Oppo A96 Review : A Step Forward

When we came across the Oppo A95 not too long ago, it felt like there was a sense of neglect as it came with ColorOS 11 instead of the latest ColorOS 12, giving the impression of being left in the past. So when we received the Oppo A96 in-hand, we anticipated a leap forward was inevitable.

While the Oppo A96 does have its advances with a new display, a new camera construction, and a slightly better overall design, there's always the question, "Did they address its setbacks? And was it enough for it to have a place in today’s competitive market?" Let's find out if the Oppo A96 found a time machine to finally get up to speed and if entry level phones like these should get more recognition.

At a glance, it didn't seem as though Oppo made any changes to the design of this phone. It still has quite the wide design of 75.7mm despite it being relatively thin at 8.4mm. In the hands, it’s made of plastic materials is obvious, which oddly is heavier in this version weighing 191g. But it does provide a comfortable grip with its rounded corners.

Comparatively, the new dual camera construction does make the look on the back feel less cluttered from the previous triple camera setup. We're not much of a fan of the Pearl Pink colourway however and would've liked to see the Starry Black option in person as darker colours could make the overall design tie in better.

ColorOS 12 is still very much missed in the A96 and only comes with the older ColorOS 11.1. This might be a dealbreaker for some looking into a more timely user interface as ColorOS11 just doesn't sit as well in 2022. Not to mention the lack of the latest security updates which are far more important.

A surprising decision to go from an AMOLED to an IPS LCD display raises some eyebrows. While it's gotten slightly bigger in size measuring 6.59 inches, its peak brightness of only 600nits stepping down from the previous 800nits is yet another questionable choice as to the direction of this A96.

Specifications aside, the flat edged display still manages well for your usual content consumption and a 90Hz refresh rate which makes scrolling along on social media or casual gaming feel far smoother than the 60Hz in some phones within this price range and the version before it.

The audio experience keeps up with immersive new dual speakers reaching up to a max reading of 85dB and averages around 60dB – managing really good mids and highs for watching movies on Netflix and produces an overall clarity for music on Spotify. Also worthy of a mention is the dual microphones for all your necessary video calls and a trusty headphone jack.

A new side mounted fingerprint reader behaves consistently and has a blazing fast response moving away from the previous under-display optical fingerprint sensor before it and feels more natural to use with this type of body construction.

Now equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 680 and Adreno 610 with 8GB RAM, our Geekbench tests record a 385 for Single-core and 1651 for Multi-core. Not exactly leaps and bounds but an improvement nonetheless coming from the previous Snapdragon 662.

Graphics rendering on the other hand are relatively low shown from our 3D Mark Wild Life test, recording an overall score of 447 and only performed 5% better than the rest of the phones on the market. The results are understandable for an entry level phone - it doesn't show too harsh of a result for real-world use or casual gaming.

While a triple camera sounded more impressive on paper, we're glad that Oppo made the choice to remove the macro camera to make way for a bigger 50MP main camera and remaining with a 2MP depth camera.

Photo output has some significant improvements with better exposure compensations and doesn't overexpose most of the highlights and whites in the images and it still has a decent clarity with HDR functions enabled to capture sceneries. Familiar saturated colours are still very noticeable in daylight situations but now handles low light much better than before reducing some noise and grain.

4K recording options are sadly still unavailable in the A96 and only tops at 1080p. While the new 50MP helps in capturing more light into the sensor, computations that aren't exactly optimised to process full HD resolution could have been improved but still usable in our books. Video stabilisation or EIS also would have been nice to see in this version as shaky 1080p footage might be unpleasant for users with less steady hands.

Overall not a complete dealbreaker considering how cost effective decisions were made to prioritise usability over image quality. As to when we would see more entry-level phones come with 4K as standard is still unknown and we hope Oppo makes headway in doing so. As the likes of other manufacturers such as Xiaomi are paying more and more attention to computational photography and it is only a matter of time before it trickles down to lower tier smartphones in their range.

Battery life still bodes well, coming with a 5000mAh battery, reaching up to almost 2 days of standby time and about a day and half of casual use. There's also still the 33W SuperVOOC Fast Charger included in the box which should get you to 100% in 70 minutes.

Some clever charging tech also makes its way with Optimised Night Charging which can be scheduled at night by AI to users' sleep patterns and schedule, by stopping a charge at 80% then continuing to charge one hour before the user wakes up. A really great solution in helping battery health reach its peak performance and longevity.

The Oppo A96 comes with Android 11, 8GB RAM and options of 128GB or 256GB of storage. Prices will be announced soon.

Considering the improvements made and how some of the faults from the A95 were addressed, the Oppo A96 is a formidable entry-level phone. With good battery life, decent cameras, and everyday necessities such as dual speakers, a headphone jack and a decent 90Hz display, the biggest factor in our experience is still not having it equipped with ColorOS12.

User interface might seem like a nitpick given all the positives surrounding it, but a good UI is still the first impression a user gets when interacting with a phone. While we can still hope there would be software updates to come into this A96, the likelihood of it running off on Android 12 sounds a bit too wishful thinking realistically speaking. Even so, we'd hate to take away the progress that's made here as a step forward is always better than a step back.

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Written by Fitri Aiyub