Oppo A98 5G review

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The Oppo A98 5G is a solid argument against buying flagship smartphones.

This phone costs only $649 in Australia, and it performs better than devices that are much more expensive..

The foundation of that performance is its exceptional battery life. Oppo has put a lot of R&D into batteries over recent years, and it shows here. This mid-range phone can deliver a couple of days' worth of battery with average use.

It also offers Oppo’s SUPERVOOC fast charging technology, which will fully charge your device from flat within 50 minutes.

Couple that battery with a great screen and a decent camera, and you have all the makings of a winning device.

Oppo A98 5G review: Design

There’s nothing remarkable about the Oppo A98 5G’s design. It’s another smartphone with a slab of glass on the front.

That’s not a bad thing. Foldable phones aside, smartphones look the same except for frame colour, screen size, and camera layout.

The A98 5G I reviewed was black, though it also comes in a “dreamy blue” variation. The rear of the phone is meant to shimmer in the light and resist fingerprints and scratches. 

I didn’t notice much shimmering, but it didn’t show fingerprints or scratches over my review period, which was nice.

Nice-looking screen

The screen measures in at 6.72 inches, and boasts a 120Hz refresh rate. It boasts a 2400 × 1800 resolution and fills almost the entire front of the device.

It doesn’t offer HDR, but its colour reproduction is still pretty impressive. And it is pretty bright as well, which makes it easy to see in all lighting conditions.

Like many other smartphones at this price point, Oppo has gone with a pinhole selfie camera, which interrupts the look of the screen only a little.

Back and camera

Flip the phone over and your eye is immediately drawn to the “Innovative AI camera”. Rather than the multiple smaller lenses you might see in models like the Samsung Galaxy A54, Oppo’s camera array is two larger circles that house the components.

The top lens is the 64MP AI camera, while the lower camera houses both the 2MP depth camera, the 40x Microlens and the flash.

I’m not entirely sold on the whole AI thing – I feel companies are throwing that phrase in everywhere because it has so much buzz at the moment. But the Microlens is fairly impressive tech, even if you’ll never use it beyond testing it out.

The corners on the back of the phone curve slightly as well, making the phone easy to hold and use.

Oppo A98 5G review: Performance

Normally, I’d start this section of a review talking about things like processors and benchmarks.

But the biggest selling point for this phone is the battery, and it does a remarkable job.

The fast-charging is a game-changer, so long as you have the appropriate charger to make it happen.

From completely dead, Oppo’s SUPERVOOC tech had taken the phone to fully charged in 50 minutes. 

That’s impressive enough, but for those times when you just need to get through the end of the day, seven minutes on the charger had taken it to 20% full.

It also lasted almost two full days of average use. For a mid-range smartphone, it was an impressive performance.

Benchmarks and processor performance

From my everyday testing, the Oppo A98 5G was a decent performer. The Snapdragon 695 is firmly in the mid-range, but its 8 cores manage most tasks easily enough. 

From a benchmark perspective, here’s how things stacked up:

As you can see, the CPU performance for both single core falls slightly behind the Galaxy A54 and the Google Pixel 6a.

On the GPU front, the A98 5G really falls behind the competition with the GeekBench Vulkan test

That’s not the best result from a newer phone, but benchmarks don’t necessarily mean much in real-world testing.

And from my real-world testing, things ran smoothly. I could watch videos on YouTube, scroll through social feeds and browse the web without noticing any performance issues.

Camera performance

How intelligent is the so-called “Innovative AI camera”? Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t worry about the robot uprising just yet.

The AI mode is optional in the standard camera app. Depending on what you’re shooting will depend on the quality of the result.

The Oppo A98 camera takes decent enough photos without AI on. But you can tell they are mobile camera photos from a mile away. Everything looks a bit muted. The edges aren’t crisp and detail seems a little lacking.

Switch on AI, and the processing kicks in. It aggressively smoothed skin tones out, and it pumped saturation up.

But that’s not a complaint. To be honest, I wouldn’t expect too much more from a phone at this price point. 

This is a phone designed to take photos for an average-person’s social media feed. It’s for mums and dads who want a quick shot of their kids.

Here are some sample shots to show you what I mean.

Microscope camera

While the microscope mode isn’t exactly new to this phone, it’s the first time I’ve been able to test it for myself. 

It’s impressive that you can take this kind of photo from your smartphone. Though, it is exceptionally difficult to get a photo in focus – even the most subtle movements have a big impact when you’re magnifying at 40x.

Also, worth pointing out is the fact the images are circular, which limits their social media appeal.

Which leaves me to say that this camera mode, while impressive, isn’t anything you’re going to use regularly. You’ll show it to friends once, then never use it again.

Oppo A98 5G review: Verdict

The Oppo A98 is a solid mid-range smartphone, with a few remarkable features that make it stand apart from its competition.

While performance is middle of the road, its battery life and fast charging capabilities are impressive. It would suit busy people who just need to know their phone is going to last the whole day.

The camera is fine, without standing out. You won’t be blown away by the photos, but you also won’t be too disappointed.

Which is all to say that for the price, this is a good phone. There are better models out there for the price – including the Galaxy A54 and the Pixel 6a (and probably the Pixel 7a, though I haven’t tested that).

But neither of those models are as strong on battery performance.

Buy the OPPO A98 5G online

OPPO A98 5G

The Oppo A98 5G is a decent-enough mid-range device with truly impressive battery performance.

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