Gadgetory

by now we're all pretty familiar with oppo the Chinese manufacturer that made a splash last year by offering the first grade 1080p display experience with the fly in five and then by making us turn our heads for the rotating camera of the n1 but now they are looking to be ahead of the curve again with the phone that sports a quad HD display but we don't have that version of the phone not yet as the way continues we can at least look at its more conventional offering that sports a 1080p display instead but still has a lot to offer hey it's Josh Vergara from Android Authority and this is the Opel find 7a yes you heard right this is the Opel find 7a the version of OPOs new flagship that does not support the 2k or quad HD display but in just about every other aspect this is pretty much the same device when it comes to the design you get an aesthetic that is actually very similar to the Opel fine 5 that came before it except this time around it has been blown up to a 5.5 inch display capacitive keys lined a lower portion of the front while the very nice skyline LED notification light adorns the very bottom around the sides the button layout consists of a mirrored setup denim generally used to with the power Bund being on the left and the volume rockers found on the right and while they are really squishy to the touch I didn't have any problem with their responsiveness thankfully once you make it around the back you'll find that the cover is actually removable and it gives you access to the removable battery and the microSD and SIM trays these covers can be replaced though the version that we were hoping to use the carbon fiber backing is only available on the premium version of the fine 7 overall Elbo continues to put the good looks into their devices and the find 7a is definitely in line with all of the good built call you that we've come to expect from Oppo as there is a bit of a heft to this phone and it is felt all throughout handling is primarily predicated by the larger screen size at 5.5 inches this is not the kind of screen you'll be able to maneuver around easily in one hand flat sides allow for a pretty good grip but otherwise you'll be performing plenty of hand gymnastics to at least reach the top of the display ultimately we have a phone here that does tow the line between aesthetic and especially considering that that back cover is removable and then you have some extra freedom given the features that are available underneath that hood coming in at 5.5 inches the screen on the Oppo find 7 a is more conventional in the sense that it is a 1080p display and not the quad HD one found in the premium edition but don't let that dissuade you from looking at this device as a viable option when we did get our first hands-on with the two versions of the Oppo find 7 we initially concluded that the general user won't really notice that bump up or down in resolution depending on the version you end up getting so standing alone this IPS display brings great colors and brightness to the aptly-named color OS which does shine through the screen quite well pretty much any task you throw out this vibrant display will look and perform greatly from text to gaming and all in all there are no complaints with this display and it is even enhanced by the ability to register a myriad of gestures which we'll get into a little bit later and as has been the trend of Oppo devices the fine 7 comes with the best processing package readily available the Snapdragon 801 clocked in at 2.3 gigahertz backed by the adrenal 330 and 2 gigabytes of RAM so many flagship devices these days come with this very package so the performance aspect should yield no surprises you get the speed you probably come to expect and pretty much any tasks available multitasking doesn't bog down the system by any means as going in and out of different applications is easy using the recent apps screen and using Chrome in this case for web browsing works a treat as all the websites loaded snappily and without any issues so you can rest assured that even if this is not the considered the premium version of oboes flagship it still packs the same amount of punch underneath the hood and it is in the hardware department that the oval find 7a can actually pull away from many flagship devices I just put up against with a couple of aces that do well to differentiate it the first Hardware aspect that is pretty easy to see off the bat is the skyline notification light that is nestled at the bottom curve of the phone's face it is a light that permeates through its curved line and it just looks really slick now while the light does tell you if there are notifications and actually does tell you if the device is indeed charging the only real gripe with it is that it only shines blue if we were able to maybe customize the color of the LED that would have really put it over the top all connectivity was touted to be available here from Bluetooth to NFC but there was a problem with the mobile network connections that has been pretty well documented by now anyone looking for LTE connectivity on the t-mobile network might have some trouble as I did because I just couldn't get this phone to work on the LTE 4G network of t-mobile I did finally managed to get LTE on a u.s. network using AT&T but it required me to do some sleuthing with customer support to provide the IMEI number and some extra information in the end it was a bit of a pain to finally get the full mobile network experience on my version of the Opel find 7a so for a lot of people out there that may not have been the case I'm just letting you know that if you're going to get this phone you should be worried that that might happen call quality yielded no problems however as the call sounded crisp and clear on either side and I would put the loudspeaker in the above-average category as while it might not be the loudest that I've ever used the sound did have a noticeable fullness to it and it provided a more than decent experience onboard storage on this device came in at 16 gigabytes but is bolstered by the inclusion of a microSD card slot that is found underneath that removable cover and finally in battery we have to talk about that Buch fast charger I already did a feature focus video on it basically outlining how it simply works wonders and has become a great asset to have essentially a 4.5 amp charger is outfitted with a little extra tech along with two extra pins and the actual micro USB connector to provide a charging time of nought to 100 in about an hour no matter how you slice it that's an incredible feature to have and has definitely saved many morning's often when I forget to plug in the night before unfortunately there is a bit of a trade-off because the 2800 milliamp hour battery unit found in the opal find 7a actually does get select up pretty easily and on plenty instances I did find myself scared of running out of juice before the end of my day so in that sense it is nice to have the book fast charger to save you in those particular situations but if you really want to maximize your power consumption your power experience then it might be a good idea to carry a spare which is a nice feature to have on this the opal find 7a the camera of the Oppo find 7 is powered by Sony Exmor and brings 13 megapixels to the party as we start off with the app however we find quite a few different features available for some fun smartphone photography slow shutter capture that was originally introduced in the Oppo n1 allows you to do some light magic with a properly structured scene shooting in RAW format is available and while that was an exciting prospect I unfortunately found it more or less unusable because the amount of time needed to process the file after snapping was simply way too long to make it a viable tool HDR scene modes and of course the Ultra HD 50 megapixel shooting modes are thus available after that the 50 megapixel shots do require some extra processing time too but the resulting images are actually quite good they are just below the sharpness level of normal shots but that's actually kind of ok because I believe the takeaway is that if you wanted to use the software built pictures you actually don't lose that much fidelity at all in the final products after that the general picture quality of the rear camera yielded good photos not oversaturated by any means but also not dull with sharpness levels definitely where they should be in proper situations it's not hard to get a good shot out of this camera the video capture did bring about some nice 4k clips in my testing so the only real disappointment in my testing was the quality of the video shot by the front-facing camera and finally in software the experience on the Oppo find 7a is handled by color OS an interface that has pretty distinct character but also nice functionality what might strike you first is the ethereal look as I've been describing it that the home screens tend to take on with its overtly earth tones but otherwise you still get the typical slew of icons and widgets to be able to customize it the way you want scroll all the way to the right and you'll find media pages that either give you an easy way of using your camera or controlling your local music quite a bit of customization can be had here we even with the ability to set a weather effect based upon the current conditions in your area all of this can be further catered to your liking with the pretty powerful theme engine which can drastically change the look of your experience even to one more stock like in color and icon set now get further beneath the surface and you'll get a pretty standard fare with the app drawer which once wasn't a part of the color OS lexicon and the settings menu that is pretty easy-to-navigate the only gripes here include the quick settings which you can pull down in the notification drop-down but the thing is the pull down eliminates the ability to see expanded versions of your notifications which is something I tend to always use so this was rather annoying after that the other issues are mainly in the translations which is a common trope of Asian operating systems sometimes the description that you see there doesn't really easily tell you what the underlying setting is what color OS does greatly deal with is gestures you can swipe down from the left of the notification bar and you'll get a canvas to draw any number of programmable traces to do a myriad of tasks I find this area pretty useful but the gestures I far use more often are the ones drawn on a turned off screen for example draw a circle to easily get to the camera or do the all-too-familiar double tap to simply turn the screen on now color OS is definitely unique but it is also definitely workable and I do realize that for some people out there it might not necessarily be your cup of tea but thankfully OBO devices tend to come with built-in recovery so you can always put on a custom ROM or if you want to keep it simple you can always just install a custom launcher to change the experience to what you want at $499 the Oppo find 7a is not as steep as the mainstream flagship devices we already have but it is still somewhat steep nonetheless one put up against the likes of the samsung galaxy s5 and the HTC One m8 for example opals main claim to fame is a reliable fast charging solution that in my opinion does make that high price pill easier to swallow and of course the main device that is uttered in the same breath as Oppo is the oneplus one a phone that comes in at 299 but has a fixed battery fixed storage and does not come with the vogue charger all features that I actually do believe justify the extra 200 bucks if you really need those features and so there you have it the Oppo find 7 a the a in this phones name might act like something of an asterisk the part of the Oppo find 7 experience that is more of a footnote compared to the premium quad HD flagship but that certainly isn't the case when the one we can readily have right now is the 7a and to its point to this is capable of standing up to the more widely known flagship devices especially when considered have $200 less unlocked on average Oppo made a splash with the fine 5 outfitting it with one of the first 1080p displays of the time and with the fine 7 it has done so again with the first quad HD screen but with the find 7a we can argue that they have found a way to alleviate the common power issue by providing a fast charging solution so if you look at it that way the Oppo find 7 a has that as its ace up its sleeve elbow continues to push the envelope which should be appreciated because generally the features that they introduce in each new iteration they actually tend to land pretty well so what you get in the Oppo find 7 a is an alternative yet again to the galaxies the ones the Xperia sout there that definitely deserves more attention so as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this review of the Oppo find 7 a we're still waiting on the quad HD version the premium version that also has that carbon fiber backing we really liked but until that comes we still have this version of the Oppo find 7 that is still a viable alternative to all of the flagships that are currently out today so you can go check it out and also you can check out all of our coverage of the Oppo find 7 a and future flagships and also don't forget to check out all the content from my colleagues in Android Joe Jase Kevin the tech ninja and of course lawn hit up that like button hit up that subscribe button and then hit up Android authority comm because we are of course your source for all things Android