Brian
After a while, you’ve reviewed so many phones that it’s hard to tell when one ends and another begins. So I decided to review the only way I can now, by comparing the A91 to all the other Oppos you should buy.
So many people review phones by way of rewriting the technical specs and adding in a few sentences about how shiny it is. To be fair though, the A91 is pretty and shiny. But how did it make me feel, both about myself and about the world we live in right now?
It didn’t. It’s a phone, people, not an opiate.
Also by arguing with Blair over phones, because hey, gotta pass the time somehow.
Blair
It’s interesting looking at the smartphone market. Apple did the “We are Apple” thing, Samsung did the “We are not Apple” thing, and also I guess Nokia was somewhere there just wondering why no one wanted a 3310 anymore. Then the market expanded massively. Sony released their phones to be waterproof, and Microsoft released theirs with an OS that did its best to remind us that even big IT corporations can miss the goal by a WIDE margin.
Then there’s Oppo.
I hadn’t heard of Oppo until I got out of the Reno 10x Zoom and I realised that sometimes you want to skip the massive advertising markets because these overperformers are there waiting. Since then I have consistently checked out their phones and been blown away by the value for their prices, even if the name convention has me lost every time. The Oppo A91 keeps this trend of value for money going.
Mid-range, high-mid range. high-range pricing
Blair
With most brands I have gotten used to a simple model there is a cheap model under $500, a mid range up to $900, and a high end for well over $1800 with some reaching over 2k now. Oppo phones don’t go that high, and sit somewhere in the middle of the below-mid range pricing to the low end of the high end pricing.
The A91 is below the middle at $650, but you are getting an outstanding phone for that price. Even more so if you get in early to nab a bluetooth speaker that is available before then end of July.
Brian
I’m unclear on how Oppos business model works, except that I’m now positive every other phone is overpriced.
The A91, as Blair said, costs under $700 and, depending on deals, comes with Extra Goodies. For the quality you’re getting here, which we’ll get into in a minute, that’s really, ludicrously good.
A Stylish phone for those without either
Blair
Look I am sitting here in my Warehouse jeans, Spiderman T-shirt, 5 year old ripped hoodie, and a FIFA U-20 world cup beanie. I don’t know style, but the Oppo A91 does. I was given the Blazing Blue phone to test and it looks gorgeous.
The whole back has a design that creates light streaks that bend and twist as you move the phone. This is the kind of thing I wouldn’t care about….until I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how they did it by turning the phone under the light. I then did that on at least 7 different occasions because I use my time wisely.
Generally I don’t care about style. because I used to put a phone in a case that covers everything up anyway. As with their previous phones Oppo has you sorted with a case in the box to help accent their coolness. My Reno 10x Zoom has a matte black cover that has a nice strip to show the cameras and brand, and this one comes with a see through jelly case so you can spend as many hours of your day mesmerised by the back without having to worry about dropping your phone.
This also helps as the A91 is super slim and so the cameras raise slightly out of the back, which looks and feels fantastic in the case that Oppo built.
Brian
The thing with Oppo, and the thing that never ceases to amaze me, is that they’re always great. Really, the only thing I can do at this point is compare the A91 to the rest of the A series, or even the upcoming Find X2, because I can no longer fathom a world where an Oppo is not my primary device.
The A91 is ridiculously thin and, while I’ve never really understood the appeal of ultra-thin phones, I can certainly appreciate the damn-near razor’s edge on this one. I keep thinking we’ll hit a forced limit of how thin we can make things, but companies like Oppo keep proving me wrong; it’s less than 8mm thick. How is that even possible?
It also weighs less than any phone I’ve ever held, which makes sense considering it’s basically paper-thin.
With regard to the colour, I cackled out loud when I saw it was called ‘Blazing Blue’. This is because, during my edgy teen poetry phase, I wrote a ballad about a demonic duck named Raoul, and described his eyes as ‘blazing blue’. I realise that this is wholly subjective to me, specifically me, and only me, but I wanted to mention it and give a shoutout to the design team who share this penchant for hyperbolic drama with me.
This is how it feels when doves cry.
Not exactly Camera shy
Brian
There are four cameras on the back of the A91, each more camera-esque than the last. The selfie camera sits in silent judgement on the front, while the rear cameras consist of a 48MP camera, an 8MP ultra-wide angle camera, and two 2MP cameras.This leads to a wonderful 48MP camera setup, with the AI we all know and love. This also means the return of everybody’s favourite ‘Let’s see what happens when I max out Beauty Mode’, and, uh, yeah. Hey, if you want this, awesome, but I prefer the light touch. Which is, thankfully, Oppo’s preferred option as well.
Blair
If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry; it means they take some super detailed photos. On top of that, the smarts in the phone keep getting better, so they make the photos look better than anything I could do with a professional DSLR camera.
On top of that they’ve added a shaky mode to the videos so those tiny hand shakes you do doesn’t make your videos tough to watch. This is especially valuable when you are walking behind your child videoing them doing something great. You can actually see what they did instead of watching moving colours shaking around a screen.
MORE POWER! MORE!
Blair
I’ll be the first person to admit that when it comes to phone power, I am not totally sure how powerful a snap or a dragon pumps out. I can say absolutely every game I played on the A91 ran like a dream. The toughest question then becomes how much battery life will you have.
Before I committed to the Oppo ecosystem I never had a phone last the day if I was playing games semi-regularly. For the purposes of testing this phone I put my Switch aside (sorry WHAT THE GOLF!) and just gamed on my phone. The battery was at just over 50% at the end of the day.
This is crazy, under normal use I can get the phone to last 2 days easily and, if it does run out of juice, it doesn’t need hours on the charger.
Brian
By now I’m an old hat at setting up new phones, but honestly it’s never been this easy. It took a while, but after allowing access to my Google backups the A91 was ready to go with all my apps ready and waiting. No, it didn’t log me in to everything automatically, but it also didn’t scrub my back in the shower. Which would really have raised several, far more concerning issues.
The super-sweet addition in this little friend is the ultra-fast VOOC 3.0 charging, bringing the 5000mAh battery from 0mAhs to full mAhs in about 40 minutes. It also lasts just over 2 full days with normal conditions, as Blair said, which is ludicrous. Unless you make a serious tactical error, your A91 will not die unexpectedly.
Oppo, you’ve done it again, and I don’t understand it. I just appreciate it.
Turns out we agree
Brian
My favourite part of reviewing the A91 came when I was looking for the included screen protector, which apparently comes pre-applied to the phone. That’s ten minutes I’ll never get back, but at least the A91’s screen is unscratched, and that’s what really matters.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Oppo know what they’re doing. The A91 is an ultra-thin, ultra-light, ultra-fast, and ultra-long-lasting device, for a ludicrously low price.
Unless you want a better Oppo, this is a solid buy.
Blair
$650 is not a lot of money for a good phone, and the Oppo A91 isn’t a good phone; it’s a great phone. Seriously.
Between the cameras, the awesome software tweaks, and the powerful battery, this is a no-brainer for someone wanting a phone in the mid-price range. My only recommendation would be to buy a more expensive Oppo, because you get even more awesome for a lower than expected price.