OPPO A80 5G review: Drop it like it's hot

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There was a time when buying a budget phone meant sacrificing build quality. Manufacturers cut the cost of the device by using cheaper, more fragile materials, so while it would work, you needed to really do your best to avoid dropping it.

The OPPO A80 is marketing itself as a cure to those problems. With cushioning around the key internal components and a twice-reinforced Panda Glass screen, the phone is rated with a Military Standard Shock resistance certification.

While peace of mind is nice though, even in a phone that costs just $369, the bigger question is whether the phone is any good. Let’s find out.

What is the OPPO A80 offering?

Say the words “tough phones” and I know my mind jumps back to an old school Nokia device with a tiny screen and a T9 keypad. Then after that initial thought, I jump to images of large, chunky devices with rubberised sides – something that looks more like an old-school PDA than a modern smartphone.

The OPPO A80 resembles neither of those things. In fact, it looks quite similar to the OPPO A79 model I reviewed earlier this year.

At just 7.68 mm thick, this is more stylish than its price tag may suggest. It comes in Starry Black and Moonlight Purple colours, and I got to test the black version. It’s more muted than purple by a long way, but still offers a refined design that’s better than you might expect.

The front of the phone houses a 6.67-inch, 1604 × 720 screen that supports a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 1000 nits of brightness. That resolution is lower than the A79, but the screen does a much better job in bright lighting conditions.

Inside the phone is the Dimensity 6300 5G mobile platform, backed up by 8 GB RAM and 256 GB of onboard storage. The phone boasts a 5,100 mAh battery and 45W SUPERVOOC fast charging, though like the A79, there’s no charger in the box, so I couldn’t actually test it.

The camera array on the back includes a 50MP + 2MP AI dual camera setup on the back and an 8MP selfie camera on the front.

But specs aside, the key selling point here is the robust design. OPPO calls it a 360º Damage-Proof Armour body.

If you dive into the fine print on OPPO’s website, that means the phone has “successfully passed a 1.4-meter drop test on all six sides and four corners onto a marble floor.” There are caveats, so you probably shouldn’t drop the phone intentionally.

What does the OPPO A80 do well?

I couldn’t bring myself to drop the A80 onto a marble floor from 1.4 metres, so instead I dropped it a couple of times onto carpet and vinyl floorboards from between half a metre to a metre.

What can I say? I’m a coward when it comes to dropping someone else’s property.

The phone appears fine after surviving such a "horrendous" ordeal. I have no reason to doubt OPPO's claims here so for a phone under $400 to offer that level of shock resistance is quite impressive, really.

Battery life is impressive for a budget device. There’s a 5,100 mAh battery inside, which is a bit bigger than you usually find in budget Android devices.

OPPO claims the battery is designed to retain its capacity to over 80% after four years. Obviously, I couldn’t test this in a couple of weeks of a review period, but given how the battery is typically one of the first things to go in a smartphone, it’s a good offering.

I comfortably got through a day and a half using the phone, though I wasn’t using it constantly, so usage may vary.

What could the OPPO A80 improve?

It has been about seven months since the A79 launched, so I wasn’t expecting massive gains in performance with the A80. But I was shocked to see the phone step back a bit on the CPU GeekBench 6 benchmark scores, though.

But benchmarks don’t reflect real-world use, so I’m not going to hold this against the phone too much. Particularly considering the phones’ price tag.

When you use the phone for browsing social media feeds, or some light gaming, it handles the tasks without any real issues.

The 120Hz frame rate means scrolling is pretty smooth, and unlike the more expensive HMD Skyline, I didn’t experience any stuttering while using the camera.

Though, speaking of the camera, I have to say that it is perhaps the biggest disappointment of the A80. It’s effectively a single lens camera, offering 50 MP snaps. There is a 2MP lens as well, used to create the blurred bokeh effect on portrait photos.

The camera interface offers a 2x zoom, but the images can’t withstand any finer scrutiny. There’s a lack of detail and a heap of noise, while the colours all seem muted and washed out.

The phone does offer AI editing functionality, but I’m going to be honest, no level of AI will be good enough to fix what’s lacking with the A80’s camera.

I did try it, and I can’t say I was shocked by how disappointing the results were.

While one attempt came out okay, when I simply removed some people on the path ahead of me, you can still clearly see unnecessary blurring around the footpath where they were standing.

But another version, where I asked the AI to remove a truck from the image, saw it replace the truck with a smaller truck, covered in leaves. It’s… not great. I don’t think I would ever use this feature.

OPPO has also continued its trend of preloading its smartphones with pages of bloatware. While pre-installed games like Yatzy and Candy Crush may seem innocent enough, I wish Oppo would stop packing its phones with this low-quality games.

Verdict

The OPPO A80 is a story of sacrifice. You need to sacrifice camera and processor performance to get to the $369 RRP.

But it’s not like you’re sacrificing everything. OPPO has made a robust smartphone that looks like it costs more than it actually does.

OPPO is on the forefront of battery tech like fast charging and longevity. It’s worth knowing that your phone’s battery will outlast the phone’s planned number of Android updates, if nothing else.

While this is far from a perfect phone, its robust design and decent enough performance make it a worthy consideration for one of the best cheap phones in Australia.

Buy the OPPO A80 5G online

RRP $369

OPPO A80 5G

Check Price @ Amazon