Gadgetory

no matter how far flagship smartphones advance with their incredible specs and breathtaking performance there will always be a demand for the middleman the flagship of yesterday the mid-range smartphone hey guys Phil vino with Android authority and this is the review of the oppo r1x utilising the head chef's mentality of creating something truly great with only a few basic ingredients Apple has kept with a familiar formula just like in their previous r1 they start with a thin aluminum chassis cnc machined with the now very popular diamond cutting techniques that help deliver the mirror smooth champers which surround the volume rocker and SIM card slot on the right power on the left just peel off the edge on top for the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and finally frame the microUSB port machine drilled speaker and microphone holes and to keep aesthetics in full focus Oppo is kept the glass sandwich design but this time with a facets reflection pattern in the back meaning it shines and shows off no matter what angle you hold it and despite being only 6.8 millimeters thick it has no camera bumps so the package remains sleek and uniform throughout once illuminated and in use the screen which at 5 inches and only 1280 by 720 is still clear and detailed enough that I don't feel cheated or that there isn't a valuable visual experience to be had and that I think has a lot to do with color OS as with any Android UI skin there will always be legitimate skepticism but here it's pretty much a breeze and layered over 4.4.4 kitkat animations are snappy and it's never shown me the slightest hint of a hiccup or lag and all that accomplished through a Snapdragon 615 octa-core and 2 gigs of ram but color OS itself has its own tool belt of features possibly making it a compelling UI option including themes to make a more stock Android look or host of others in the theme store to get as personal as you'd like and then there's the exclusive space and live weather widgets live weather gives you weather themed animations for your wallpaper and exclusive spaces a pose take on widgets for your camera and music player not standout features but fun fresh takes on the widget side of things so color OS on the r1x works pretty well overall and isn't an uncomfortable experience by any me but if you want to get as far from it as possible get back to the Google roots it's not that difficult at all the settings menu is well laid out through three categories of general sound and display and under general and default application you can switch to the Google now launcher and change hangouts to the default messaging app giving that more traditional stock Android experience but even so you'll be using ah Poe's infamous or famous capacitive keys for back home and multitasking but probably the feature most important to those looking at a mid-range smartphone is battery and 24 20 milliamp hours it fits right in that range of flagships with similar sizes and lasts at least a full day with moderate to heavy use in the few days of testing I found that if I lean more towards the power use side I just barely finished the day with the battery lasting until the end but still making it with a good mix of use ranging from Google Maps periodically to texting email web browsing and YouTube video watching I got just under three hours of screen on time and considering the amount of time dedicated to media I'm pretty happy with it but sadly you won't have a pose incredibly fast VUCA charging here which is a letdown for me it's one of my favorite features for any Apple product that supports it - look - ah pose more expensive options like the r5 and n3 for the awesome vogue fast charging uh Namid to your smartphone like this you might feel you'd be completely cheated out of any reasonable camera experience and while you're definitely missing out on 4k video capabilities with only 1080p max you're still getting a solid 13 megapixel shooter with at least passable outdoor capabilities it produces subdued colors but the images have ample detail indoors it suffers more even with its f 2.0 aperture it works hard to bring brightness to the image with ISO increases but then it makes for a grainy and fairly unattractive image all of these Auto settings are also controlled by what Oppo calls pure image 2.0 plus to auto change settings for an optimal image and there's manual controls too if you feel that you can tweak a better image out of the sensor with access to white balance ISO exposure and even manual focus I'm not sure that this is the camera phone you're going to want to pick up to set up important manual shots but it's nice to see all the controls included for those that want it oh and there's a beauty mode - which is nothing more than a glorified Instagram filter you can apply before taking this shot but that's only the beginning of the camera features Oppo offers here you can install a host of others from gift creator to raw image and after focus for an only ok camera you get just about every software feature you could possibly want the front face irat 5 megapixels certainly packs enough resolution but even so gives basic image quality outdoors and doesn't look so hot indoors again images come out noisier and post-processing and the software crushes detail in the image to compensate call quality is decent as with most phones these days it's never a real issue for concern and whether using the bottom facing speakers for speakerphone or media it's loud enough but definitely doesn't deliver a rich sound again serviceable is the operative word for every performance category in a pose offering so with an estimated price tag of just over four hundred and fifty dollars the art 1x certainly isn't a budget phone but it won't break your wallet either but from a performance standpoint it really doesn't stand out especially when considering the competition it's an average phone that does all of the tasks we expect from a smart phone well and while the screen is low on the resolution scale for sure it produces beautiful colors and coming from using a lot of qHD smart phones with brilliant displays lately I still didn't grow sick or tired of the r-1 X's 5-inch pixel canvas that being said I actually would recommend this phone not to us users of course as you won't get the LTE bands but certainly globally but more specifically to those that value design and functionality first and foremost to those of you that want a low horsepower fully reliable device that simply looks feels and is built like a flagship well guys thank you for watching if you enjoyed this video or found it helpful at all please do give a thumbs up and also be sure to subscribe to android authority for future coverage of all android devices and also check out the website too for even more in-depth coverage as we are your source for all things Android