most OPPO smartphones recently.
A few other specifications of the OPPO A71 2018 are listed below.
Display Size: 5.2 inches with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels
Processor: 1.8 GHz Octa-core Qualcomm SDM450 Snapdragon 450 Processor
RAM: 2/3 GB
Storage Space: 16 GB, can be expanded to 256GB using a microSD card
GPU: Adreno 506
Android Version: Android 7.1 Nougat
Camera: 13 MP at the back with a 5MP front facing one
Battery: 3000 mAh removable battery